Samsung Galaxy S II Tegra 2 version coming

MWC 2011: Not all regions, though

Gamers looking to benefit from the mighty power of the Samsung Galaxy S II when it launches later in the year, may have to choose which operator and which country they get it from, in order to get the best device for them.

Why? Because Pocket-lint has been told that some regional versions of the Samsung S II will come with Nvidia’s gaming-focused dual-core Tegra 2 chip, instead of Samsung’s own processor.

Earlier in the week, Samsung and Nvidia formally confirmed that the two “companies are also partnering to bring a new Android-based super phone with a dual-core CPU to consumers, for never-before-seen experiences.”

However, that comment was buried at the bottom of the “Nvidia and Samsung Partner to Deliver the Galaxy Tab 10.1 Honeycomb Tablet” press release. So we asked a Samsung representative at its Mobile World Congress booth whether or not this referred to the Samsung Galaxy S II launched on Sunday in Barcelona, or a completely new phone due out later in the year.

And the response we got wasn’t as straightforward as we were expecting.

Instead of telling us that it was going to be a new phone, the representative grabbed a Samsung Galaxy S II brochure and proceeded to run his finger over the specifications page, first pointing out the Samsung Dual-Core Application Processor stats and then to a second part on the page - an appendix saying “May not be applicable in some regions”.

“There are no Tegra 2 dual-core phones on the stand,” said our man, before being distracted by somebody else with a question.

We then quickly hotfooted it over to the Nvidia stand, although we could only get out of them the official line of “[we are] working with Samsung, as we stated in our press release earlier in the week.”

So what are the options?

The first is that Samsung is working on a new phone to replace the Samsung Galaxy S II already and that it’s going to be out at some point in the future. Possible, but unlikely given that they’ve only just launched the device.

The second option, and what we believe is more likely, is that some regional variations of the Galaxy S II will get Samsung’s own processor and others the Nvidia Tegra 2.

Unfortunately, based on the information we have at present, we can’t yet tell who will be getting what.

However, with a number of carriers in the US taking a number of variants of the original Samsung Galaxy S (AT&T Captivate, T-Mobile Vibrant, Sprint Epic, Verizon Continuum, Cellular South Showcase and the US Cellular Mesmerize) it’s not hard to imagine that a Tegra 2 packing phone could go to one or more networks. Those, perhaps, with a more specific gaming focus.?

Tags: Phones Samsung Samsung Galaxy S II MWC2011 Nvidia Tegra 2 Samsung Galaxy S 2

 

Samsung Galaxy S II Tegra 2 version coming originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 17 Feb 2011 15:03:00 +0000

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