Palm Pixi processor, chipset specs get detailed at last
By Donald Melanson 
posted September 14th 2009 6:29PM
posted September 14th 2009 6:29PM
Palm may have divulged most of the details about its new Pixi phone when it got official with it last week (and let us get our hands on it), but it was unfortunately staying mum about a few key specs, including the mystery processor at the heart of the device. Thankfully, Qualcomm has now come out and clarified that situation so Palm doesn't have to, and detailed the complete specs for the MSM7627 chipset that powers the Pixi. The big news there is that the chipset packs two ARM cores on a single chip, including one dedicated 600MHz applications processor, and a separate 400MHz modem processor to offload some of the heavy lifting. Otherwise, the phone is said to pack a 200MHz, OpenGL 2.0-supporting GPU for some decent gaming capabilities, and a 320MHz application DSP to handle multimedia on the device, including full 30 fps WVGA video encoding and decoding. Hit up the link below for the complete rundown.
[Thanks, Fernando]
[Thanks, Fernando]
"As a sane person, why would one pick a phone with Symbian S60V3?"
another gorgeous phone.
it's taking forever to get a palm webos device in europe!
Are those specs good or bad? Better or worse than the Pre?
Maybe for the few of us that don't know the implications of the MSM7627 chip off hand?
worse then the Pre but not by much.
"... OpenGL 2.0-supporting GPU for some decent gaming capabilities ..."
*Can* you game in WebOS? Not trolling, serious question.
Think Tetris.
Palm has not released an OpenGL SDK yet.
HTML 5 standard includes embedded WebGL objects, and that's what WebOS interface is, HTML 5.
Webkit recently announced limited support for WebGL. Hardware accelerated 3D graphics on the WebOS is not too far.
More you think about it, more you realize the genius design that is the WebOS.
Yes, I agree, WebOS really got it right. It uses "web apps" but they behave like native applications, unlike the webapps for the iPhone which were just websites.
It's not that far away, but not that close either. WebGL should be released next summer or fall, just in time for many users of current technology to find out how (in)capable their phones are of supporting it.
There aren't games that really take advantage of it yet, but as others have mentioned, there is the WebGL thing. Furthermore, it is very likely Palm will allow deeper access in the future for game developers. In the homebrew scene, the person who created the PS1 emulator for the iPhone said that it actually runs better on the Pre than on the 3GS, for example. The Pixi seems to be packing a heck of a processor for its size, so it will probably be able to handle some decent games, at least iPhone 3G or iTouch second gen levels. Probably better since it has Open GL 2.0 support.
But anyways, shouldn't the mere fact that it includes a Open GL 2.0 GPU imply that palm plans on increasing support for that area? They could have certainly cut down costs more without it.
@napylopez
a "heck of a processor"?? Its a generic ~600mhz ARM11. (the reported "dual-core" part is nonsense. All of these chips have an ARM9 used for baseband processing --it is NOT a true dual-core like the ARM11 Tegra or ARM Cortex-A9 OMAP4). There is nothing special at all, save for the graphics chipset is compatible with OpenGL 2.0 like the PowerVR SGX.
I just hope it's not called the pixie when it comes to Verizon. Nothing let telling your friends you new phone is called a "Pixie".
A few years ago, telling your friends you got a new Wii would have been even worse.
No way Wii is worse than Pixie. With a name like that it might as well be pink and have glitter and bedazzled stones on it.
for me, this phone could have a C2D, the lack of wifi makes it useless to me
600 mHz + 400 mHz = 1 gHz- snapdragon
Ahaha, no.
Look's waaaay better than the Pre.
Sounds pretty nice, although the smaller screen and lack of Wi-Fi sucks. Palm and Sprint really seem to be turning it around, I am extremely impressed with both companies.
This is really good news.
I really hate slider (Pre) phones.
Candy style (Pixi) all the way. :)
As someone who still uses a Treo 650 (over an iPhone I own that I find is both amazing and annoying) I'm really liking the ahem, pixi.
I REALLY wish it had WiFi, but not a deal breaker.
And now I found that with a $30 app addition at http://www.motionapps.com/classic/apps/classic_certified_apps/ I can run thousands of Palm apps to ease the transition!
Hey Endgadget, this could be . . . love (!?)
no wifi no thanks, case closed.
I don't understand why remove wifi.
I'm using iPhone. Wifi supporting is very usefull.
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http://onioning.com/neocoin
i must say the keyboard does look rather ... crappy
Why dont they re-release the Treo Pro with WebOS? The treo pro was a fanastic phone, the only thing that made it bad was you could not install other roms, and its keyboard was a taaaad too small, but still good.
The only reason i gave up on the Treo pro was for the xperia x1. However i traded the touch pro to get the treo pro, and even with the stock rom, it was soooo much better then the touch pro. I never actually thought back about the touch pro as soon as i had the treo pro. Everything about the treo just screamed quality
and everything about the touch pro screams, crap
I think engadget missed an important fact on the website: pixi is gonna be a world phone. Its got CDMA and GSM