The first ARM chips appeared three decades ago thanks to the efforts of the British company Acorn Computers (now ARM Limited), but for a long time they were in the shadow of their more famous counterparts - x86 architecture processors. Everything turned upside down with the transition of the IT industry to the post-computer era, when the ball was no longer ruled by PCs, but by mobile gadgets.
Features of the ARM architecture
It's worth starting, perhaps, with the fact that in the x86 processor architecture, which is now used by Intel and AMD, the CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer) instruction set is used, although not in its pure form. So, a large number of complex commands in their structure, which for a long time was a hallmark of CISC, are first decoded into simple ones, and only then processed. It is clear that this whole chain of actions takes a lot of energy.
The ARM architecture chips with the Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) instruction set act as an energy-efficient alternative. Its advantage is in the initially small set of simple commands that are processed at minimal cost. As a result, two processor architectures, x86 and ARM, coexist peacefully (in fact, not very peacefully) on the consumer electronics market, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages.
The x86 architecture is positioned as more versatile in terms of tasks it can do, including even resource-intensive ones such as photo, music and video editing, as well as data encryption and compression. In turn, the ARM architecture "leaves" due to extremely low power consumption and, in general, sufficient performance for the most important purposes today: drawing web pages and playing media content.
Business model of ARM Limited
Now ARM Limited is only engaged in the development of reference processor architectures and their licensing. The creation of specific chip models and their subsequent mass production is already the business of ARM licensees, of which there are a great many. Among them are companies known only in narrow circles like STMicroelectronics, HiSilicon and Atmel, as well as IT giants, whose names are on everyone's lips - Samsung, NVIDIA and Qualcomm. The full list of licensee companies can be found on the corresponding page of the official website of ARM Limited.
Such a large number of licensees is primarily due to the abundance of applications for ARM processors, and mobile gadgets are just the tip of the iceberg. Inexpensive and energy efficient chips are used in embedded systems, network equipment and measuring instruments. Payment terminals, external 3G modems and sports heart rate monitors are all based on the ARM processor architecture.
According to analysts, ARM Limited itself earns $0.067 in royalties from each chip produced. But this is a very average amount, because the cost of the latest multi-core processors is significantly superior to single-core chips of outdated architecture.
Single chip system
From a technical point of view, calling ARM architecture chips processors is not entirely correct, because in addition to one or more computing cores, they include a number of related components. More appropriate in this case are the terms single-chip system and system-on-a-chip (from the English system on a chip).
So, the latest single-chip systems for smartphones and tablet computers include a RAM controller, a graphics accelerator, a video decoder, an audio codec, and optional wireless communication modules. Highly specialized chips may include additional controllers for interacting with peripheral devices such as sensors.
Individual components of a single-chip system can be developed directly by ARM Limited or by third parties. A striking example of this are graphics accelerators, which, in addition to ARM Limited (Mali graphics), are being developed by Qualcomm (Adreno graphics) and NVIDIA (GeForce ULP graphics).
Do not forget about the Imagination Technologies company, which does nothing else but design PowerVR graphics accelerators at all. But it is she who owns almost half of the global mobile graphics market: Apple and Amazon gadgets, Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 tablets, as well as inexpensive smartphones based on MTK processors.
Legacy Chip Generations
Obsolete, but still widespread processor architectures are ARM9 and ARM11, which belong to the ARMv5 and ARMv6 families, respectively.
ARM9. ARM9 chips can reach clock speeds of 400 MHz and are most likely the ones installed inside your wireless router and an old but still reliable mobile phone like the Sony Ericsson K750i and Nokia 6300. Critically important for ARM9 chips is the Jazelle instruction set, which allows comfortable working with Java applications (Opera Mini, Jimm, Foliant, etc.).
ARM11. ARM11 processors boast an extended set of instructions compared to ARM9 and a much higher clock speed (up to 1 GHz), although their power is also not enough for modern tasks. However, due to low power consumption and, no less important, cost, ARM11 chips are still used in entry-level smartphones: Samsung Galaxy Pocket and Nokia 500.
Modern generations of chips
All more or less new ARM architecture chips belong to the ARMv7 family, the flagship representatives of which have already reached the mark of eight cores and a clock frequency of over 2 GHz. The processor cores developed directly by ARM Limited belong to the Cortex line and most of the manufacturers of single-chip systems use them without significant changes. Only Qualcomm and Apple have created their own modifications based on ARMv7 - the first called their creations Scorpion and Krait, and the second - Swift.
ARM Cortex-A8. Historically, the first processor core of the ARMv7 family was Cortex-A8, which formed the basis of such well-known SoCs of its time as Apple A4 (iPhone 4 and iPad) and Samsung Hummingbird (Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab). It demonstrates about twice the performance compared to the predecessor ARM11. In addition, the Cortex-A8 core received a NEON coprocessor for processing high-resolution video and support for the Adobe Flash plugin.
