Samsung continues to set the mobile landscape ablaze with speed and size. Find out what the company's latest announcement could mean for you.
Imagine, if you will, that your mobile device contained the same amount
of storage as your SSD-toting desktop or laptop. Gone would be the
constant struggle to make room for apps and data. No longer would you
see those dreaded Device full errors.
If Samsung has its way (and it most assuredly will), the company will be shipping flagship devices that include a remarkable 256 GB memory chip,
based on the Universal Flash Storage 2.0 standard. That's right, ladies
and gents, a flagship smartphone that contains as much storage as many
desktops and laptops. What's best, this new chip from Samsung will
outperform the current crop of SATA-based SSDs shipped on most laptops
and desktops.
"By providing high-density UFS memory that is nearly twice as fast as a
SATA SSD for PCs, we will contribute to a paradigm shift within the
mobile data storage market," said Joo Sun Choi, Executive Vice
President, Memory Sales and Marketing, Samsung Electronics.
Yes, indeed, you will.
Size and speed
The chips themselves will be based on Samsung's V-NAND flash memory
chips and will included a specially designed, high-performance
controller. For those who need numbers (for comparison) the previous
generation UFS memory could handle read/write speeds up to 19,000 (input
operations per second) and 14,000 (output operations per second). The
new Samsung chips can handle read/write speeds of up to 45,000 (input
operations per second) and 40,000 (output operations per second). That's
a significant leap in performance. Add to that the massive increase in
size and you do have a serious game changer.
The new 256 GB UFS chips use two lanes of data transfer to move data at
up to 850 MB/s. Yet again another massive besting of typical SATA-based
SSDs. For sequential writing, the chips support up to 260 MB/s.
The besting keeps on coming.
In real time, this means that mobile devices will now be able to handle
seamless 4K Ultra HD video playback while simultaneously multitasking.
These new chips are also even smaller than today's external microSD
cards... which means they won't cause problems for smartphone designers
and manufacturers.
Odd timing
But let's consider Samsung alone. Its next flagship device, the Galaxy
S7, will not include the beefed up chip (although it will re-introduce
external microSD card support). Samsung did eventually release Galaxy 6S
variant that included the 128 GB chip. Will the same thing happen this
time around? Maybe this is a bit of sleight of hand on the part of
Samsung that goes something like this:
- Hey, here's the latest, greatest smartphone from Samsung
- Fans purchase shiny new Samsung smartphone
- Hey, we've invented a faster chip for smartphones
- Fans groan
- Hey, we're releasing a variant of our latest smartphone to include the shiny new chip
- Fans grumble, but purchase the shiny new smartphone with the shiny new chip
- Samsung bathes in money
Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration. But you get the idea. What
Samsung should be doing is announcing the new chip and then announcing
the new device that will include the new chip upon release. That
certainly didn't happen. In fact, the announcement of the new chip came a
scant three days after the announcement of the Galaxy S7. My guess is
that it will do the same thing it did with the 6S and release a variant
S7 that includes the new 256 GB chip. When that will happen? No one
knows.
The ante is upped
However, the oddly timed announcements is splitting hairs a bit. The
truth of the matter is this. Samsung is (once again) seriously upping
the ante for the world of mobility. The very idea of having such a
high-speed storage chip on a smartphone has been unheard of until now.
And as much as I hate the term, this truly is a paradigm shift for the
mobile landscape.
If you've been anxiously awaiting the release of the Galaxy S7, it might
be in your best interest to hold off purchasing until later on in the
year. Yes, the variant will probably cost you quite a bit of coin, but
having a high-end device with such massive (and speedy) storage would be
worth the wait.
~ Jack Wallen
0 comments:
Post a Comment