12-megapixel HD camcorder phones may ship within two years

Symbian S60 partner Broadcom's new processor could possibly also provide mobile gaming at the level of Sony's PSP.

A few months ago, Broadcom joined the Symbian S60 community, promising to deliver complete solutions for future Symbian S60 smartphones. Initially, Broadcom was supposed to deliver 7.2 Mbps HSDPA processors and the BCM2724 multimedia processor. The latter offers low power MPEG-4 playback and NTSC/PAL direct video output.

Interestingly, Broadcom Corporation has now unveiled the BCM2727 processor, sporting a range of new high-end multimedia features. The list includes support for 720p HD video with H.264 encoding and decoding, both high profile at 30 fps and supports all major video compression algorithms, including H.263, MPEG 4/2/1, and VC-1. In addition to being capable of delivering a HD camcorder, it also provides an up to 12-megapixel digital camera. A HDMI port has also been incorporated, in order to connect smartphones to full-size HD televisions.

Furthermore, the processor offers high-performance 2D and 3D graphics accelerators for advanced user interfaces, navigation displays and mobile gaming. More specifically, the graphics pipeline is optimized for efficient Open VG 1.0 and Open GL ES 1.1/2.0 operation and is capable of 32 million triangles per second peak performance. In comparison, Sony's Playstation Portable can go up to 33 million triangles per second. Having said that, there's quite a lot more to a gaming experience than measuring triangles per second though, so don't jump in your seats yet.

The processor should also enable up to 60 hours of audio playback and 3 hours of HD camcorder capture time, however, in combination with cellular radios and processors, it's expected that the battery life will stay at the current real-world level. Still, with these vastly improved features, we would be satisfied with continuing at the same battery life level as now for a little while longer.

Broadcom has not announced any partners yet, but as the company has a close relationship to Nokia, it's not unlikely that upcoming high-end smartphones from Nokia will get quite a few upgrades as a result of this. Other manufacturers such as Motorola, LG and Samsung may also want to sign up for this. Hopefully, we could see smartphones based on the BCM2727 processor shipping in mid-2009.

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