True, all this had a negative impact on the power consumption of Cortex-A8, which is significantly higher than that of ARM11. Despite the fact that ARM Cortex-A8 chips are still used in budget tablets (Allwiner Boxchip A10 single-chip system), their days on the market, apparently, are numbered.
ARM Cortex-A9. Following Cortex-A8, ARM Limited introduced a new generation of chips - Cortex-A9, which is now the most common and occupies a middle price niche. The performance of the Cortex-A9 cores has increased by about three times compared to the Cortex-A8, and it is also possible to combine them two or even four on a single chip.
The NEON coprocessor has already become optional: NVIDIA has eliminated it in its Tegra 2 single-chip system, deciding to free up more space for the graphics accelerator. True, nothing good came of this, because most video player applications still focused on the time-tested NEON.
It was during the "reign" of Cortex-A9 that the first implementations of the big.LITTLE concept proposed by ARM Limited appeared, according to which single-chip systems should have both powerful and weak, but energy-efficient processor cores. The first implementation of the big.LITTLE concept was an NVIDIA Tegra 3 system-on-a-chip with four Cortex-A9 cores (up to 1.7 GHz) and a fifth energy-efficient companion core (500 MHz) for simple background tasks.
ARM Cortex-A5 and Cortex-A7. When designing the Cortex-A5 and Cortex-A7 processor cores, ARM Limited pursued the same goal - to achieve a compromise between the minimum power consumption of ARM11 and the acceptable speed of the Cortex-A8. We didn’t forget about the possibility of combining two or four cores - multi-core Cortex-A5 and Cortex-A7 chips are gradually appearing on sale (Qualcomm MSM8625 and MTK 6589).
ARM Cortex-A15. The Cortex-A15 processor cores became a logical continuation of the Cortex-A9 - as a result, for the first time in history, ARM architecture chips managed to roughly match the performance of Intel Atom, and this is already a great success. It is not for nothing that Canonical has specified a dual-core ARM Cortex-A15 processor or a similar Intel Atom in the system requirements for the version of the Ubuntu Touch OS with full multitasking.
Numerous gadgets based on NVIDIA Tegra 4 with four ARM Cortex-A15 cores and a fifth companion core Cortex-A7 will go on sale very soon. Following NVIDIA, the big.LITTLE concept was picked up by Samsung: the “heart” of the Galaxy S4 smartphone was the Exynos 5 Octa chip with four Cortex-A15 cores and the same number of energy-efficient Cortex-A7 cores.
Future prospects
Mobile gadgets based on Cortex-A15 chips have not yet really appeared on sale, and the main trends in the further development of the ARM architecture are already known. ARM Limited has already officially unveiled the next family of ARMv8 processors, which will be mandatory 64-bit. The Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57 cores open up a new era of RISC processors: the first is energy efficient and the second is high-performance, but both are capable of working with large amounts of RAM.
Manufacturers of consumer electronics have not yet become particularly interested in the ARMv8 processor family, but new licensees have loomed on the horizon, planning to bring ARM chips to the server market: AMD and Calxeda. The idea is innovative, but it has the right to life: the same NVIDIA Tesla graphics accelerators, consisting of a large number of simple cores, have proven their effectiveness as server solutions in practice.
The vast majority of modern gadgets use processors based on the ARM architecture, which is being developed by the ARM Limited company of the same name. Interestingly, the company itself does not produce processors, but only licenses its technologies to third-party chip manufacturers. In addition, the company also develops Cortex processor cores and Mali graphics accelerators, which we will definitely touch on in this material.
The ARM company, in fact, is a monopolist in its field, and the vast majority of modern smartphones and tablets on various mobile operating systems use processors based on the ARM architecture. Chipmakers license individual cores, instruction sets and related technologies from ARM, and the cost of licenses varies significantly depending on the type of processor cores (from low-power budget solutions to cutting-edge quad-core and even eight-core chips) and additional components. ARM Limited's 2006 annual income statement showed revenues of $161 million for licensing about 2.5 billion processors (up from $7.9 billion in 2011), which translates into approximately $0.067 per chip. However, for the reason stated above, this is a very average figure due to the difference in prices for various licenses, and since then the company's profit should have grown many times over.
Currently, ARM processors are very widespread. Chips on this architecture are used everywhere, right down to servers, but most often ARM can be found in embedded and mobile systems, from hard drive controllers to modern smartphones, tablets and other gadgets.
ARM develops several families of cores that are used for various tasks. For example, processors based on Cortex-Mx and Cortex-Rx (where "x" is a digit or a number indicating the exact core number) are used in embedded systems and even consumer devices such as routers or printers.
