Sony Mobile exec: Quad-core smartphones in early 2013
Sony Mobile unveiled some stylish handsets at Mobile World Congress 2012, but dropped the ball on quad-core. So when will we see faster chipsets from Sony? CNET Asia finds out.
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."
Sony Mobile has been late to the dual-core party--its first dual-core Xperia S handset was only announced this year, whereas dual-core smartphones have been available since March of last year.
Sneeden added that the handsets will most likely either run ST Ericsson's NovaThor platform or something from Qualcomm. While he did not name any specifics, it's likely Sony Mobile will use Qualcomm's dual-core Snapdragon S4 chipset in Q2.
Lastly, on the rumors of a PS Vita phone, the exec was understandably vague, stating that cameras and gaming experiences were "core strengths" of the larger Sony corporation and that Sony Mobile would "take advantage of these core strengths," but it was not making any announcements as yet.
(Source: Crave Asia)