Sony launching cheap and affordable quad-core Android phones next year?

2013 might be an exciting year after all, if you are a fan of Sony phones. With rumored high-end devices such as the Sony Yuga and Sony Odin getting ready to be unveiled, word has it that Sony might also be working on developing  low-cost quad-core muscled handsets which will use a chip from a different manufacturer not as well known as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon series or Nvidia’s Tegra CPUs.

MediaTek, a lesser known firm which manufactures mobile chips for not so well known Chinese phones, is said to have been requested for samples of its MT6589 quad-core SoC by Sony Mobile.

While no actual orders have been confirmed as yet, the news surely leads to speculations that Sony could indeed be considering expanding its portfolio by including  lower-cost handsets which pack comparable specs to their higher-end offerings.

The MediaTek MT6589 SoC uses a 28nm manufacturing process and comes with Cortex A7 processor cores which can be clocked at up to 1.2GHz. LPDDR2 RAM is supported, and the PowerVR SGX544 GPU should be comfortably able to handle 720 x 1280 resolution displays. Camera modules of up to 13 megapixels are also supported, and should be capable of 1080p Full HD video recording.

It may be time after all, for someone to take the lead in bringing quad-core goodness to the masses, and if this is anything to go by, Sony could well become that flagbearer. And for all we know, this is just what Sony may need to regain its foothold in a global smartphone market dominated by the likes of Samsung and HTC.

Via PhoneArena