We will not dwell on them in detail, because we are primarily interested in the Cortex-Ax family - chips with such cores are used in the most productive devices, including smartphones, tablets and game consoles. ARM is constantly working on new cores from the Cortex-Ax line, but at the time of this writing, smartphones use the following ones:
Cortex-A5;
Cortex-A7;
Cortex-A8;
Cortex-A9;
Cortex-A12;
Cortex-A15;
Cortex-A53;
The larger the number, the higher the processor performance and, accordingly, the more expensive the class of devices in which it is used. However, it is worth noting that this rule is not always observed: for example, chips based on Cortex-A7 cores have higher performance than those based on Cortex-A8. Nevertheless, if Cortex-A5 processors are already considered almost obsolete and are almost never used in modern devices, then Cortex-A15 processors can be found in flagship communicators and tablets. Not so long ago, ARM officially announced the development of new, more powerful and, at the same time, energy-efficient Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57 cores, which will be combined on a single chip using ARM big.LITTLE technology and support the ARMv8 instruction set (“architecture version”) , but they are not currently used in mass consumer devices. Most chips with Cortex cores can be multi-core, and quad-core processors are ubiquitous in modern high-end smartphones.
Large manufacturers of smartphones and tablets usually use processors from well-known chipmakers like Qualcomm or their own solutions that have already become quite popular (for example, Samsung and its family of Exynos chipsets), but among the technical characteristics of gadgets of most small companies, you can often find descriptions like “processor based on Cortex-A7 @ 1 GHz" or "Dual Core Cortex-A7 @ 1 GHz", which won't tell the average user anything. In order to understand what the differences between such nuclei are, let's focus on the main ones.
Cortex-A5
The Cortex-A5 core is used in inexpensive processors for the most budget devices. Such devices are designed only to perform a limited range of tasks and run simple applications, but are not at all designed for resource-intensive programs and, especially, games. An example of a gadget with a Cortex-A5 processor is the Highscreen Blast, which received a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Play MSM8225 chip containing two Cortex-A5 cores clocked at 1.2 GHz.
Cortex-A7
Cortex-A7 processors are more powerful than Cortex-A5 chips and are more common. Such chips are made on a 28-nanometer process technology and have a large second-level cache up to 4 megabytes. Cortex-A7 cores are found mainly in budget smartphones and low-cost mid-range devices like the iconBIT Mercury Quad, and, as an exception, in the Samsung Galaxy S IV GT-i9500 with an Exynos 5 Octa processor - this chipset uses an energy-saving quad-core processor on Cortex-A7.
Cortex-A8
The Cortex-A8 core is not as common as its “neighbors”, Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A9, but is still used in various entry-level gadgets. The operating clock frequency of Cortex-A8 chips can range from 600 MHz to 1 GHz, but sometimes manufacturers overclock processors to higher frequencies. A feature of the Cortex-A8 core is the lack of support for multi-core configurations (that is, processors on these cores can only be single-core), and they are executed on a 65-nanometer process technology, which is already considered obsolete.
Cortex-A9
A couple of years ago, Cortex-A9 cores were considered the top solution and were used in both traditional single-core and more powerful dual-core chips, such as Nvidia Tegra 2 and Texas Instruments OMAP4. Currently, processors based on Cortex-A9, made according to the 40-nanometer process technology, do not lose popularity and are used in many mid-range smartphones. The operating frequency of such processors can be from 1 to 2 or more gigahertz, but usually it is limited to 1.2-1.5 GHz.
Cortex-A12
In June 2013, ARM officially introduced the Cortex-A12 core, which is based on a new 28nm process technology and is designed to replace Cortex-A9 cores in mid-range smartphones. The developer promises a 40% increase in performance compared to Cortex-A9, and in addition, Cortex-A12 cores will be able to participate in the ARM big.LITTLE architecture as productive ones along with energy-saving Cortex-A7, which will allow manufacturers to create inexpensive eight-core chips. True, at the time of this writing, all this is only in the plans, and mass production of Cortex-A12 chips has not yet been established, although RockChip has already announced its intention to release a quad-core Cortex-A12 processor with a frequency of 1.8 GHz.
Cortex-A15
For 2013, the Cortex-A15 core and its derivatives are the top solution and are used in flagship communicator chips from various manufacturers. Among the new processors made according to the 28-nm process technology and based on Cortex-A15 are Samsung Exynos 5 Octa and Nvidia Tegra 4, and this core often acts as a platform for modifications from other manufacturers. For example, Apple's latest A6X processor uses Swift cores, which are a modification of the Cortex-A15. Chips on Cortex-A15 are capable of operating at a frequency of 1.5-2.5 GHz, and support for many third-party standards and the ability to address up to 1 TB of physical memory makes it possible to use such processors in computers (how can one not recall a mini-computer the size of a bank Raspberry Pi card).
Cortex-A50 series
In the first half of 2013, ARM introduced a new line of chips called the Cortex-A50 series. The cores of this line will be made according to the new version of the architecture, ARMv8, and will support new instruction sets, and will also become 64-bit. The transition to a new bit depth will require optimization of mobile operating systems and applications, but, of course, support for tens of thousands of 32-bit applications will remain. Apple was the first to switch to 64-bit architecture. The company's latest devices, such as the iPhone 5S, run on just such an Apple A7 ARM processor. It is notable that it does not use Cortex cores - they are replaced with the manufacturer's own cores called Swift. One of the obvious reasons for the need to move to 64-bit processors is the support for more than 4 GB of RAM, and, in addition, the ability to operate with much larger numbers when calculating. Of course, while this is relevant, first of all, for servers and PCs, but we will not be surprised if smartphones and tablets with this amount of RAM appear on the market in a few years. To date, nothing is known about plans to release chips on a new architecture and smartphones using them, but it is likely that such processors will receive flagships in 2014, as Samsung has already announced.
