iPhone 6 to Sport Blazing Quad-Core A8 Processor (Report)

Apple was the first smartphone maker to pack a 64-bit processor inside a smartphone with the iPhone 5s, and it looks like the iPhone 6 will kick things up a notch. According to a new report, Apple’s big-screen sequel will have a quad-core CPU under the hood (up from dual core) along with quad core graphics.

According to the Commercial Times of Taiwan, Apple is working with chipmaker TSMC, which means the company could be dumping Samsung as its primary supplier. It’s no secret that Apple and Samsung’s relationship has been damaged by ongoing copyright court battles, and this could be one way Apple is distancing itself from its main rival.

MORE: iPhone 6 Rumors: Inside Apple’s Next Big Thing

The A7 processor inside the iPhone 5s is already quite fast, beating the Samsung Galaxy S4's Snapdragon 600 CPU by a wide margin in the Geekbench 3 performance test. Apple’s device notched 2,556, compared to 1,880 for the S4. However, the Galaxy Note 3's new Snapdragon 800 chip scored an even higher 2,979.

The iPhone 5s was also in between the S4 and Note 3 in terms of graphics performance, registering 13,795 on the 3DMark Icestorm Unlimited Test. The S4 yielded 10,393 and the Note 3 reached 18,808. Keep in mind, however, that Samsung had been artificially boosting its devices for better benchmark results, a practice it has apparently halted with the latest KitKat devices.

The new Galaxy S5 sports a newer Snapdragon 801 chip, which has a quad-core Krait 400 CPU with speeds up to 2.5 GHz per core. There’s also an Adreno 330 GPU. This processor promises much faster camera performance (thus the S5's speedy auto-focus claim), in addition to 28 percent faster graphics and 17 percent faster memory than the Snapdragon 800.

However, the Snapdragon 801 CPU doesn’t benefit from 64-bit architecture as the A7 does and A8 will. iOS 7 and its apps are built on 64-bit, which supposedly delivers desktop-class performance. 64-bit also paves the way for smartphones with memory capacity that exceeds 4GB. Today the highest-end smartphones have 3GB of RAM. It remains to be seen how much system memory the A8 chip might support.

The biggest advantage for the iPhone has been apps, so it will be very interesting to see which game developers and app makers vouch their support for the A8 chip when it’s announced.

via Apple Insider, AFP

Responsible for the editorial vision for Laptopmag.com, Mark Spoonauer has been Editor in Chief of LAPTOP since 2003 and has covered technology for nearly 15 years. Mark speaks at key tech industry events and makes regular media appearances on CNBC, Fox and CNN. Mark was previously reviews editor at Mobile Computing, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc.

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Samsung Series 7 Chronos for Windows 8 Boasts Blazing RAM Accelerator

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HTC Evo 4G LTE Hands-on: HD Voice, Blazing Camera, Unlimited Data for $199

The original superphone has been reborn. If you feel like the iPhone 4S and Galaxy Nexus are just sloppy seconds for Sprint, take a good look at the HTC Evo 4G LTE. This Android 4.0 powerhouse has all the makings of a real halo device for the carrier, reminiscent of the original Evo 4G back in 2010. Available for pre-order May 7th, the $199 Evo 4G LTE  sports a sleek aluminum design (including a kickstand), the same superfast camera that’s inside the HTC One X, a 1.5-GHz Snaprdragon S4 CPU, and unique features like support for HD voice calls and a microSD card slot.

More good news. Sprint has confirmed that it’s committed to offering unlimited 4G LTE data, though coverage will be sparse for a while. Check out our hands-on impressions of the Evo 4G LTE along with a quick video walkthrough and gallery.

The Evo 4G LTE definitely makes a statement. The 4.7-inch Super LCD 2 screen offers HD resolution along with extra-wide viewing angles and great color saturation. Weighing 4.7 ounces and measuring .35 inches thick, this handset felt very light in the hand despite the large display, and the aluminum unibody construction is solid. We especially like the silver machined edges on the Evo 4G LTE.

Our only nitpick is that the top half of the back is glossy black plastic, which picks up fingerprints quickly. The good news is that this panel hides a microSD card slot, so you can expand the storage.

Another feature that’s unique to the EVO 4G LTE is support for HD Voice calls. The dual microphones will go a long way towards eliminating background noise, but Sprint will also have to upgrade its network in order for users to make HD calls, which will happen later this year. The enhanced voice quality will be available in both 3G and 4G coverage areas.

A 1.5-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor provided swift performance during our brief hands-on, but it’s the 8-MP camera that will blow people away. Just like the One X, the Evo 4G LTE starts up almost instantly with the push of a button and lets you capture multiple images in rapid fire mode (4 frames per second). You can then select the one you want and discard the rest.

Last but not least is Beats support, which is designed to make everything from music and movies to YouTube videos sound better when you have headphones plugged in. The Evo 4G LTE will also be sold with the HTC Media Link HD for streaming content to your TV and multiple car accessories.

As for where you’ll be able to get 4G LTE speeds from Sprint, the carrier has only announced 6 markets for the first half of the year, but promises to reach 120 POPs by the end of 2012. Based on what we’ve seen so far, the Evo 4G LTE has the features, design, and software to go toe-to-toe to get the 7 million existing Evo owners excited about upgrading and lure a heck of a lot new customers.

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OnLive Desktop Plus Brings Blazing IE Browser, Flash to iPad for $5 Per Month

Priced at just $4.99 a month, OnLive Desktop Plus includes all the (already commendable) features of OnLive Desktop–quick refresher, that’s MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint, 2GB of cloud storage space, a few other touch game apps and Windows Media Player for HD videos–and now, they’re tossing Adobe Reader and Internet Explorer into the mix. Since the lack of a browser was one of our previous quibbles with the original app, it’s nice to know that the company listened to feedback.

The Browsing Experience

It gets even better: OnLive Desktop Plus offers the browsing experience at stunningly fast gigabit speeds, since the actual processing is done on the company’s powerful remote servers hosted thousands of miles away. And this is no dinky mobile browser, either. Internet Explorer behaves exactly as you would expect the browser on your desktop back home to behave, so you can load full Flash websites in all their glory–and have these sites completely remade to respond to your touch. That’s a first for any app on iOS, as far as we know. You can also download Web mail attachments from Gmail, Yahoo, and cloud storage files like Dropbox directly onto your cloud desktop.

We loaded the animation-heavy Mercedes Benz website, and were thoroughly impressed by how quickly it loaded. The picture of the desktop blurred periodically before coming into focus, but that was an issue with streaming the desktop to our tablet (rather, an issue with our sluggish Wi-Fi network at the office), and not a connection problem that has to do with OnLive’s servers.

Browser Speeds

In order to test browser speeds objectively, we visited speedtest.net and check what sort of upload and download speeds we got. The results didn’t disappoint. We found that we notched a download speed of 92.77 Mbps and an upload speed of 72.32 Mbps.

Bottom Line

OnLive has managed to make an already-impressive app even better with this latest iteration. “Experiencing a full Flash-enabled Web experience at gigabit speeds on iPad is nothing short of breathtaking, and OnLive Desktop Plus is your ticket to ride,” said Steve Perlman, OnLive Founder and CEO. “Combine that with OnLive Desktop’s full-featured Microsoft Office and Adobe Reader PC applications and not only do you have the world’s fastest mobile browser, but the world’s most powerful productivity tools literally at your fingertips.”

The app is available for the iPad now in the US. Android users can look forward to their own dedicated version coming soon, and native variants for the PC and Mac are slated to follow as well. If you need the added functionality of OnLive Desktop Plus, you can sign up for an account at www.desktop.onlive.com.

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