Understanding Qualcomm S4 Play and MediaTek MT6589

Anjie lou delos Reyes
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ARM Cortex-A5 versus Cortex-A7 (image from ARM website)

The Philippine local market is now flooded with CHEAP devices bearing Quad-Core processors. The two major chipsets are the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Play and MediaTek MT6589, wherein the former is based on ARM's Cortex-A5 while the latter is using the Cortex-A7 technology.

Contrary to many beliefs, both processors share the same architecture which is ARMv7-A Cortex, in fact even the latest Cortex-A15 (which is the main processor of Samsung Exynos Octa) use it.

Cortex-A5 was announced last October 2009 while the Cortex-A7 on October 2011 which means that the latter is a newer SoC. This translates to a chip improvement and between the two the most notable one is the Advanced Microcontroller Bus Architecture (AMBA), the interconnect structure of the SoC. Cortex-A7 uses a newer 128-bit AMBA ACE which means that the data processing inside the chip itself is faster.

We all know that Qualcomm and MediaTek just made a licensing deal with ARM to able to utilize this type of processors. Therefore, they can modify any part of it as long as the architecture remains intact. This could be too technical to explain so I just made the comparison between the two.



Chipset
Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Play
MediaTek MT6589
CPU
Up to 1.2Ghz
Up to 1.5GHz (Turbo)
GPU
Andreno 203 (49 million pixels per seconds)
PowerVR SGX544MP (55 million pixels per seconds)
Screen Support
qHD (960x540)
Full HD (1920x1080)
Video
720p
1080p
Modem
3G/4G
3G/4G
Camera
8MP
13MP
GPS
iZat Gen 7
Embedded
USB
Support up to version 2.0
Support up to version 3.0
Bluetooth
Support up to version 3.x
Support up to version 4.x
WiFi
802.11 n up to 2.4GHz
1GB
Process Technology
45nm
28nm


On paper, MT6589 is much better, but is it in real life performance? Please share your thoughts and experience below in the comment section.
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3Comments

  1. pucha, tanong pa ba yan... ang panget ng version ng qualcomm na yan. basurang cpu. shet!

    ReplyDelete
  2. If you are getting MT6589-M vs Qualcomm S4, mag s4 ka na. GPU ng 6589m, underclocked, tulad ng Razor

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sa low-end market lang yan ng Qualcomm...pero syempre talo dyan ang S4 kasi Cortex A5 lang, tapos ung GPU niya (Adreno 203) di naman malakas.

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