Windows Phone 7: The AnandTech Guide
by Brian Klug on March 21, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Windows Phone 7
- Mobile
The SoC
Given our transistor filled nature, one of our major concerns was discovering what System on Chip (SoC) lies at the heart of WP7S. This is especially the case given the strict, uniform hardware requirements stipulated for virtually all hardware manufacturers (it's like an iPhone made by 4 different companies?).
The basic hardware requirements are (as we mentioned earlier) the following:
- Capacitive Touch
- 4 or more contact points
- Sensors
- A-GPS, Accelerometer, Compass, Light, Proximity
- Camera
- 5 megapixels or more, flash required, camera button required
- Multimedia
- Common detailed specs, Codec Acceleration
- Memory
- 256 MB RAM or more, 8 GB Flash or more
- No external storage support (no SD cards)
- GPU
- DirectX 9 acceleration
- CPU
- ARMv7 Cortex/Scorpion or better
- Screen
- Two Supported Displays
- 480 x 800 WVGA : Aspect Ratio 3:5
- 320 x 480 HVGA : Aspect Ratio 2:3
However, we've dug up some more hardware details that are entirely new. Microsoft told me personally they've definitely already chosen a particular SoC, but aren't ready to state what it is. There's a dialog that takes place between OEMs, Microsoft, and carriers to decide on both the clocks and optimal performance/battery target for the device. My understanding is that this dialog is ongoing, and that the software giant will make a final announcement when it's settled. Although Microsoft has not announced whether it's the case, Qualcomm has already made an announcement of its own that Snapdragon lies at the core. We should know soon, but Tegra or any other choices are looking highly unlikely at this point. Speculate all you want, no amount of pressing would get Microsoft to disclose what they've chosen. We'll just have to be patient.
Hopefully Microsoft has chosen its WP7S SoC with the future in mind - the landscape will likely have changed significantly by Q4 2010, and Snapdragon as we know it today will be old news. Both the single core 8X50A Snapdragon at 1.3 GHz, as well as the 8X72 dual core Snapdragon at 1.5 GHz will likely have made their debut and start arriving in products by Q4 2010. It's entirely possible that one of these is the choices, but we just don't know yet.
The GPU
There's some interesting stuff going on with the GPU on WP7S. Although we don't know anything about the specific silicon, we know a lot about the software implementation that needs to be rounded up thoroughly.
Let's start from the beginning. Remember from the earlier article how WP7S runs code across two separate frameworks - Silverlight, and XNA? Each of these have their own set of hardware accelerated functions that directly leverage the GPU. Furthermore, you cannot mix and match Silverlight and XNA frameworks at present, something Microsoft hopes to eventually reconcile, but not, you guessed it, in this release.
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nerdtalker - Sunday, March 21, 2010 - link
Noted and fixed! Thanks!Cheers,
-Brian
StormyParis - Sunday, March 21, 2010 - link
It seems so close to the whole iPhone thing, that if I were MS I'd be embarassed... a lot of pride swallowing must have been going on.My issue is, I can't find a good reason to want these phones. Even Office integration doesn't cut it, because the hardware is so gimped that I'd never, ever, want to do any office work with it. The rest is just regular smartphone stuff. As with Apple, I lose a whole lot of freedom of features (forced to use IE ? IE ??? back to web 0.8, guys). And my personnal guess would be that for the same loss, I get less in exchange, in terms of ease of use and features.
Hopefully Google and Nokia will manage to keep their ecosystems open, because those "censored apps, censored hardware, no extensions nor upgrades" e-dystopias have me worried and slightly despondent.
NJoy - Sunday, March 21, 2010 - link
avid user of WM for last 5 years, now I'm so disappointed, it's even depressing. They just have killed everything what I liked about WinMo. SadCSMR - Sunday, March 21, 2010 - link
Extremely disappointing to be given a locked down system from Microsoft, missing essential capability that's been around for over a decade.Instead of continually expanding features and technology, and providing a better user interface, we have a locked down system with a long list of basic missing features. Windows Mobile has been downgraded from an operating system to firmware with this release.
