But Motorola Mobility leapt past RIM with an Android phone that packs a dual-core chip.
XE300M22-A01US carries a 2.5GHz, Sandy Bridge-era dual-core chip on top of the usual 4GB of memory and 16GB solid-state drive.
Intel recently came out with a dual-core chip, useful for low-power laptops.
Once you get past those well executed headline features, however, there's a certain scarcity of real utility to be had from this dual-core chip.
Outside of the 10.1-inch screen, it's sporting its own 1.5GHz dual-core chip and 1.9-megapixel front camera as well as a 5-megapixel rear sensor, HDMI video out and USB.
If the specifications are real, the 8X would bear more in common with the Droid Incredible 4G LTE, sharing its 1.2GHz dual-core chip, 8-megapixel rear camera, Beats Audio and NFC while picking up a slightly larger 4.3-inch screen and 16GB of storage.
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The introduction of the dual-core A5 chip (that's dual-core on the CPU and the graphics side) is a huge boon for the touch.
This chip is currently THREE generations behind the 1.4GHz dual-core A6X chip found in the iPad 4.
We will say this: based on our hands-on the dual-core MSM8960 chip powering the device seems pretty serviceable.
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The dual-core A5 chip delivers responsive graphics and a fast, fluid Multi-Touch experience, while still providing all-day battery life.
The dual-core Power6 chip boasts a top speed of 4.7 gigahertz, double that of IBM's previous Power5 and represents a next generation processor to the PowerPC, the chip that was previously used in Apple's Macintosh computers.
As you'll no doubt be aware having read our headline above, there actually isn't a 1GHz CPU at the helm, as AnandTech and IOSnoops report the dual-core ARM chip is dynamically clocked around 900MHz, likely in search of reduced power consumption.
The dual-core Power6 chip boasts a top speed of 4.7 gigahertz, double that of IBM's previous Power5 and represents a next generation processor to the PowerPC, the chip that was previously used in Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people )'s Macintosh computers.
That would be pretty decent for the specs we know so far: 4.5-inch qHD IPS gapless display, MSM8225Q quad-core chip, dual-SIM support, an eight-megapixel main camera (which produced reasonably good photos, from what we could see), a two-megapixel front-facing camera, and Baidu cloud service integration with 15GB of storage for life, plus another 15GB free for one year.
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Considering the Nokia N900 runs Flash 9 extremely well on a 600MHz ARM Cortex A8-based TI OMAP 3 processor (and the Palm Pre, which uses the same chip, will be able to run Flash 10.1 when webOS 1.4 comes out) we don't see any reason other than politics that the iPad can't do it on that fancy new 1GHz dual-core Cortex A9-based A4 chip.
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As we said, the main differences you'll see between these US-centric models and the original version are the processor and amount of RAM used: the American variants all make use of a dual-core, 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 chip and 2GB of memory, while the I9300 runs on quad-core Exynos silicon and one gig of RAM.
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Samsung reps have been a little cagey on what's powering the thing, but at least one will have an eight-core Exynos 5 chip -- though to be fair it's actually dual four-core processors, rather than eight equal cores.
As it turns out, it runs a quad-core version of AMD's new Temash chip, which is being billed as the first quad-core, x86-based SoC. (There's also a dual-core version.) Built into the chip is an HD Radeon 8000 series GPU with AMD's Graphics Core Next architecture, so in theory you should be able to pull off PC-caliber gaming even on a tablet.
ENGADGET: AMD shows off a reference device with a quad-core, x86-based Temash chip
The HTC 8S is the mid-range device, with a 1Ghz Dual Core Qualcomm S4 chip, and 512MB.
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This year Intel will lap AMD by finally scrapping the old Pentium-chip architecture in favor of a suite of lower-temperature, dual-core microprocessors that consume 35% less power and increase performance by 80%.
HP's newest 11.6-inch not-quite-a-netbook (or a notbook as we like to call it) is the first Fusion system to hit the market, and with a dual-core 1.6GHz E350 Zacate processor and AMD Radeon HD 6310 GPU on the same chip it promises... well, everything AMD has promised for so long.
Obligingly, Samsung have provided a handy comparison chart by shipping its first wave of Galaxy S III devices to the US with a dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor and internationally with a quad-core Samsung Exynos system-on-chip.
Internally the Desire X is powered by a 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 8255 buffered by 768MB RAM and though you might think the inclusion of that recent Qualcomm chip has the performance zipping along unperturbed -- well, you'd be wrong.
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