Nokia Lumia WP8 to come with Qualcomm S4 dual core?

Forbes titles their post to suggest that the future Nokia Lumia WP8 phones will get dual core. This isn’t just any dual core, this is Qualcomm’s S4 dual core, which we heard may be coming at least to Nokia’s W8 tablets. The S4 Krait chip has been shown, at least on benchmarks to produce some excellent and ‘Amazing/Insane’ results, rivalling and at times outperforming (on those tests) quadcore counterparts.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/06/07/lumia-to-add-dual-core-processors-with-windows-phone-8/

Now WP,  like Symbian and MeeGo extremely well on single-core. First gen and current gen WP7 run so fluidly, 808 runs the fastest Symbian ever and N9 is also very fluid.

In WP7 it’s not so much a choice to be single core because it can’t make use of multicore at the moment. On performance at least, it runs core activities just as well as multicore rivals. I’m all for multicore. I don’t believe it’s just some negative battery drain – well, if the OS can’t use it properly, then yes. There may be instances when a multicore chip will only activate one core if that’s all that is needed – which in WP’s cases is pretty much all the time.

CNet points out that phones like the OneX and S3 activate additional cores for more graphically intensive games. It is of interest that US versions of the One X and S3 are NOT quadcore but dualcore.

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/windows-phone-8-could-have-dual-core-chips-but-not-use-them-50008164/

At the very least, having multicore would satisfy the users who enjoy playing the specs game. For them, spending hard earned cash requires investing a little research into bigger numbers being better. When comparing phones on a spec sheet – user experience is hard to compare so go on quantitative metrics of multicore immediately being better than single core. I don’t think it’s enough for Nokia or Sony to try and point out that multicores/quadcores are not yet efficient enough. The very biggest deal is their product perception of being ‘behind the times’. Perhaps the typical non techy end user might not be aware of it, but what about those reporting about the tech and subsequently the staff at retail store who are recommending what phones to get.

Sources: cnet / forbes

Cheers MANU for the tip!

Category: Lumia, Nokia, Windows Phone