Even the user interface, supposedly "stylish" is almost everywhere an inefficient use of space to present information. It's fine to pander to customers who want that... but now there's no way to customize it to something better.
Other features removed: No microSD cards, incredible! No file system access! Anyone who understands what a file is should avoid this system.
I can see the benefits for the computer-illiterate, but for us and for business users why not make an open "Windows Mobile 7 Business" version without the limitations?
wolrah - Sunday, March 21, 2010 - link
The carriers need the shiny new phones to attract customers, not the other way around. The consumer cares more about the thing they're carrying rather than the network it's on (see iPhone and AT&T). With that in mind, the experience of a mobile phone OS should be about the user, not the carrier.The ability for carriers to screw with phones is almost universally a bad thing. The CDMA carriers' love of BREW on dumbphones, Verizon's obsession with crippling devices, AT&T's lockdown of the Backflip and the previous heavy limits on "bandwidth intense" iPhone apps, etc. I don't think I need to go on to show that the carriers should never be allowed to influence phones in the slightest. I can not come up with a single example where carrier modifications were a benefit for the end user even on dumbphones, much less on smartphones.
The bit about appeasing carriers worried about becoming "dumb pipes" is the problem in a nutshell. They are dumb pipes, that's the point. They provide the spectrum and backhaul lines that connect my phone to the PSTN and Internet. Saying that telecom carriers don't want to be dumb pipes is like saying that Ford doesn't want to be a car company. It just doesn't make sense, since that's exactly what they are.
trochevs - Sunday, March 21, 2010 - link
I agree with you. Unfortunately we have two serious obstacles here. First is the brainwashed US consumer who thinks he/she is getting better deal by getting locked phone from US carrier for free or discounted price from artificially inflated price of unlocked phone.The US consumer are scripted so well and never stop to think for a minute. Just notice poor sales figures in USA for unlocked phones from Nokia, Sony and Google are.
Second is the monopolistic behavior of US carriers. For many years they did not allowed unlocked phones on their networks. Only when real threat of regulation become evident they start allowing it. But they pile your phone bill with extra fees that makes you think twice. Not only that, but they keep charge you exact same monthly service fee even when everyone knows that this fee includes the price of the phone.
anactoraaron - Sunday, March 21, 2010 - link
not to mention the monopolistic reality of government agencies allowing these carriers to buy out all of the smaller, local companies. There is this trend of broken economics going on here and we, the "end users," are the ones paying for it (literally). Once where I live here there were 4 smaller companies my "unlocked" phone would work on.... now "unlocked" phones are almost all just ATT and T Mobile.trochevs - Sunday, March 21, 2010 - link
Well. Thanks Brian for great article and thanks AnandTech for great coverage of Windows Phone 7 so far.From what I see WP7 is targeted directly against Apple iPhone not Google's Android. Apple is attacking HTC to hurt Android, but looks like Steve jobs did not learn his lesson. The real hit will come from Microsoft again. MS is taking advantage that all mobile operators are not happy with Apple keeping iPhone away from them. It will be slow switch for many iPhone users, but MS has the financial power to keep the WP7 alive for a while.
Google's Android has own problem now. Google compromised their relationship with open source community in order to meet the US mobile operators and handset manufactures demands, but now Android is facing the real possibility that US carriers are going to use Android as bargaining power to get better deal from MS. Just like Asus and other OEM did with early versions of netbooks and using have-baked Linux distributions. So Google needs to decide between Open Source community or discontinue Android in the long run and accept that US carriers will hold the key and can lock out Google if they want to.
So the key would be. How well Mr. Jobs and Mr. Schmidt have learn the lessons form recent and not so recent past. It will be fun watching. And the key player could turn to be Intel with their MeeGo.
FITCamaro - Sunday, March 21, 2010 - link
They're definitely going to have to allow applications like Pandora to run in the background or no one will buy the phone. I use Pandora on my Droid. If it killed Pandora any time I wanted to check my email, send a text message, or browse the web, I'd be be pissed.DigitalFreak - Sunday, March 21, 2010 - link
Unfortunately, it looks like they're going down the iPhone route and locking everything down. App store, no SD cards, etc. Really not surprising I guess when you look at how they handled the Xbox 360.