MSM8225Q
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BenQ rejoins the smartphone market with two tepid Android models
Contrary to what the execs told us back in September last year, BenQ has now decided that it should re-enter the smartphone business, and it's done so in Taiwan with two affordable quad-core models: the recently-launched, MediaTek MT6589-powered F3 (pictured left), and the Snapdragon MSM8225Q-powered A3 from early November. Both 1.2GHz devices feature a 4.5-inch 960 x 540 IPS display, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage, microSD expansion, a 2-megapixel front camera and a similar battery (2,100mAh for the F3 and 2,000mAh for the A3). Apart from the appearance, the main difference between the two is the camera: the higher-end and better-looking F3 has a 13-megapixel f/2.2 main imager with HDR and zero shutter delay, whereas the A3 only has an 8-megapixel counterpart. The F3 is already available in Taiwan for NT$7,990 (about US$270) off-contract, and the A3 goes for NT$5,990 (about US$200). There's no word on global expansion just yet, but hey, BenQ, how about bringing your expertise in luxury lamps to your next smartphone?
Qualcomm reveals quad-core Snapdragon S4 Play processors, ramps up entry smartphone speeds
Don't think Qualcomm is limiting its quad-core processors to superstar phones. The Snapdragon S4 Play line is growing to include the MSM8225Q and MSM8625Q, parallels to the existing two Play chips that bring four cores to entry-level devices. Besides the speed improvements that you'd expect from all that extra parallelism, the Q variants support the extra bandwidth of low-power DDR2 (LPDDR2) memory and can handle both 720p displays and movie-making. Neither is quite an all-encompassing solution, although the two will cover the bases for much of the starter demographic: while local wireless such as Bluetooth, FM radio and WiFi have to remain separate from the main processor, the two newcomers manage to pack either single-mode UMTS 3G (in the 8225Q) or dual-mode CDMA and UMTS (in the 8625Q) for their cellular fix. Along with the already promised, China-focused S4 Plus MSM8930, test samples of the faster S4 Play editions will be ready before the end of the year, with shipping phones on the way in early 2013 -- just in time to go head-to-head with a similar push by MediaTek to make quad-core the norm for a much larger slice of the population.
