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Palm Pre's processor revealed - more super powered smartphones to follow

by Julian Prokaza on Friday 16 January 2009 Comment

OMAP3430Back in October we were looking forward to ARM's new Cortex-A8 processor appearing in the first of a new crop of smartphones - and some netbooks too. True to our "early 2009" predictions, it turns out we already have the first Cortex-A8 smartphone - the Palm Pre, which makes an awful lot of sense when you consider the Pre manages hitherto unseen tricks, such as those multiple live windows for each running program.

Red Ferret did the digging to find out the processor - and also found out a few interesting things about its performance. Things like the fact that the Cortex A8-based OMAP 3 processor (the Ti-built, OMAP3430 to be precise) inside the Pre is three times faster than the ARM11 chip buried in the iPhone and the Nokia N97.

So now you know why the Palm Pre is so impressive. But it doesn't end there. The OMAP 3 processor is destined for other handsets this year - bringing with it four second boot times, twelve megapixel cameras and support for 720p HD video.

We can't wait to see just how far it gets stretched by the next round of smartphones but equally what Cortex A8 based processors could do for the netbook market. With Atom-based systems creeping up to £349 we could do with some serious, low-cost systems to tempt us away from Intel.

[ Red Ferret]

Originally published on www.mobilecomputermag.co.uk, now incorporated into Broadband Genie
© Dennis Publishing

 

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