Cortex-A53
The Cortex-A53 core opens the series, which will be the direct “successor” of the Cortex-A9. Processors based on Cortex-A53 are noticeably superior to chips based on Cortex-A9 in performance, but at the same time, low power consumption is maintained. Such processors can be used both individually and in the ARM big.LITTLE configuration, being combined on the same chipset with a Cortex-A57 processor
Processors on Cortex-A57, which will be made on a 20-nanometer process technology, should become the most powerful ARM processors in the near future. The new core significantly outperforms its predecessor, Cortex-A15, in various performance metrics (you can see the comparison above), and according to ARM, which is seriously targeting the PC market, will be a profitable solution for mainstream computers (including laptops), not just mobile ones. devices.
As a high-tech solution to the problem of power consumption of modern processors, ARM offers the big.LITTLE technology, the essence of which is to combine different types of cores on one chip, usually the same number of energy-saving and high-performance cores.
There are three schemes for the operation of different types of cores on a single chip: big.LITTLE (migration between clusters), big.LITTLE IKS (migration between cores), and big.LITTLE MP (heterogeneous multiprocessing).
big.LITTLE (migration between clusters)
The first chipset based on the ARM big.LITTLE architecture was the Samsung Exynos 5 Octa processor. It uses the original big.LITTLE “4+4” scheme, which means two clusters (hence the name of the scheme) on one chip of four high-performance Cortex-A15 cores for resource-intensive applications and games and four energy-saving Cortex-A7 cores for everyday work with most programs, and at one time only one type of kernel can work. Switching between groups of cores occurs almost instantly and imperceptibly for the user in a fully automatic mode.
A more complex implementation of the big.LITTLE architecture is the combination of several real cores (usually two) into one virtual one, controlled by the operating system kernel, which decides which cores to use - energy efficient or productive. Of course, there are also several virtual cores - the illustration shows an example of an IKS scheme, where each of the four virtual cores contains one Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A15 core.
The big.LITTLE MP scheme is the most "advanced" one - in it each core is independent and can be turned on by the OS core as needed. This means that if four Cortex-A7 cores and the same number of Cortex-A15 cores are used, in a chipset built on the ARM big.LITTLE MP architecture, all 8 cores will be able to work simultaneously, even though they are of different types. One of the first processors of this type was the company's eight-core chip, which can operate at a clock frequency of 2 GHz, as well as record and play video in UltraHD resolution.
Future
According to currently available information, in the near future, ARM, together with other companies, plans to launch the release of next-generation big.LITTLE chips that will use the new Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57 cores. In addition, the Chinese manufacturer MediaTek is going to release budget processors on ARM big.LITTLE, which will work according to the “2 + 2” scheme, that is, use two groups of two cores.
In addition to processors, ARM also develops graphics accelerators of the Mali family. Like processors, graphics accelerators are characterized by many parameters, such as the level of anti-aliasing, bus interface, cache (ultra-fast memory used to increase speed) and the number of “graphics cores” (although, as we wrote in a previous article, this indicator, despite the similarity with the term used to describe the CPU has little to no effect on performance when comparing two GPUs).
The first ARM graphics accelerator was the now unused Mali 55, which was used in the LG Renoir touch phone (yes, the most ordinary cell phone). The GPU was not used in games - only for drawing the interface, and had primitive characteristics by today's standards, but it was he who became the "ancestor" of the Mali series.
Since then, progress has come a long way, and now supported APIs and game standards are of no small importance. For example, support for OpenGL ES 3.0 is now announced only in the most powerful processors like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 and 800, and, if we talk about ARM products, the standard is supported by such accelerators as the Mali-T604 (it was he who became the first ARM graphics processor made on new microarchitecture Midgard), Mali-T624, Mali-T628, Mali-T678 and some other chips similar in characteristics. One or another GPU, as a rule, is closely related to the core, but, nevertheless, it is indicated separately, which means that if the quality of graphics in games is important to you, then it makes sense to look at the name of the accelerator in the specifications of a smartphone or tablet.
ARM also has graphics accelerators for mid-range smartphones, the most common of which are Mali-400 MP and Mali-450 MP, which differ from their older brothers in relatively low performance and a limited set of APIs and supported standards. Despite this, these GPUs continue to be used in new smartphones, for example, the Zopo ZP998, which received the Mali-450 MP4 graphics accelerator (an improved modification of the Mali-450 MP) in addition to the eight-core MTK6592 processor.
