samsung News - Page 16 of 25 - CNX Software

March 21, 2014March 21, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Bluetooth Slide-out Keyboard Cases for Android Smartphones and iPhones

Yesterday, one reader told me he wished manufacturers would release high-end smartphones with a slide-out keyboard, something similar to what Asus has done with Eee Pad Slider SL101 or Archos with their 101 XS Tablet. So I had a look in case some Chinese manufacturers had done a phablet with a slide-out keyboard and Mediatek MT6588 or MT6592 SoC, but all I could find are some old 2011 or 2012 smartphones with Android 2.3 and low specs by today standards. If you own a best selling phone however such as the Galaxy S4, Galaxy S5 or iPhones, there are some cases with a Bluetooth slide-out keyboard that can add this functionality to your phone. The one pictured above is “QQ-Tech Ultra-Slim Slide-Out Detchable Multifunction Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard Case” for Samsung Galaxy S4 which you can find on Amazon for $23. The case comes with a micro USB cable to charge […]

March 6, 2014March 6, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Nvidia Tegra K1 32-bit and 64-bit Benchmarked with Antutu

Nvidia announced their latest Tegra applications processors at CES 2014 with the Tegra K1 32-bit and 64-bit ARM SoCs, as well as Tegra K1 MVC for automotive application. The 32-bit version comes with four Cortex A15 cores up to 2.3 GHz plus a companion core, and the 64-bit version with 2 ARMv8 cores (Cortex A53?) clocked up to 3 GHz. Both SoC features a 192-core Kepler GPU, and we’ve been shown some high-end graphics demo (OpenGL, OpenGL ES, OpenCL…) with in the reference tablet. Some charts has surface showing both 32- and 64-bit Tegra K1 scoring well over 40,000 and with an excellent 3D graphics score. The benchmark was run in reference platform with 32-bit or 64-bit Tegra K1, as well as the Tegra Note P1761 tablet with a 32-bit quad core Tegra K1 processor apparently clocked at a lower frequency, and with a not-that-good flash. The dual core, 64-bit […]

March 4, 2014March 4, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

Samsung Chromebook 2 Features Exynos 5 Octa SoC, Comes with either 11.6″ or 13.3″ Display

Samsung has just launched the Chromebook 2 Series with two models based on on Exynos 5 Octa SoC, available in 11.6″ (1366×768) and 13.3″ (1920×1080) configurations, and featuring 4GB RAM, 16GB eMMC, and a longer battery life thanks partially to big.LITTLE processing technology. Samsung expects the new Chromebooks to be used for work, education, and entertainment. Thanks to strong hardware specifications, these new ARM based Chromebooks will certainly offer performance similar to, or even outperforming, existing many Intel Celeron based Chromebooks, and at the same time offer a longer battery life. It’s a nice upgrade to the Exynos 5250 powered Chromebook launched in 2012, especially the addition of a model with a 13.3″ display with FHD resolution. The 13.3″ model has an Exynos 5 Octa processor clocked at 2.1GHz which should be the latest Exynos 5422, whereas the 11.6″ model might use Exynos 5420 instead (TBC). The company also mention […]

February 28, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Linaro 14.02 Release with Linux Kernel 3.14 and Android 4.4.2

Linaro 14.02 has just been released with Linux Kernel 3.14-rc3 (baseline), Linux Kernel 3.10.30 (LSK), and Android 4.4.2 r2. There are been a lot of patches for Linaro members boards, and including the latest GTS big.LITTLE processing patch, as well as speeds up to Android 4.4 performance. There’s also a Linux image (password protected) for Huawei D01 board with a 16-core ARM Cortex A15 @ 1.5 GHz SoC with up to 64 GB memory, that must be an unannounced SoC for base stations or other network equipment. This month Linaro also made two important announcements: Qualcomm is now a Linaro member, and the Linaro Security Working Group (SWG) has been setup to develop open source secure software for the ARM architecture. The first projects will be reference implementations of the W3C Embedded Media Extension (EME), and secure boot for the 64-bit ARM Cortex-A series processors. They’ll also work on security […]

February 26, 2014February 26, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Samsung Unveils Exynos 5 Octa 5422 and Exynos 5 Hexa 5260 SoCs

As expected, Samsung announced the Exynos 5 Hexa 5260 hexa-core processor and, the not-quite-expected Exynos 5 Octa 5422 octa-core processor at Mobile World Congress, both of which feature ARM’s big.LITTLE processing technology, and ARM Mali-T628 GPU. Still no news about their 64-bit processor. Exynos 5260 will feature two ARM Cortex A15 cores up to 1.7GHz, and four Cortex A7 cores up to 1.3GHz, with full support for HMP/GTS. Contrary to initial reports the new processor is not based on Mali-T624 (as shown in Antutu), but according to Samsung Exynos 5 Hexa page, it will instead use Mali-T628 just like in Exynos 5420 and 5422. This processor could end up with the best price/power consumption/peak performance combo, as few application are able to use more than 2 cores. The SoC also features an embedded Display Port (eDP) interface, and with a memory bandwidth up to 12.8GB/s, supports supports WQXGA (2560×1600) resolution. […]

February 25, 2014February 25, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Samsung Galaxy S5 Features Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC, an Heart Rate Monitor and a Finger Scanner

