Dubai: Dubai-based Eurostar Group aims to capitalise on the growing demand for low-cost smartphones by launching its first handset — Tornado IQ455 — running eight processors on a single chip and for one-third of the price.
Currently, there are only three phones available in the market that run on eight processors. They are the Samsung Galaxy S5, Galaxy S4 and the HTC Desire 616. The five–inch display smartphone will retail for Dh799.
“The scalable octa-core architecture can run both low-power and processor intensive tasks highly efficiently by harnessing the full capabilities of its eight individual CPU cores in optimal combination,” said Rami Osman, director of corporate sales and marketing at MediaTek Middle East and Africa.
He said MT6592 chip is a true octa-core smartphone platform based on the energy-efficient ARM Cortex A7 processor. A7 is the industry’s “most efficient chip architecture,” he said.
Based on the 28nm HPM (high-performance mobile) process technology, Osman said that all the eight cores are fully scalable and capable of clocking speeds between 1.7GHz and 2GHz.
Osman said that Google Chrome is already using all the eight cores, and likewise with some map apps, video players plus multi-window function.
The MT6592 has an image signal processor that supports 16MP camera modules and an ARM Mali-450MP graphics processor running at 700MHz, which delivers full HD at 60 frames per second and supports 4K streaming.
Eurostar has tied with UK-based Fly brand and started selling its handsets in the UAE and has so far sold around 100,000 units so far in four markets — the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait.
“We aim to sell 150,000 smartphones this year,” Yousuf Saidi, Group chief operating officer of Eurostar Group, told ‘Gulf News’ after launching the five–inch smartphone for Dh799.
“Our next key focus market is Africa and we plan to enter by end of this year or beginning of next year. We will be launching nine more models in the next two weeks. The company has launched six models so far.
By partnering with MediaTek, he said Eurostar is taking the best technology to enhance their user experience and at an affordable price. Gameloft’s Modern Combat 5, optimised for eight cores, was demonstrated at the conference running on the new chip.
What’s left for MediaTek to do is to enter the 4G LTE space, which is still Qualcomm’s stronghold at the moment. He said the company will launch the 4G LTE 64-bit octa-core chips in the third or fourth quarter of this year. “Our job is to help the middle class get access to high-end technologies at an affordable price factor,” he said.
MediaTek aims to ship 10 million Fly handsets this year compared to six million last year.
