The next step people were expecting to see regarding devices with ARM processors hitting the market was to cross the 1GHz clock mark. The qualcomm snapdragon is one of those chips, and people are always speculating about when companies will release devices with this or othrr 1 GHz ARM chips.

These devices are already starting to arrive. In special, the iPad has a 1GHz ARM chip. But we dont expect to see the next Nokia tablet (N910? Rover? N9.99?) much sooner than the end of this year, do we?

So I've been wondering: What is the chance the next tablet might feature the second next step in ARM chips, namely _a dual core processor_? Or will we still be happy with 1GHz single-core then?

Near zero chance. The next/Maemo 6 device is said to be also OMAP3, which is single core. Also, there is a chance it might be 800 or 720 MHz instead of 1GHz because of power considerations. Remember that snapdragon's 1GHz is performance wise not directly comparable to an 1GHz OMAP3.

Yeah... what attila77 said.

I'd love it, it would make me 100% happy if halfway true. But... it ain't gonna happen.

I might have to get an Inbrics MID M1 to satiate my internet tablet usage/needs.

as far as i know only the snapdragons cpu's will be dual core and coming out this year.

but if it's a slight bump in speed with dedicated gpu it'll be better than dualcore.

The OMAP4 should start volume production 2010H2, but that would be too late for the Maemo6 device.

the n900 is fast for me, i cant even keep up with it. but still there are better devices to be released

Aren't dual core chips more efficient for power usage?

Edit: Especially for concurrent operating systems with lots of multitasking.

Kindasorta. They make sense only if your application is actually able to run in parallel threads, otherwise it will give you just UI snappiness (which, while good for user experience, results in more power draw).

http://www.slashgear.com/texas-instr...ds-on-0172231/

more info on the omap 3 and omap 4 chips, dual core is coming out for omap 4. not sure if it'll be in time maemo 6

I met some TI reps and asked them about the omap4 devices; they said that we didn't have enough volume to sell those chips to us. They were not released to the general public. They explained that we would have to have the volume of the big mobile phone players. I asked if Nokia was one and they couldn't comment; however, the smirk on their faces was enough to tell me that Nokia has had these chips for a while. It really annoyed me that we couldn't use that puppy in our next gen product. Dual core A9's will rock.