But Motorola Mobility leapt past RIM with an Android phone that packs a dual-core chip.
Quad-core Qualcomm SnapDragon S4 Pro features a 40% higher performance rate than the existing quad-core chip.
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At the high end, AMD detailed an eight-core chip, dubbed Sandtiger, that it plans to introduce in 2009.
Qualcomm ( QCOM) recently came out with a new quad-core chip that some experts think has distinct advantages over its competitors.
XE300M22-A01US carries a 2.5GHz, Sandy Bridge-era dual-core chip on top of the usual 4GB of memory and 16GB solid-state drive.
Intel recently came out with a dual-core chip, useful for low-power laptops.
Once you get past those well executed headline features, however, there's a certain scarcity of real utility to be had from this dual-core chip.
It doesn't help matters when you're trying to render that inefficient code on extremely low-end hardware, like the sub-1GHz single-core chip inside the ZTE Open.
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Outside of the 10.1-inch screen, it's sporting its own 1.5GHz dual-core chip and 1.9-megapixel front camera as well as a 5-megapixel rear sensor, HDMI video out and USB.
Sadly, few software developers are crafting their wares (warez?) to take advantage of multi-core processing as is, so it's gonna take more than just the existence of Intel's 48-core chip to make its vision a reality.
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Tanausu Ramirez, another Intel research scientist working on the 48-core chip said that instead of one core working at near top capacity and using a lot of energy, many cores could run in parallel on different projects and use less energy.
If the specifications are real, the 8X would bear more in common with the Droid Incredible 4G LTE, sharing its 1.2GHz dual-core chip, 8-megapixel rear camera, Beats Audio and NFC while picking up a slightly larger 4.3-inch screen and 16GB of storage.
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Announced in Beijing just now is the Xiaomi Phone 2, and with the exception of the appearance, most of the specs match the many leaks we've come across: 4.3-inch 720p IPS display by Sharp and JDI, Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 quad-core chip, 2GB RAM and 16GB memory.
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That would be pretty decent for the specs we know so far: 4.5-inch qHD IPS gapless display, MSM8225Q quad-core chip, dual-SIM support, an eight-megapixel main camera (which produced reasonably good photos, from what we could see), a two-megapixel front-facing camera, and Baidu cloud service integration with 15GB of storage for life, plus another 15GB free for one year.
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Measuring at 6.93mm thick (instead of the rumored 6.13mm), we're surprised that Oppo didn't set this to be the follow-up to the Finder: sure, it's 0.28mm thicker, but it also aces the latter with a 4.7-inch 720p in-cell display, a 1.2GHz quad-core chip with 1GB RAM (likely MediaTek's Cortex-A7-based MT6589 SoC), Android 4.2 and a sorely missed 3.5mm headphone jack -- so no micro-USB adapter required.
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While the low-voltage Core i5 chip (there's a Core i3 option), 1080p IPS-based screen, 5-megapixel rear camera and front 1.3-megapixel shooter don't scream for attention by themselves among higher-end Windows 8 slates, there's an optical trackpoint and mouse buttons that make themselves genuinely handy in the non-Metro desktop.
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The introduction of the dual-core A5 chip (that's dual-core on the CPU and the graphics side) is a huge boon for the touch.
This chip is currently THREE generations behind the 1.4GHz dual-core A6X chip found in the iPad 4.
In contrast with the Dell and the Mac, Microsoft's Xbox 360 uses an even quicker, three-core IBM chip.
We will say this: based on our hands-on the dual-core MSM8960 chip powering the device seems pretty serviceable.
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The dual-core A5 chip delivers responsive graphics and a fast, fluid Multi-Touch experience, while still providing all-day battery life.
The iPad is based on the new A5X quad core graphics chip, features a 5 megapixel camera, 1080p video recording, and voice dictation.
The dual-core Power6 chip boasts a top speed of 4.7 gigahertz, double that of IBM's previous Power5 and represents a next generation processor to the PowerPC, the chip that was previously used in Apple's Macintosh computers.
As you'll no doubt be aware having read our headline above, there actually isn't a 1GHz CPU at the helm, as AnandTech and IOSnoops report the dual-core ARM chip is dynamically clocked around 900MHz, likely in search of reduced power consumption.
The dual-core Power6 chip boasts a top speed of 4.7 gigahertz, double that of IBM's previous Power5 and represents a next generation processor to the PowerPC, the chip that was previously used in Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people )'s Macintosh computers.
As you'll see if you check out the video after the break, it's built by Compal and includes a 13-inch 1080p display with a quad-core Temash chip, which when combined with its Turbo Dock delivers some serious power -- going from 8 W to 15 W, with extra air flow delivered through the connector to keep it cool.
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At the core of the chip is what Intel calls a Rapid Execution Engine, an enhancement that allows the core of the processor to operate at twice the frequency than the rest of the chip, Yu said.
As it turns out, it runs a quad-core version of AMD's new Temash chip, which is being billed as the first quad-core, x86-based SoC. (There's also a dual-core version.) Built into the chip is an HD Radeon 8000 series GPU with AMD's Graphics Core Next architecture, so in theory you should be able to pull off PC-caliber gaming even on a tablet.
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Samsung reps have been a little cagey on what's powering the thing, but at least one will have an eight-core Exynos 5 chip -- though to be fair it's actually dual four-core processors, rather than eight equal cores.
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