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Honeycomb To Require Dual-Core Processor
adeelarshad82 writes "According to managing director of Korean consumer electronics firm Enspert, Google's new Android Honeycomb tablet OS will require a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor to run properly. That means that many existing Android tablets will not be upgradeable to Honeycomb, as they lack the processor necessary to meet the spec. Currently, Nvidia's Tegra 2 platform is the only chipset in products on the market to include a Cortex-A9, although other manufacturers have said they're moving to the new processor architecture for 2011 products."
Google is trying to eliminate the fragmentation that everyone is complaining about, and also trying to reduce the crappy tablets out there giving Android a bad name.
By setting the minimum bar for Honeycomb at a dual-core A9 they can guarantee a certain experience and consistency for all the apps. They can probably also move to hardware acceleration for composite effects, which they can't do for all the Android cell phone hardware out there.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
This is already been discussed at length on androidcentral. The consensus is that this stupid rumor is false. It makes absolutely no sense to require any particular number of cores to run Android.
Who is writing this stuff and what is their motive???
Why would this tick you off? Did the manufacturer promise you that Honeycomb would run on it? If so, then you have a right to complain. But realistically, you should buy a phone or tablet because of the features it has today, not because of the features it may have tomorrow or next week.
This whole "more features later" promise BS is how we got stuck with Patch Tuesdays. Microsoft sold us a buggy OS and we knew it was buggy, but we bought anyway, because of the promise that they would fix it later.
The expectation should be that your $600 tablet does, out-of-the-box, at least $600 worth of stuff. If it happens to run Honeycomb or some other OS later on, then that's a great bonus for you.