MediaTek has had a rather successful couple of years, especially since it launched the dual-core MT6577 chipset. The MT6577 promised to bring dual-core processing to the average user, at a price point that wouldn’t burn a hole in the buyers wallet. The Taiwanese maker quickly built up on this, and released more powerful chipsets soon — the quad-core MT6589 and the MT6582.
These still feature in some budget phones, and offer mid-range performance. What this did is, made the big guns (Sony, HTC, etc.) take notice of the rising maker. We saw the Sony Xperia C, a MediaTek MT6589 powered phone, fare quite well in the market. If that wasn’t enough, HTC took the MediaTek route with some of its phones including the Desire 310 which utilized the MT6582M, which made even the biggest of guns consider MediaTek as an option.
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Although it may sound far fetched for now, but there’s a rumour that the next Google Nexus device would make use of a chipset from the MediaTek inventory. While you may find it hard to believe, it makes perfect sense — Google’s Nexus devices are meant to deliver a pure, unadulterated Android experience to the everyday user at an affordable price. What both companies need to sort out is sharing of sources; MediaTek are generally criticized of not complying with open source policies put forth by Android.
What this will result in is a win-win situation. Not only will MediaTek find itself better accepted by users, but the next Nexus will also be cheaper than any previous release. We all know how capable MediaTek is with their manufacturing; the maker provides chipsets and radios for hundreds of manufacturers from all around the globe.
Considering how popular Nexus devices are, Google might even get a customized chipset for its next. While we’re currently only riding the speculation wagon, we really hope this doesn’t end here.
Google is always about bang for bucks so unless Google is aiming for inexpensive 8 core, LTE and dual sim, which I don’t think, then the Mediatek is the SOC to use. But Mediatek will have to do something about their GPS because it still remains one of the big flaws in their SOCs. Also if Google wants dual SIM they can easily use the Snapdragon 801 or cheaper Snapdragon 410. Before any flaming starts, I am not a Snapdragon fanboy, I am an experienced user with both Mediatek and Qualcomm.
The GPS problems is mostly about the phone makers and not the mediatek chipset.
Lenovo S920 has a quite good GPS using MT6589. The Huawei Honor 3X using MT6592 can usually lock on all the satellites it’s seeing and fast too. The more expensive Qualcomm based phones work better but mostly because of GLONASS support which these MediaTek chipsets lack.
But if you buy Chinese “noname” phones your GPS will suck regardless if its MediaTek or Qualcomm.
Also the Lenovo A760 with Qualcomm (Snapdragon 200) has a totally crap GPS (but some people claim the GPS is good, so maybe I got a lemon). It’s dual SIM-functionality is broken on the firmware/driver level as well..
It’s a late April fool ? a Google phone doomed in one Android version ( mediatel trademark ) … LOL
The Amazon phone will use a 801 Qualcomm (based the prototype leaked ) … there no surprise for the next Nexus phone
If google did go for their soc perhaps mediatek would finally be forced to release some bloody sources for their chips so devs could work on custom roms!
I support that!
i don’t believe that mediatek would do this
It’s Google’s agenda. So I think that it would probably be a condition of the deal. At least Google will be allowed to put ALL the code for the co-developed device into AOSP.
Haven’t there been a rumor that the Google is cancelling the Nexus project?
ha ha..imagine a nexus with closed sources…now that would be the day
Mediatek?! Hell no…
Regardless, it wouldn’t be for the next go around. Google I/O is 6 weeks away, and they will most likely announce a Nexus 6 and some tablet device at the event.
I hope so as the Nexus 5 was ruined by it’s pathetic battery life.