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Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon 800 chips, aimed at 'premium' mobiles

At CES 2013, Qualcomm has revealed a lineup of new chips aimed at "premium" mobile phones.
Written by Charlie Osborne, Contributing Writer
qualcomm snapdragon 800 600 chip lineup ces 2013 mobile premium

Ahead of the opening of CES 2013, Qualcomm revealed a new range of chips which will be aimed at "premium" mobile phones.

TV makers have touted "Ultra HD" resolution sets at the International CES electronics trade show in Las Vegas this week, but there are few video camera which could support this kind of definition which is four times higher than regular HD. However, Qualcomm believes that it has a solution with the new chip range, which could result in "smartphones could be recording video in Ultra HD as early as this year."

CEO Paul Jacobs revealed the new chip lineup, including the flagship model -- the Snapdragon 800 -- which has 75 percent more power than its fastest predecessor, the Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, according to the San Diego-based firm. As the chip doesn't consume additional power, the company say that it will be able to support the recording and playback of Ultra HD video. Jacobs says that the new chip will consume only "half the power of its predecessor."

However, the chips won't be able to completely match Ultra HD television sets, but will record in Ultra HD and will be able to display footage with a resolution higher than standard high definition.

The Snapdragon 800 chips include the new quad core Krait 400 CPU -- with speeds of up to 2.3 GHz per core -- the Adreno 330 GPU, Hexagon v5 DSP and the firm's latest 4G LTE Cat 4 modem for data rates of up to 150M bps.

Qualcomm is currently sending out samples of the new chips, and expects to begin shipping within the next few months. This means that potentially we could be seeing Snapdragon 800-enabled smartphones and tablets by summer. The company says it will be targeting "premium" mobile and computing devices with its high-end offering.

One of Qualcomm's main rivals, Nvidia, has not been quiet on this front. This week, the firm revealed a new "Tegra 4" chip which it touted as "the world's fastest mobile processor." The Tegra 4 will also be able to play Ultra HD video, as well as containing 72 GeForce GPU cores -- six times the power of its predecessor, Tegra 3 -- the Cortex-A15 and an optional chipset which can host 4G LTE networking with voice and data support.

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