LG GW990 Opens a New Era for Smart Phones

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Smart phone technology has been one of the fastest advancing daily-use technologies of today. Already we are seeing reports of better processors and even testing of new network bands such as 4G. Of course, in order to push industry standards, devices that make the most out of current technology have to pave the way. This is probably what the LG GW990 will do for the mobile phone industry. While other smart phones like the HTC Nexus One and the Nokia N900 are impressive devices, their specs are still within the range of what we normally expect from a high end device.

The GW990 goes past expectations in terms of hardware; the main focus of the device is its new Intel Atom processor and the SoC (system on a chip) Moorestown. But with its large dimensions and not so familiar platform, will people warm up to this new device?

Device Specifications

This is one mobile phone that really breaks new ground in terms of specs. The screen alone is large, sized at 4.8 inches diagonally, it makes up for phone’s uncommonly large size. The device is still slim enough to grip comfortably at least. The large screen’s biggest bonus is the 1024 x 480 pixels of resolution, delivering what is the highest resolution available in a mobile phone screen.

The device also comes with 16GB of internal memory and about 512 MB of RAM. We expect the device to be compatible with the latest microSD cards but have yet to confirm if it can handle the newer 64GB SD cards that have been reported to be under production. For power, this mobile phone gets its juice from a massive 1850 mAh lithium ion battery. The large capacity is for more than just increasing usage time; the screen and the new Atom processor would certainly need a lot of power too.

A New Breed of Processors

LG’s brave new direction in mobile phone development does not stay at the exterior level. Even the core of the phone uses new technology. Unlike most other mobile phones that rely on ARM chips, the LG GW990 will be using the new Intel Atom; Moorestown.

When the device popped up at the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, it was among the many other Moorestown devices at the Intel booth (which included an impressive tablet called Open Speak and the a mobile phone by Aava).

Moorestown relies on the Moblin Linux operating system; and it is quite unlikely that other OS will be used with the chip. Performance wise, the processor handles loading of apps and functions quite easily. It even supports multi tasking. Representatives from the Intel booth are confident that the device handles single and multi threading faster than even a dual Cortex A9 CPU.

Aside from its speed, the new Atom also promises to be more power-friendly, using only a tenth of what previous Atom processors needed.

New Phone, New OS

Details on the exact features on the version of Moblin operating system that is used on the GW990 have not been revealed, but the initial demos showed that the OS will be skinned with the LG S-Class user interface.

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