At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Huawei unveiled the Ascend P1 to the world. Today at an event in Beijing, Huawei announced that the Ascend P1 is now hitting store shelves. As part of the TI team that worked to bring this device to market, I wanted to personally congratulate Huawei on this outstanding device, and also share more details about the OMAP4460 processor that drives many of the world-class Ascend P1 features.
With our smart multicore 1.5GHz OMAP4460 processor at its heart, the Ascend P1 is one of the fastest and most compact smartphones in its class, and runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Touted as one of the slimmest devices on the market at only 7.69mm thick, the phone sports some of the most elegant external features available to consumers today, including a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED 960 x 540 touchscreen with Corning Gorilla Glass.
The device’s imaging capabilities are what truly set it apart from others on the market today. As Huawei stated in its original press release, “the Ascend P1 brings your digital world to life.” The device boasts an impressive 8-megapixel BSI rear-facing camera, and 1.3-megapixel HD front-facing cameras. These cameras leverage the OMAP4460 processor’s embedded ISP (imaging signal processor) technology and hardware-accelerated imaging features to provide the greatest visual experiences. This means that Ascend P1 users are able to capture life’s important moments in sharper, brighter and clearer detail, in any lighting environment. The OMAP4460 processor intelligently drives the cameras’ autofocus, backlight-illuminated sensors, and dual-LED flash to make pictures “pop,” while integrated HDR (high dynamic range) imaging techniques greatly enhance picture contrast. The Ascend P1 also enables geo-tagging, to help users find various location-specific data points for each captured image.
Beyond still images, the OMAP4460 processor fuels the Ascend P1 device’s stunning 1080p HD video-capture capabilities, making it possible to not only create video clips in full 1080p HD at 30 frames per second, but share those memories in crisp playback on the device or on an external screen. The OMAP4460 processor’s IVA 3 multimedia accelerator enables multi-standard video encode and decode, and supports life-like imaging and video.
This leading image performance would mean nothing without efficient power on a portable device. The OMAP4460 processor’s smart multicore architecture appropriately chooses the “right core for the chore” to enhance power efficiency, while TI’s integrated TWL6030 and TWL6040 power management and audio codec companion devices maximize battery life. This boosted system performance is incredibly evident while enjoying all that the Ascend P1 offers.
It was an honor to work on the team that helped bring the OMAP4460 processor capabilities to life on the Ascend P1. In particular, our TI team is filled with the industry’s brightest minds, and their dedication to making this project – along with all customer products – a success is incredibly appreciated. The Ascend P1 reiterates our dedication to the China market, and the team’s hard work in bringing OMAP processor capabilities to that region and others in the world. I very much look forward to seeing how users leverage and enjoy the Ascend P1’s advanced features, thanks to the TI technologies inside!