Presumably, at the end of 2014, smartphones with the latest ARM graphics accelerators should appear: Mali-T720, Mali-T760 and Mali-T760 MP, which were introduced in October 2013. Mali-T720 should be the new GPU for low-end smartphones and the first GPU in this segment to support Open GL ES 3.0. Mali-T760, in turn, will become one of the most powerful mobile graphics accelerators: according to the declared characteristics, the GPU has 16 processing cores and has a truly huge processing power, 326 Gflops, but at the same time, four times less power consumption than Mali-T604 mentioned above.
The role of CPU and GPU from ARM in the market
Despite the fact that ARM is the author and developer of the architecture of the same name, which, we repeat, is now used in the vast majority of mobile processors, its solutions in the form of cores and graphics accelerators are not popular with major smartphone manufacturers. For example, it is rightly believed that flagship communicators on Android OS should have a Snapdragon processor with Krait cores and an Adreno graphics accelerator from Qualcomm, chipsets from the same company are used in Windows Phone smartphones, and some gadget manufacturers, for example, Apple, develop their own cores. . Why is this the current situation?
Perhaps some of the reasons may lie deeper, but one of them is the lack of a clear positioning of the CPU and GPU from ARM among the products of other companies, as a result of which the company's developments are perceived as basic components for use in B-brand devices, low-cost smartphones and creating based on them more mature decisions. For example, Qualcomm repeats at almost every presentation that one of its main goals when creating new processors is to reduce power consumption, and its Krait cores, being modified by Cortex cores, consistently show higher performance results. A similar statement is true for Nvidia chipsets, which are focused on games, but as for the Exynos processors from Samsung and the A-series from Apple, they have their own market due to the installation in smartphones of the same companies.
The above does not mean at all that ARM developments are significantly worse than third-party processors and cores, but competition in the market ultimately only benefits smartphone buyers. We can say that ARM offers some blanks, by purchasing a license for which, manufacturers can already modify them on their own.
Conclusion
ARM-based microprocessors have successfully conquered the mobile device market due to their low power consumption and relatively large processing power. Previously, other RISC architectures, such as MIPS, competed with ARM, but now it has only one serious competitor left - Intel with the x86 architecture, which, by the way, although it is actively fighting for its market share, is not yet perceived by either consumers or most manufacturers seriously, especially when there are actually no flagships on it (Lenovo K900 can no longer compete with the latest top-end smartphones on ARM processors).
ARM Cortex-A7 MPCore is a processor core for mobile devices, specifically for the budget sector of the market, developed by ARM Holdings and implementing the ARM v7 architecture. Announced in October 2011 at ARM TechCon, the development codename is Cortex-A7 "Kingfisher".
The main tasks of the core: to become a faster, power efficient, and smaller replacement for the Cortex A8; use in big.LITTLE architecture solutions, combining one or more Cortex A7 cores with one or more Cortex A15 cores in a heterogeneous computing system. For such use, the core was designed to be fully compatible with the Cortex A15 architectural options. In other words, ARM Cortex-A7 MPCore has adopted some features from the Cortex-A15 processor model and boasts high energy efficiency.
The CPU frequency is from 0.6 to 3 GHz, although the maximum frequency for ARM Cortex-A7 is set at 1.5 GHz. Production technology from 65 to 28 nm. ARMv7 instruction sets. Number of cores from 1 to 4 per cluster, up to 2 clusters per chip. L1 cache: 8-64KB I, 8-64KB D and L2 cache: 0-1024KB (configurable with L2 cache controller)
The main thing about him:
CPU: MTK6589, Cortex A7 quad core, 4x1.2GHz, ARM v7
GPU: PowerVR SGX 544
2 SIM cards in standby mode (1 radio module), 3G
OS: Android 4.1.2 -> 4.2 expected in new batches
Screen: 5.8" ,1280 x 720 pixels
Memory: 1G RAM+ 8G (4G) ROM
Camera: 8 mps
GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth
Battery: 3600(2800) mAh
Design: Samsung Galaxy S3/Note2
Beware, lots of traffic...
A little about the new platform MTK6589
This model is built on a 28 nm process technology, while, for example, the MT6577 is built on 40 nm.
Thanks to this, the power consumption of the MT6589 has decreased compared to the previous model (more precisely, it remained at the same level, given the 4 cores and the new graphics core).
This processor received four Cortex-A7 cores, which operate at a clock frequency of 1.2 GHz.
Hardware video processing in Video Decode modes, like Video Encode, is 1080p at 30fps. The graphics system is Power VR SGX544 55 Mtri/s, 1.6 Gpix/s, which supports a maximum display resolution of up to 1920x1080. Cameras are supported up to 13mps.
ARM Cortex A7 is the most energy efficient ARM processor ever developed.
He conducted very interesting tests on the level of power consumption, but a series of videos is available where he compares the consumption EXYNOS 4412 (Samsung quad-core processors) and MTK6589. The result - MTK6589 is 2-3 times more economical, with a performance loss of about 20-30%.
