HTC Announces The One ME With MediaTek's Helio X10
by Brandon Chester on June 4, 2015 12:16 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- HTC
- Mobile
Today the HTC One ME was officially announced in China. While it's not likely that this device will ever be sold in other markets, it's worth taking a look at to see what differences there are from the devices that HTC ships globally. Below you can see the specifications of the new HTC One ME.
| HTC One ME | ||||||
| SoC | MediaTek Helio X10, 4 x Cortex A53 at 2.2GHz + 4 x Cortex A53 at 2.2GHz, PowerVR G6200 GPU at 700MHz |
|||||
| Memory and Storage | 3GB LPDDR3 RAM, 32GB NAND + MicroSDXC | |||||
| Display | 5.2" 2560x1440 IPS LCD | |||||
| Cellular Connectivity | 2G / 3G / 4G LTE (MediaTek Category 4 LTE) | |||||
| Dimensions | 150.99 x 71.99 x 9.75 mm, 155g | |||||
| Cameras | 20MP Rear Facing w/ 1.12 µm pixels, 1/2.4" CMOS size, f/2.2, 27.8mm (35mm effective) 4MP Front Facing, 2.0 µm pixels, f/2.0 26.8mm (35mm effective) |
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| Battery | 2840 mAh (10.79Wh) | |||||
| Other Connectivity | 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.1, GNSS, NFC, DLNA | |||||
| Operating System | Android 5.0 Lollipop with HTC Sense | |||||
| SIM | Dual NanoSIM | |||||
As you can see, this is definitely positioned as a high end device. As far as HTC's overall lineup goes, the HTC One M9 is probably the best device to make comparisons to. The most obvious difference is with the SoC. While the One M9 uses Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810, the One ME uses MediaTek's Helio X10 SoC. This is one of MediaTek's high end chips, and it's really only second to the recently launched Helio X20. I wouldn't want to judge how the One ME's performance compares to the One M9 based on spec sheets, but I'm very interested in seeing comparisons of the two phones once the One ME gets into the hands of users.
Moving on from the SoC, we see specs that mostly mirror those of the One M9. The battery capacity, cameras, RAM, and NAND are all exactly the same. The biggest specification change is to the display. While the One M9 sports a 5" 1920x1080 panel, the One ME has a higher resolution 5.2" 2560x1440 panel. This means that the One ME is also slightly larger and thicker than the One M9, and ever so slightly lighter.
For me the most interesting thing about the HTC One ME is probably the fingerprint scanner on the bottom. Whether it's a swipe style sensor like the HTC One Max or a touch and hold sensor like the iPhone is currently unknown, but having a fingerprint scanner at all when the One M9 doesn't is notable to say the least. I also like the design where it's set between two speaker grilles.
There's currently no indication of what the HTC One ME will cost, or when it will begin shipping in China. When it does go on sale, it'll be available in rose gold, gold sepia, and black. It's doubtful that it'll ever be seen on North American shores, although I would love to get my hands on one.
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french toast - Friday, June 5, 2015 - link
That's what I thought, but soc's with 8 cores DO get used, it seems that it is more about efficiency than any outright performance gains for most tasks, although evidence is a bit thin on the ground for use for more than 2\4 cores, this was an interesting quick look into the subject; http://www.androidauthority.com/fact-or-fiction-an...Ammaross - Monday, June 8, 2015 - link
Android actually allows background tasks and such to run, thus multiple cores can be useful. Most phone apps, however, are not complex or powerful enough (aside from some games) to need the multiple cores. That is not to say multiple cores are not useful though, and several apps could benefit from threading (such as browsers).DIYEyal - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
I never understood why Mediatek always chooses to implement many weak cores without any powerful cores like bigLITTLE or just strong cores. Yes, 8 cores at 2.2GHz sounds awesome to people who don't know that there's more than number of cores and GHz. But since a lot of app developers don't optimize their apps to take advantage of these cores and not every task can be spread between 8 cores, you would be better with bigLITTLE or just a bunch of big cores.jjj - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
This is not a 50$ SoC , Mediatek hasn't attacked that market yet and that market is rather small in units. Big cores are a lot bigger and with more cache. On 28nm for example:A53 core 1.2mm2, quad cluster 8.4mm2
A57 core 3.6mm2 , quad cluster 20.7mm2
This SoC is also on 28nm and as SD808 and 810 showed us even 20nm is not working out all that well for A57. So Mediatek going 20nm would not only cost a lot more but also fail to provide major perf gains. They are doing dual A72 (plus 4+4 A53) on 20nm , guess A72 is a better fit just like last year they went A17 for the lower high end.
When it comes to the cheaper 8 cores, like MT6752 or SD615, those SoC started at 15-20$ and will keep dropping over time towards 10-12$. In the real world costs are very important. In this segment the cost of batteries matters a lot too, if the SoC needs a battery that costs 1$ more it's a deal breaker.
You might also not realize how fast A53 is at 2.2GHz or how slow something like the SD810 gets when it throttles. Here this SoC vs OPO http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/...
As for app scaling, i dare you to find actual proof not empty claims,, people love to claim that apps don't scale without looking into it. And nobody needs everything to scale, just like in PC the vast majority of users almost never need quad core.
Maybe also look at this review and compare power consumption for A53 and A57 at 1.3GHz http://www.anandtech.com/show/8718/the-samsung-gal...
LiviuTM - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
Also, let's not forget 8 is a lucky number in China, where MediaTek makes the bulk of its business. I expect SoCs with 8 small cores to remain very popular in the foreseeable future.jjj - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
lol no idea about the number 8 in China but to be accurate the high end SoCs have 8 cores too at this point.I have to point out that the bulk of Mediatek's units sales is far lesser SoCs , 8xA53 is well above average.
I do actually suspect that ARM will put a lot more effort into the next small core. They know the small core gets very high volumes so they might aim for perf per die area and care less about low power. They somewhat did that already with A53. The low power focus will go towards the core for wearables and the small core in bigLIttle would be aimed at the developing world as a standalone core.
Flunk - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
Do people really buy phones based on superstitions?YoloPascual - Thursday, June 4, 2015 - link
Yes, and 4 in china is bad luck.Ammaross - Monday, June 8, 2015 - link
Just don't tell them they're buying two SETS of 4, for twice the bad luck.french toast - Friday, June 5, 2015 - link
Look at this quick look into android real use multi threading....seems 8 cores DO get used, what the actual benefits to this are in efficiency and performance over using 2/4 of the same core remains to be seen, perhaps the wizards of an anand tech could take a look into this subject in more detail...http://www.androidauthority.com/fact-or-fiction-an...