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Apple stole a march on Android when it released the iPhone 5S with a 64-bit processor, and Android manufacturers have put the pedal to the metal in a race to catch up and make their products 64-bit. AnandTech reports that HTC has announced the Desire 510, its first 64-bit Android phone.
Meanwhile, AnandTech describe the device in more detail:
While normally one might expect high end phones to get the latest and greatest features first, this time we see a bit of a surprising reversal. The Desire 510 is HTC's first 64-bit phone, and the first announced device with Snapdragon 410. For those that aren't familiar with Snapdragon 410, it has four Cortex A53 CPU cores running at 1.2 GHz, along with an Adreno 306 GPU which suggests that it is a mild modification of the current Adreno 305 GPU that we see in the Snapdragon 400. Overall, this should make for a quite fast SoC compared to Snapdragon 400, as Anand has covered in the Snapdragon 410 launch announcement.
While it may seem strange that ARMv8 on Android phones is first to appear on a budget smartphone, it's quite easy to understand how this happened. Looking at Qualcomm's roadmap, the Snapdragon 810/MSM8994 is the first high-end SoC that will ship with ARMv8, and is built on a 20nm process. As 20nm from both Samsung and TSMC have just begun appearing in shipping chips, the process yield and production capacity isn't nearly as mature as 28nm LP, which is old news by now.
Other details include:
- SoC: MSM8916 1.2 GHz Snapdragon 410
- RAM/NAND: 1 GB RAM, 8GB NAND + microSD
- Display: 4.7” FWVGA (854x480)
- Network: 2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Qualcomm MDM9x25 UE Category 4 LTE)
- Dimensions: 139.9 x 69.8 x 9.99mm
- Weight: 158 grams
- Camera: 5MP rear camera, .3MP/VGA FFC
- Battery: 2100 mAh (7.98 Whr)
- OS: Android 4.4 with Sense 6
- Connectivity: 802.11b/g/n + BT 4.0, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, DLNA
- SIM Size: MicroSIM
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Subsentient on Saturday August 30 2014, @04:12PM
Please don't bring smartphone and cloud BS onto Soylent News. I tolerate this garbage everywhere else, and I'd like to maintain the illusion that the world is still somewhat intelligent and sane, even though it doesn't work too well when I walk down the street trying not to see the zombie pedestrians on their smartphones.
A smartphone is not a computer, fiddling with and rooting the phone for ten hours to jam in an alternative OS does not mean the phone can boot any OS, and the Nexus is NOT the standard in Android phones, not every one can boot anything else. Smartphones with their $0.99 apps, as well as the cloud with its 'don't-expect-open-source' are a severe blow to open source in general and mark my words, if you people don't wake up, they'll kill off desktops except the highest workstations and turn all laptops into Chromebook clones with boot-locked firmware.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Horse With Stripes on Saturday August 30 2014, @04:29PM
I'm pretty sure the market will decide what is and isn't available to consumers, enterprise customers, power users, platform zealots, DIY types, bleeding edge crash test dummies, etc, etc. Though I am a proponent of open source, not everything is going to be open source, and not every piece of closed source software is a blow to open source software (just like not every piece of open source software is a blow to proprietary products).
The market is changing and will continue to change. Of course the marketing people will try to drive the market, but actual purchasing is the real deciding factor (just look at the first few versions of Microsoft's Surface).
(Score: 3, Informative) by Subsentient on Sunday August 31 2014, @02:25AM
I don't live an an Ayn-Randian dreamworld, I live in the world where companies with their standard-issue poor ethics will happily fuck over the consumer to add restrictions that will increase their bottom line and gain them power and control. That's life. Most people don't give enough of a damn for this kind of thing to seriously influence people, they'll just believe whatever propaganda is spewed in popular culture and media.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by tibman on Saturday August 30 2014, @04:46PM
Don't worry too much about desktops. The games market will keep them alive and kicking : )
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Saturday August 30 2014, @05:28PM
Actually less than good forces tries to remove the desktop from the market.
Make software that needs a proper desktop (or laptop) such that all zombiephones are put to an disadvantage.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Saturday August 30 2014, @07:26PM
Phones certainly are most certainly computers. The won't "kill off desktops", but even if they did, that would be tech news that certainly needs coverage here.
And whether or not you can replace the OS is irrelevant. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that Soylent News is dedicated to open source topics. It's not.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Sunday August 31 2014, @05:41PM
It matters because by definition a computer must be capable of running ANY arbitrary code built for it. It matters because I revile Android with a passion. It matters because you multi-hundred-dollar iPad is incapable of running anything but iOS. It matters because freedom. Most people don't give a damn, but then again many people throw away their computer when Windows becomes corrupted.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Sunday August 31 2014, @08:51PM
It matters because by definition a computer must be capable of running ANY arbitrary code built for it.
What and who's definition is that? There is no such definition that specifies that ANYONE must be allowed to program it. At best you're confusing politics and technical definitions. More likely you're inventing definitions as you go.
Again, open source and open platforms do NOT define what's tech news, nor what's news here.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 30 2014, @11:13PM
Seriously, if the phone in question is not an iPhone it isn't even news. Nobody cares about these shitty android phones and neither should we. The iPhone is the only phone worth looking at.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Sunday August 31 2014, @02:38AM
Think of it as a potential server / mobile router.
Once Ubuntu Phone is launched (which uses android drivers and file layout, but is otherwise an ARM compiled Ubuntu) how long could it take for Debian phone to appear?