Tests conducted by experts show that the performance of the MediaTek MT6589 is slightly lower than that of the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core platform, Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro and Samsung Exynos 4412.
Another interesting feature of MTK6589 is the declared support for 2x active sim cards. Call from two cards or use one for calls, the second for the Internet. Unfortunately, at the moment this feature is not implemented in any device based on this processor.
Specifications
Model: Cubot A6589
- CPU: MTK6589, Cortex A7 4 cores, 1.2GHz, ARMv7
- GPU: PowerVR SGX 544
- ROM: 8 or 4 GB
- RAM: 1GB
- Connection:
2G: GSM 900/1800MHz
3G: WCDMA 850/2100MHz (only 1 sim card selectable from menu)
data transfer - GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA-7.2MbpS/HSUPA-5.76/Mbps
2 SIM cards in standby mode (1 radio module) - OS: Android 4.1.2 (new deliveries - 4.2, we are waiting)
- Languages: - a bunch of all kinds, including Russian
- Screen: - 5.77" ,1280 x 720 pixels (HD)
TFT, capacitive touch screen, claimed - IPS - Multi-touch: 5 points
- FM Radio: - yes (earphones needed, bluetooth profile supported, RDS, FM recording)
- Camera:
front camera: 2 MP (interpolation up to 5 mps),
rear camera: 8.0MP with LED backlight, autofocus, resolution up to 3264x2448 pixels,
video - [email protected] - Sensors:
Accelerations: bma 050 3-axis Accelerometer
Approximations: cm36283 Proximity Sensor
Light: cm36283 Light Sensor
Indicator light: no - GPS navigation: built-in GPS, support A-GPS
- WIFI: Yes, 802.11b/g/n
- Bluetooth: Yes
- Memory card: - microSD up to 64GB
- Battery - declared 3600mAh (on a bank 2800mAh)
- Body material: plastic
- Dimensions: - 160 x 84 x 10 mm
- Weight: 264 g (complete with cover-case)
- Equipment:
1 x battery
1 x 3.5mm headphones
1 x Data Cable micro USB
1 x charger
1 x screen protector pasted
2 x user manual
Many people ask why I ordered this particular phone? And what kind of animal is this? The answer to the question why Cubot is simple - they were the first to announce a phone with a new processor. Website . According to the site, they are engaged in the manufacture of car recorders, phones and robotic vacuum cleaners. There were also owners of devices of this brand on MTK6577. Reviews about the quality are positive, support is also on top. Decided to take a chance and pre-order.
Further, unfortunately, it did not turn out so smoothly. The device was announced a long time ago, and real sales should begin on March 28. Before that, only a small batch was released. The party found a problem with poor-quality work of the telephone part.
Last week, the plant reported that the problem had been resolved and delivery would begin again on March 28. As a bonus, the firmware of new phones has been updated to android 4.2. At the end of the month, they also promise to update the phones of the first batch to android 4.2. Unfortunately, not everything is going smoothly here either, the first batch of phones had 8GB of ROM, the new batch will have 4GB of ROM. In China, there is a large shortage of 8GB Samsung memory modules used in phones. 8GB version is promised later when memory modules are available.
The device in question is from the first batch.
Packing, equipment
Thick cardboard box. 
Battery
Marking 3600mAh. 
According to the "ancient Chinese" tradition, we look under the label ... and oops! 2800 mAh
The plant declined to comment on this photo, saying only - 3600, no doubt! 
For comparison, the weight of the battery with the zp900, where the honest 2300mAh
As a result, I must say that the battery holds pretty well, it lasts for 1-3 days of work, depending on the load.
It was not possible to test it properly, I tested something all week, flashed something, then played games. phone is always on.
In this mode, it was enough for a day, in a more relaxed version (a couple of hours of the screen on in the morning and the same in the evening and a few calls a day) - I think that it will last 3 days.
Here is an example of running under heavy load (left), then had to reboot and then less intensive use of the phone (right) 
It can be seen that the battery is not calibrated and worked at 14% for quite a long time.
Total 35 hours from one charge. Not a bad result at all.
Charger
800mAh, it is recommended to use it for charging or charging at 1Ah instead of the computer's USB port.
Also included was an adapter with a flat plug, apparently it was thrown out of habit.
Other
For bundled headphones, they sound pretty good. I will not say more, since I use a bluetooth headset.
Well, right here 
Phone appearance
Well, having dealt with the little things, now let's get back to the main thing - the phone.
Design "classic Chinese" - the good old Samsung. Now every second Chinese phone is made with this design.
Let's compare it with another Chinese brand - zopo zp900, find 2 differences :) and add an old thl v9 taken from my wife to the heap. 
So, we have - 4.3" thl v9, 5.3" zopo zp900 and 5.77" cubot a6589
First impression - the phone is huge! But the very next day I don’t notice the difference between 5.3 and 5.8. 