[Update: See comment below. There will be two version of the Samsung Galaxy S5. One with Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 Quad core SoC @ 2.5 GHz, and the other with an Exynos Octacore processor @ 2.1 GHz] Samsung has unveiled the expect Galaxy S5 smartphone at Mobile World Congress 2014. It’s not based on any new Exynos processors however, as it appears to feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC, an update of Snapdragon 800 with a higher CPU clock (2.5 GHz), GPU clock (578 MHz) and support for eMMC 5.0. The phone is quite a major leap compared to Galaxy S4, but the company has added an heart rate monitor, a finger scanner as well as LTE-Advance, and 4K video recording. Samsung Galaxy S5 Specifications (Preliminary): SoC – 2.5GHz quad-core application processor. Turns out it should be Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 (MSM8974-AC) quad core Krait SoC with Adreno 330 GPU System Memory – […]

February 23, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Samsung Unveils Two Tizen Smartwatches: Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo

After the Samsung Galaxy Gear, Samsung has introduced two new smartwatches, Samsung Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo, droppping the Galaxy brand in the process, most probably because these two happen to run Tizen, instead of Android found in the Galaxy gear. The Gear 2 has a camera which is missing in the Gear 2 Neo. Other specifications and features are more or less the same. Samsung Gear 2 Product Specifications: SoC – Dual Core Processor @ 1.0 GHz (Exynos 4?) System Memory – 512MB Storage – 4GB Internal Memory Display – 1.63” Super AMOLED (320 x 320) Connectivity – Bluetooth 4.0 LE, IrLED Camera Gear 2 – 2.0 Megapixel Auto Focus (1920×1080, 1080×1080, 1280×960) Gear 2 Neo – N/A Video – Codecs: H.264, H.263, Container Formats: 3GP, MP4. HD(720p, @30fps) Playback & Recording Audio – Codecs: MP3/AAC/AMR/Vorbis, Format: MP3, M4A, AAC, OGG. Noise Cancellation Sensors – Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Heart […]

February 20, 2014February 20, 2014 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Samsung GH7 Quad Core 64-bit ARM SoC Code Submitted to Linux

Following my post about Samsung Exynos 5260 hexa core processor, I’ve been informed that some other patches have been submitted about Samsung GH7 ARMv8 SoC, which should be the other processor announced at MWC 2014. A look at the device tree file shows four ARMv8 cores:

+/ {
+	model = "SAMSUNG GH7";
+	compatible = "samsung,gh7";
+	interrupt-parent = &lt;&amp;gic&gt;;
+	#address-cells = &lt;2&gt;;
+	#size-cells = &lt;2&gt;;
+
+	cpus {
+		#address-cells = &lt;2&gt;;
+		#size-cells = &lt;0&gt;;
+
+		cpu@000 {
+			device_type = "cpu";
+			compatible = "arm,armv8";
+			reg = &lt;0x0 0x000&gt;;
+			enable-method = "spin-table";
+			cpu-release-addr = &lt;0x0 0x8000fff8&gt;;
+		};
+		cpu@001 {
+			device_type = "cpu";
+			compatible = "arm,armv8";
+			reg = &lt;0x0 0x001&gt;;
+			enable-method = "spin-table";
+			cpu-release-addr = &lt;0x0 0x8000fff8&gt;;
+		};
+		cpu@002 {
+			device_type = "cpu";
+			compatible = "arm,armv8";
+			reg = &lt;0x0 0x002&gt;;
+			enable-method = "spin-table";
+			cpu-release-addr = &lt;0x0 0x8000fff8&gt;;
+		};
+		cpu@003 {
+			device_type = "cpu";
+			compatible = "arm,armv8";
+			reg = &lt;0x0 0x003&gt;;
+			enable-method = "spin-table";
+			cpu-release-addr = &lt;0x0 0x8000fff8&gt;;
+		};
+	};

+/ {

+ model = "SAMSUNG GH7";

+ compatible = "samsung,gh7";

+ interrupt-parent = <&gic>;

+ #address-cells = <2>;

+ #size-cells = <2>;

+ cpus {

+ #address-cells = <2>;

+ #size-cells = <0>;

+ cpu@000 {

+ device_type = "cpu";

+ compatible = "arm,armv8";

+ reg = <0x0 0x000>;

+ enable-method = "spin-table";

+ cpu-release-addr = <0x0 0x8000fff8>;

+ };

+ cpu@001 {

+ device_type = "cpu";

+ compatible = "arm,armv8";

+ reg = <0x0 0x001>;

+ enable-method = "spin-table";

+ cpu-release-addr = <0x0 0x8000fff8>;

+ };

+ cpu@002 {

+ device_type = "cpu";

+ compatible = "arm,armv8";

+ reg = <0x0 0x002>;

+ enable-method = "spin-table";

+ cpu-release-addr = <0x0 0x8000fff8>;

+ };

+ cpu@003 {

+ device_type = "cpu";

+ compatible = "arm,armv8";

+ reg = <0x0 0x003>;

+ enable-method = "spin-table";

+ cpu-release-addr = <0x0 0x8000fff8>;

+ };

The patch also include code for Samsung SSDK-GH7 board with 2GB RAM. That’s about all we know for now. Thanks to David for the tip. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011. www.cnx-software.com