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The Nexus line has always brought us affordable devices without any carrier or OEM influence (well, except for that one Verizon Nexus phone which shall not be named). New rumors suggest Google feels like they haven’t gotten the cost of admission low enough, though, with murmurings of a budget option coming by way of MediaTek.
According to a report by MTKSJ, Google will look to target that nice $100 price point that the Moto G was introduced at. Unfortunately it doesn’t sound like this device will be quite as stout as the Moto G is for the cost. MediaTek silicon isn’t often impressive in the few devices that use them, with quad-core and octa-core chipsets in various phones often feeling more sluggish than some dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon devices.
We can’t pass judgment on anything that isn’t officially known to exist, though, so we’ll just leave it at that. It’s not surprising to see Google attempting to emulate the same success the Moto G had for Motorola, which became the company’s best selling smartphone of all time. Let’s just hope they don’t have to cut too many corners to achieve that.
[MTKSJ via Electronista]
Fat chance, MediaTek are horrifically open source unfriendly. They charge a fee for their GPL licenced code.
Also their chips suck. Since the Moto G can come in with a good performing, budget Qualcomm, then Google would be looking towards that IMO.
Agreed. MediaTek violates GPL. Why would Google get into bed with them?
if Google can push them to release their source code by giving them good business, I’m all in. Their chip might not be at the same level of Snapdragon 400, but they are pretty good chips for their price. I’ve seen devices that is similar(and better in some expect) as with the Moto G at around the same price. One of it is the Lenovo P880, amazing phone for its price.
Considering google cant even pressure Qualcomm to release all the code for their video drivers I doubt they have any footing to pressure an even sketchier company to comply.
well. that’s true too. :p plus, mediatek is making really good money even when they are breaking the law. too bad since their chips are running most of the good value for money low-mid end phones here in Asia.
Google carefully uses the nexus line to keep manufacturers pricing semi-reasonable. It doesn’t need to be the greatest phone. If its $100w/o a contract I could see google using amazon style ads to make up some of the difference. By doing this google basically sets a floor, your phone can only be as bad as the 100nexus for $100 or everyone will just buy the nexus100. That forces a minimum performance level neccesary to run 4.4+
Google needs to find another way to do it because nowadays phones are more expensive by at least $300…. I mean the flagship devices of HTC and Samsung and etc used to rarely hit over $600 now phones are like $7-800 after tax its
What does that have to do with Google? Their last 2 phone offerings were priced at $300 and $350 respectively. And the Nexus 5 competes with any phone released around the same time, no problem.
I hope not nexus are amazing devices shouldn’t be diluted in crap
That’s what ZTE is for
I certainly hope not! Their processors are horrid!
I’d rather take a 1st Gen Snapdragon processor over an Octa-core Media-Tek…..
If the Moto G had a 1.2 GHz quad core…Snapdragon 400 and sold for as low as $129….then why not opt for a dual-core Snapdragon S4?
Because you can probably get a “better’ MediaTek processor for probably around the same price.
The SoC in a phone doesn’t cost enough to make up that difference. A snapdragon 801 w/ full spectrum modems only costs like $40. The garbage processors our there may be $20 cheaper, but not much more than that.
Eww. kill it before it lays eggs
Everyone is always complaining about MediaTek but never actually gives any reasons as to why. There is NOTHING wrong with those processors. I’ve used plenty of phones with a MediaTek processor in them and it operates just fine. Is it as good as a Snapdragon of the same speed or whatever? Probably not, but it works just fine.
They’re openly hostile to open source for starters
People are complaining because they are not as good and does not work for majority of people.
There’s two problems with MediaTek:
1) The performance of the processors doesn’t measure up to Qualcomm, Samsung, or NVidia.
2) As lolwut mentioned, they’re hostile to open source. Almost all existing MediaTek-based devices are stuck on 4.1 or 4.2 because they won’t release full kernel source and won’t update the kernels themselves.
I can’t imagine how MediaTek could possibly be used for a Nexus device. There’s no way they’d allow their stuff into AOSP, unless they do a complete 180 in their business practices.