In case you weren’t aware of this, current Sony Android smartphones are powered by dual-core chipsets, while their competitors such as HTC and Samsung have introduced quad-core smartphones as early as MWC this year. The good news is that if you are looking forward to a quad-core Sony smartphone, come 2013 your wish may come true. While there are rumors of a certain Sony “Odin” handset with a quad-core chipset along with some pretty impressive hardware, word on the street has it that Sony could also be looking at releasing cheap and affordable smartphones in 2013 that will also be quad-core powered.
How is that possible, you ask? While quad-core phones might conjure up images of high-end devices like the Samsung Galaxy S3, the HTC One X, the LG Optimus G and the likes, it seems that Sony might be able to pull this off as they could be sourcing their chipsets not from manufacturers like Qualcomm or NVIDIA, but MediaTek, a company whose chipsets can be found in not so well-known Chinese phones. While there is no confirmation of any orders, reports have indicated that Sony Mobile has requested samples of MediaTek’s MT6589 quad-core chipset.
For those wondering what sort of phones we can expect with the MT6589, the chipset is said to feature the Cortex A7 cores that can be clocked up to speeds of 1.2GHz. It will feature the PowerVR SGX544 GPU which should support display resolutions up to 720×1280, 13MP cameras and even 1080p Full HD video recording. Assuming Sony does go through with their plan and starts placing orders from MediaTek, tere is a good chance that Sony will be able to deliver quad-core phones that are affordable into the hands of the masses, giving them an edge over the competition where affordable phones usually equate to dual-core.