quad

Apple has just elevated the graphics chip to superstar status. Why focus on the graphics?

Apple announced today at the iPad event in San Francisco that the new iPad has a quad-core graphics processing unit (GPU). (So much for the central processing unit, or CPU, which typically garners all of the attention.)

So far, chip review site Anandtech offers the best educated guess about the graphics engine. Anandtech cites graphics chip technology from Imagination (PowerVR SGX543MP4) and CPU tech from ARM (Cortex A9).

"Our guess? Dual-core Cortex A9 [CPU] plus a PowerVR SGX543MP4 [GPU], an upgrade over the 543MP2 … Read more

Brian Tong and Molly Wood give you blow-by-blow analysis on the new iPad announcement, including rewriting the lyrics to John Mayer's "Your Body is a Wonderland," specifically to accommodate the new iPad. Which, in case you haven't guessed by now, is just called "the new iPad."

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So, there's a new iPad. It has better graphics. It has a better screen.

Now what? Does it change gaming?

Ever since the iPhone had its first App Store, Apple has been making waves in the video game industry. Each successive iDevice has had its own improved set of graphics, and in some cases--the iPhone 4 and 4S, for instance--a higher-resolution display opened up gaming possibilities even more.

The iPhone 4S changed gaming by setting the graphics bar so high that it's an honest rival to handhelds like the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita. (It's no surprise that Apple's iPad events have coincided with the Game Developers Conference two years running.)

With the new iPad, the screen and improved graphics bring some different capabilities, for better-looking games, of course, but also in terms of what can be shown on a screen.… Read more

The Huawei Ascend D Quad casually sailed into Mobile World Congress and leads Huawei's smartphone fleet as its undisputed flagship. It's packing a powerful quad-core chip, a 720p screen, and the latest version of Android.

If it hopes to have a long-term berth in everyone's pockets, it's going to have to deliver in the camera stakes too. To see just what the 8-megapixel snapper can do, I took it for a spin around Barcelona and compared the results to my very own iPhone 4.

I only had brief hands-on time with the D Quad and I didn't have an iPhone 4S on hand with its improved camera, so the results of the test aren't a scientific conclusion, but it gives a good general idea of how well the new phone performs in the snapping stakes.

Read more "Huawei Ascend D Quad vs iPhone 4 camera test" at CNET UK. … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Huawei is gunning for quad-core Android market share just as much as the next manufacturer.

Curious about the Ascend D Quad smartphone that Huawei is claiming to be the world's fastest, or the MediaPad 10, a quad-core 10.1-inch tablet?

So were we. That's why we stopped by Huawei's booth at MWC 2012 to take a look at both quad-core devices.

BARCELONA, Spain--Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE were hoping to make an impression at Mobile World Congress about their presence in the smartphone world.

Well, mission accomplished.

The two companies didn't disappoint on the news front. Huawei kicked off the wireless conference on Sunday by introducing the world's fastest smartphone and the first 10-inch quad-core tablet. ZTE followed on Monday with a downpour of 15 phone announcements.

The announcements are proof that the Chinese vendors, which don't have the name recognition of a Samsung Electronics or LG, can now stand at the same level, competing with similar high-end … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Stephen Sneeden, product marketing manager for Sony Mobile, told CNET Asia in an interview here at Mobile World Congress that he predicts the company will likely only release quad-core Sony smartphones in early 2013. He does, however, state that this is just his assumption--the company will make the official announcements when it's ready.

"We're going to join quad-core when we feel that the performance matches the battery efficiency," he said. "Because right now we don't feel that is there. What we are going to be doing in the second half of the year is moving to the Cortex A15 architecture, which we feel outperforms the current quad-core architecture.

"You'll see in 2013, as we're evaluating the quad-core performance where it makes sense, where you're not suffering in quality and the performance truly is there, and there really is something that demanding applications need," he contiuned." That's when we make the right move to quad-core." … Read more

Intel today spelled out in more exacting detail just what the Ivy Bridge chip delay means in the wake of comments published Sunday from an Intel executive.

"Reports of an eight-week delay to the Ivy Bridge launch are inaccurate and our schedule has only been impacted by a few weeks," spokesman Jon Carvill told CNET today.

So, for instance, if a desktop Ivy Bridge product was slated for an April launch, that would be pushed to May. And a mobile product scheduled for May, would launch in June. Intel always staggers production schedules. For example, Intel's most … Read more

Can't make it to Barcelona, Spain, this year for Mobile World Congress? Don't fret, just check out the latest episode of Dialed In. We chat about all the phone news to come out so far at MWC including quad-core handsets from HTC, Samsung, LG, Sony, and newcomer Huawei. … Read more