[cooknn]

If Palm does indeed release a new webOS phone for the Sprint faithful in June, what processor is available for production right now that would justify a new purchase? I'm not buying into a new phone just for form factor. I want more power.

That being said, I have decided to wait for OMAP4. After reading the spec's I'm ruined for anything else they might do with OMAP3. So, I guess I'll be using my Palm pre for another year

OMAP™ 4 Key Benefits

* Designed to drive smart phones and Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs)
* IVA 3 hardware accelerators enable full HD 1080p, multi-standard video encode/decode
* Faster, higher-quality image and video capture with digital SLR-like imaging up to 20 megapixels
* Dual-core ARM® Cortex™-A9 MPCore™ with Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP)
* Integrated POWERVR™ SGX540 graphics accelerator drives 3D gaming and 3D user interfaces
* Highly optimized mobile applications platform
* OMAP4430 operates at up to 720 MHz
* OMAP4440 operates at 1+ GHz

There's an article on SlashGear about it here.

[yoshk]

Sounds hot!

[jhoff80]

Yeah, I've been saying for a while that I didn't think that Snapdragon or Tegra or anything like that was that big of a leap forward but that the Cortex A9 (in the OMAP4) is. Definitely looking forward to seeing what webOS will look like in a year or so on one of those.

[Complex Pants]

don't forget it can do 145 hours of MP3 play back on 1000mAp

[cooknn]

That processor may be able to drive multiple screens, but we have cards Just give me that power under the hood and webOS should fly. Oh, and throw in a 12mpix camera with an HD video recorder. We're gonna' need some serious storage capacity!

[jhoff80]

don't forget it can do 145 hours of MP3 play back on 1000mAp

Keep in mind that's without any cell radios or anything though.

[Complex Pants]

Keep in mind that's without any cell radios or anything though.

True, but even a third of that is pretty epic.

[ksom]

This looks promising. 20M pixel camera? That's crazy. This reminded, me, I need to upgrade my SLR. It is still at 8MP. If I don't, I think my phone would have higher resolution.

[Darth Mo#WN]

I'm beginning to think the cell phone industry has assumed the role of subjecting people to the "Sisyphean challenge."

No matter what Texas Instruments and company throw at the cell phone industry, some software team will manage to bring it to it's knees. Waiting for the next hardware iteration to be satisfied is a fool's errand; it's not like they're going to stop progressing.

The problem is the software always chases the hardware. You can't write efficient software for hardware that doesn't exist.

[greenoyster]

The mobile chip manufacturers have managed to pull some rabbits from hats lately -- producing even faster processors, cheaper, and without completely killing battery life. I don't know how long they can keep that up though.

[edlex]

The mobile chip manufacturers have managed to pull some rabbits from hats lately -- producing even faster processors, cheaper, and without completely killing battery life. I don't know how long they can keep that up though.

I agree. Until there is a quantum leap in battery technology hardware can only take us so far.

[bdog421]

Battery tech is going to take huge leaps in the near future, they are testing many types and many are still too unstable for consumers and to pricey.......just wait a bit, battery tech will step way up! I hope we do get some super processing powers for the next PRE and/or webOS device.

[nimer55]

True, but even a third of that is pretty epic.

yea, but cell towers are going to use the same exact amount of power... If i turn off all my signals on my phone, the battery life is already great. So i don't think the real life difference would be huge. They need to put a 2500mah battery, and call it a day..

[Beanis]

I heard OMAP4 is not due until end of the year.
Palm can't wait that long to release a new phone, but there isn't anything else out there that is a significant leap forward in power.

[jhoff80]

I heard OMAP4 is not due until end of the year.
Palm can't wait that long to release a new phone, but there isn't anything else out there that is a significant leap forward in power.

Last I heard was they planned to get the OMAP4 out and in mass production for devices by the fourth quarter of the year.

Supposedly Tegra 2 might be out sooner than then, I think I read they expected that to be in mass production by Q3.

I think Samsung also is working on a Cortex A9 -based design, no idea what their planned release for it is though.

Any one of those would suffice, but I agree that the currently existing Snapdragons and the refreshed OMAP36xx aren't big enough of a leap forward.

Don't get me wrong, the bump to 800mHz makes a pretty big difference as a lot of us here are seeing, but the out-of-order, possibly dual-core A9 should be even more so.

[storino03]

Specs from processor manufactuers don't matter much. It's up to the device and the carriers who decide what features to implement.

[Beanis]

That's true, the OMAP3 specs page from TI claims 10 second boot times.

We all know how true that is.

[nimer55]

I agree... While 1ghz would be nice, I'm not going to pay to go from 800mhz, to 1ghz..

dual core 1ghz+ would be amazing. Plus 1-2 gigs of ram to be able to multitask a 3d game,browser,and other.. Thanks to he new 800 patch, i'm now satisfied with my phone.. I mainly want software upgrades.

[gregcolon3]

Ive been saying this all along omap 4 is the way to go. its possible that if palm wants to use the omap 4 they will come out with something in the fall. Super amoled display along with an omap4 and say a 1500mah battery; battery life will be tremendously improved.

[vza33]

The OMAP 4 would be nice, but I don't think Palm has taken full advantage of the capabilites of the OMAP 3440 yet. OMAP™ 3 Processors - OMAP3440
I believe the Pre was amongst the first phones to have it and if Palm rushes out another device with a bigger engine, imagine what kind of bugs we might be looking at then.
I'd rather they use the experience garnered from this engine, build on it and get it running smoothly like the fruit Phone.