The phone is made with high quality, there are no complaints about the quality, there are two of them in appearance - a too thick silver line on the side makes the phone visually thicker and an additional cover-case gives off some kind of yellow at certain angles. 
Both phones without a back cover
Phone in hand
Trying to use your thumb to control the phone leads to loss of stability - hold with your little finger... 
The phone clearly requires two hands. Fortunately, the most common thing that needs to be done with one hand (IMHO) is turning pages when reading in a public place or changing the volume. All this is perfectly done with one hand, the volume buttons on the side. Well, there is an on / off button. But you need two hands to unlock the screen!
But it makes up for it with a big screen. My personal opinion is that for comfortable viewing of video on the phone, you need a size of at least 5.3".
Starting from this size, the eye "has something to catch on."
Of course, this is all subjective and depends on your preferences, hand size, etc.
By the way, it fits in a jeans pocket, at least mine. But if you wake up to sit down, then do not forget to pull it out, otherwise the buttons will spontaneously be pressed - the screen will light up and at the output you will get a pretty run down battery.
By the way, in the pockets of jeans, it fits perfectly and does not interfere.
The surface of the phone is glossy plastic and the first days I was very afraid that the phone would slip out of my hands. But this did not happen, the phone is perfectly held in the hand.
The device itself is made with high quality, everything is tightly fitted, no gaps, squeaks, etc. 
Above, above the screen, we have a 2 mps front camera, a proximity sensor and a speaker.
Unfortunately no LED.
Only the headphone jack is located on the top side of the phone. 
On the right side of the phone is the on/off button at the top and the volume rocker below. 
The left side is empty... 
recesses at the bottom - the device without a back cover. 
At the bottom we see microusb (as I already wrote - a regular wire is suitable) and a microphone, a slot for prying and opening the back cover of the phone. 
At the bottom of the screen there are 3 buttons - hardware Home, without backlight and 2 touch buttons with a pleasant yellow backlight.
The buttons are illuminated brightly. Unlike Cubota, many competitors in this "processor season" switched to on-screen buttons instead of touch ones. In my opinion, the on-screen buttons are very inconvenient. They eat away part of the screen and when they are needed they are always gone. As the owner of a tablet with a similar disgrace, the on-screen buttons piss me off. Although some people like them.
Now turn the phone 
bottom of the phone speaker 
Camera and LED... We'll talk about the camera later, but the LED is of medium brightness. Those. as a flash, it will help you only at a short distance, but as a flashlight in the dark, it will fit perfectly. Unlike the zp900, the LED is located separately, which means it will not illuminate the camera.
Will we open?
Everything is as usual - 2 SIM cards, a slot for microSD cards up to 64GB, which is a clear plus, many devices claim only 32GB. The device costs 64GB, it works.
You just need to format it in FAT32
The device is from a trial batch, so there is no printing, judging by the pictures, the new batch is OK - manufacturer, model, IMEI 
weight without battery - 147.5 g 
Weight with battery and book case 264g
Screen
The screen is everything. In general, the screen is quite good, the colors are bright and saturated.
The screen, of course, is never IPS, no matter what they say about such screens (judging by the video reviews, the screens of Chinese competitors of this size are identical).
The viewing angles are quite large.
But with a strong tilt, light colors fade. If the picture on the screen is dark, then the colors almost do not change.
I’ll try to give photos of the corners, although they didn’t come out very well and were taken on the machine, which explains the different levels of saturation in the picture. 
One more try - from left to right thl v9 (4.3" mkt6575), zp900 (5.3" mtk6577), cubot a6589 (5.77" mtk6589)
all devices at maximum brightness. 
The dark picture almost does not change at large tilt angles.
Tests
The touch of the device is responsive, supports 5 touches.
Video review of the device
In the video - comparison with zp900, antutu, viewing angles, equipment, sensors, GPS, as it is held in the hand.
Firmware and Root rights
By default, the phone comes without root.
At the moment there is a firmware with the received root and installed extended recovery. There are also instructions on how to do it yourself. .
According to the experience of another cubota model, there are no problems with the release of new firmware. To my surprise, one of the updates was even released via FOTA ("update over the air"). New arrivals of phones will be with firmware 4.2
Ps: today the 3rd user of the phone has appeared, already with updated firmware.
Sound
The sound is quite decent. However, my ear is far from musical. The volume is average. Compared to the zp900, it's louder.
The conversational speaker does not raise questions.
The microphone works well, the interlocutor hears clearly.
Telephone part
Problems with audibility during a conversation are not noticed.
Unfortunately, one of the most interesting features of the MTK6589 - 2 active sim cards, has not been implemented yet. The plant claims that at the moment MTK does not supply kits capable of working with 2 active sim cards (2 radio modules).
One of the reasons for the delay in phone deliveries is the problem of intermittent telephone service. To be honest, I almost never see it myself.
For a week of use, the phone refused to ring once, 2 times it did not want to turn on 3G after the metro.
