World’s first phone to pack 10-core Helio X30 chip is nearly here

A Chinese phone manufacturer is gearing up to release the world’s first phone to use MediaTek’s deca-core chip later this month.

Vernee has confirmed to journalist and tipster Roland Quandt that the upcoming Vernee Apollo 2 smartphone will be the first to use the MediaTek Helio X30. The Helio X30 was announced in September last year, and is notable for the fact that it boasts ten processor cores.

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MediaTek’s main aim with the use of ten cores is to improve a phone’s power efficiency; after all, Android apps aren’t generally designed to use more than two to four cores at a given time, so ten cores doesn’t imply more power.

So how does it work? Well the X30 has three sections of processors, as follows:

• Two Cortex-A73 cores at 2.8GHz clock-rate
• Four Cortex-A53 cores at 2.2GHz clock-rate
• Four Cortex-A53 cores at 2.0GHz clock-rate

This means that when a phone wants to get something done, like loading an app or playing a game, it will select the most appropriate task. So for a demanding task, the phone will use the power-hungry, but very powerful, Cortex-A73 cores. Whereas the low clock-rate (and highly efficient) Cortex-A53 cores will be used for more menial computing jobs. Many of Qualcomm’s chips already offer this arrangement, and Apple introduced a similar setup with the A10 Fusion chip inside last year’s iPhone 7.

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The Vernee Apollo 2 is also tipped to feature an incredible 8GB of RAM, which seems like overkill, but could be seen as future-proofing.

Vernee is set to announce the new handset at this month’s MWC 2017, Barcelona’s annual technology tradeshow. Stay tuned to TrustedReviews for the latest from the convention.

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