Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Smartphone with 2ghz processor coming by the end of the year?

So, there are rumors abound that Motorola is currently working on a smartphone with a 2ghz central processor, and they have slated to release it by the end of the year.  As a computer geek myself, a few flags fly up at this incredible boost in power:

First, a 2gHz processor, regardless of size, will still have relatively enormous thermal dissipation issues in relavance to the current chips in smartphones. You certainly don't want your phone bursting into flames in the palm of your hand even if it could play Crysis on high settings.

Next, with more heat comes more resistance, and in order for the processing chip to maintain its processing capabilities under higher thermal duress, it needs to draw more electrical power, ulimately increasing the heat and (even if they deal with the thermal dissipation issues) depleting the battery incredibly. The Motorola Consumer Site for the Droid X states its battery to be a 1540 mAh battery, weighing in at little more than an ounce, which in and of itself is a pretty powerful mobile device battery. However, will a battery similar to this one (lets say up to 1700mAh) even stand a chance against a 2gHz monster? Will the battery be big and clunky, or will it require constant recharging throughout the day? That being said, will it have a huge screen akin to the X or will it be more like the Droid 2? Perhaps the 2gHz is a "spike limit," where, in a burst, the phone could utilize up to that much processing power, but not continuously. These will all be limiting factors in battery life, and it will be interesting to see how Motorola tackles this issue alone.

Personally, I think we should be seeing faster, reliable chipsets of this kind of power in netbooks before we see them in phones, more of a proof-of-concept if you will. And who knows? This could probably just be hype to keep peoples' attention and keep Motorola on its current gravy train, or maybe they may just wow us come the holiday season.

5 comments:

  1. That's pretty sad. My current desktop is around 2.2gHz :(.

    ReplyDelete
  2. they said the dual cores were suppose to be out by now, still nothing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. dude if true, thats intense. but i dont know how they would keep the temp down

    ReplyDelete