The second owner of the same phone from the forum, who lives in a weak signal zone, experienced this problem. However, the plant assures that the problem is solved and promises a new firmware that solves this problem the other day. It will be the default on all new devices.
Video
In order to evaluate what the new processor is capable of, let's take samples for testing. There are also results of playing these files on other platforms.
Well, for the heap, let's take the first 3 films in mkv from the hard drive and add the AVCHD file from the camcorder.
Below is a table where
1 - playback in a standard player (gallery), purely hardware
2 - mx player, hardware video + soft sound mode
3 - mx player, soft video mode + soft sound 
The result, in my opinion, is not bad at all. Let me remind you that hardware decoding can significantly save battery when watching videos. Soft mode blocked almost all formats, except for the vc1 video codec and dts audio. Hardware decoding lacks support for the ac3 audio codec, which turned out to be quite common in our examples. However, hardware video + software sound also saves a lot of battery.
Radio
Works, shows RDS, there is a record. Requires headphone connection.
WiFi, Bluetooth
Wifi works great.
Bluetooth headset also worked without problems. The sound is transmitted, the player is controlled from the headset, calls are received.
GPS
I used the FasterGPS program to correct the region in the Russian Federation. Next I uploaded the EPO files.
The result - the time of finding the satellites - 20-30 seconds.
The first race was at the intersection of Gastello and 2nd Sokolnicheskaya streets, I stood there for a "long" time - taking a picture of the car. 2nd race (races) - I went into the room.
The fact that in some places the coordinates deviate from the road and run into buildings, most likely due to high-rise buildings on both sides of the road (they seem to give a reflected signal that introduces distortion)
Skype
There is a video in Skype, you can switch between cameras. Everything works great. However, as in earlier devices.
Games, programs
There are almost all games, including those for ARMv7. 
I didn’t set games much, but everything that went to 6577 goes here too. There should be no problems, since the cache for this video accelerator and the resolution is not a problem to pick up. That's just NOVA 3 could not start, all the time writes - your hardware is not supported.
video -
Camera
A photo
The camera is declared 8 mps. The camera is not very bad, zp900 tears to smithereens.
Macro is not her forte, it will not let her focus at close range.
In poor lighting lifts ISO, it turns out a strong soap.
If the best Chinese cameras from thl w5 / w3 + / zp200 devices (the legend says that there is a Sony module) are taken for 5 points, then there is a solid 4k.
Here is some of them:
Well, about prices.
I bought the 8GB model for $260. What will be the price of a model with 4GB is not known.
For this price, the phone more than justifies itself. Comparing it with its predecessor, the Chinese brand - zp900, we can say that cubot loses to it only by the absence of an LED. Winning in many other characteristics (of course, without taking into account the processor and video accelerator, because the zp900 has an older generation of MTK6577)
(works fine only under IE)
Results:
Minuses:
- normal deliveries have not yet been established
- no LED to indicate missed calls, sms, discharge, etc.
- no magnetic sensor
- large screen with good color reproduction
- capacious battery
- performance
- good camera
- the presence of a cover
This is only a small part of what I wanted to tell you, so ask, do not hesitate!
ARM has introduced a power-efficient Cortex-A7 processor designed to be used in conjunction with the Cortex-A15 as part of a heterogeneous multi-core power management technology.
The A7 is a dual-instruction processor with an eight-stage pipeline that is optimized for power efficiency but supports the same virtualization and extended addressing as the A15. ARM is looking to its partners to take advantage of the combination of A7 and A15 cores to support a variety of applications to provide energy efficient solutions. As an alternative, you can use the A7 in a single or dual-core implementation in low-cost smartphones.
ARM expects smartphones to feature multi-core chips in 2013, which are a combination of a dual-core A15 processor and a dual-core A7.
The strategy of sharing two different cores increases battery life through flexible power management. Dynamic core switching can be made transparent to applications and middleware that run on processors supported by the new AMBA 4 ACE Coherency Extensions specification. Moving tasks between the A7 and A15 cores is handled by the same system that manages dynamic voltage and frequency scaling.
Since the A7 processor is manufactured using 28nm technology, its dimensions are five times smaller than the 45nm Cortex-A8. At the same time, the A7 is characterized by greater performance and much greater energy efficiency. The dual-core A7 processor consumes 70% less power than the 40nm dual-core A9 processor.
According to an ARM representative, the demand for the A7 processor from licensees is very high. Companies ready to support the new technology at the hardware level include Broadcom, Freescale, HiSilicon, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments, while software developers include Compal, LG Electronics Linaro, OK Labs, QNX, Redbend and Sprint.
The area of the 28nm Cortex-A7 processor is less than 0.5 sq.mm. It runs at 1.2 GHz in single and multi-core configurations. How a standalone Cortex-A7 processor will be used in sub-$100 smartphones in 2013-2014 delivering performance on par with current $500 smartphones
The A7 and A15 co-operation technology will allow these components to be used in consumer electronics with high processing power and high energy efficiency.
A7 processor production will begin in the first half of 2012.
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