HTC Announces Desire 510: First 64-bit Android Phone
by Joshua Ho on August 27, 2014 2:24 AM EST
While normally one might expect high end phones to get the latest and greatest features first, this time we see a bit of a surprising reversal. The Desire 510 is HTC's first 64-bit phone, and the first announced device with Snapdragon 410. For those that aren't familiar with Snapdragon 410, it has four Cortex A53 CPU cores running at 1.2 GHz, along with an Adreno 306 GPU which suggests that it is a mild modification of the current Adreno 305 GPU that we see in the Snapdragon 400. Overall, this should make for a quite fast SoC compared to Snapdragon 400, as Anand has covered in the Snapdragon 410 launch announcement.
While it may seem strange that ARMv8 on Android phones is first to appear on a budget smartphone, it's quite easy to understand how this happened. Looking at Qualcomm's roadmap, the Snapdragon 810/MSM8994 is the first high-end SoC that will ship with ARMv8, and is built on a 20nm process. As 20nm from both Samsung and TSMC have just begun appearing in shipping chips, the process yield and production capacity isn't nearly as mature as 28nm LP, which is old news by now.
At any rate, outside of the SoC the Desire 510 is a relatively standard budget phone. As this phone ships with Android 4.4 it's likely that it is running in AArch32 mode only, with AArch64 coming with Android L. The display is a 4.7" size, with FWVGA resolution (854x480) which makes for a rather low 208 DPI. This will be the cheapest LTE phone in HTC's product line, and also has support for a Dot View case. I've included the rest of the specs below, but for the most part the key point of interest is the SoC.
| HTC Desire 510 | |
| SoC | MSM8916 1.2 GHz Snapdragon 410 |
| RAM/NAND | 1 GB RAM, 8GB NAND + microSD |
| Display | 4.7” FWVGA (854x480) |
| Network | 2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Qualcomm MDM9x25 UE Category 4 LTE) |
| Dimensions | 139.9 x 69.8 x 9.99mm, 158 grams |
| Camera | 5MP rear camera, .3MP/VGA FFC |
| Battery | 2100 mAh (7.98 Whr) |
| OS | Android 4.4 with Sense 6 |
| Connectivity | 802.11b/g/n + BT 4.0, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, DLNA |
| SIM Size | MicroSIM |
The only additional comment I have to make is that there is no 5 GHz WiFi. This is probably a WCN3620 part like the Moto G. While there's no word on pricing, HTC will have to price this near the price of the Moto G for it to be reasonably competitive. The Desire 510 should find its way to Europe, Asia, and the United States.
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przemo_li - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
Well, insistence on 20nm may explain a bit why custom ARM8 are not here yet.But I think that bigger influence have... availability of off-the-shelf designs from ARM coupled with few manufactures who actually sell them unmodified.
Building something will always take more time vs using ready thing.
Sushisamurai - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
I keep hearing things about android L. Given its 64 bit nature, are we saying only the OS is 64bit, or are we saying the OS and all apps are 64bit compatible? Cause having 64bit OS with 32bit apps would defeat the whole 64bit push and performance gains...A5 - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
I'd think the OS and the Google Apps will be 64-bit at launch. Other apps will move to 64-bit at a later point, likely whenever they update their design to Material. But you have to switch the OS before *any* apps will switch.Apple went through the same thing a year ago and it wasn't really a big deal.
steven75 - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
It wasn't a big deal because Apple did a lot of planning for it in advance. It's been a year since then, so you'd hope Google did the same in that time, but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.Sushisamurai - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
Sorry, I should have clarified a little more - I wonder if it'll be mandatory 64bit for all apps (like apple) or like our x86 platform where u have this "wide" mix of 32bit and 64bit applications that are compatible.aryonoco - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
All apps that are developed using the Android SDK will run in 64 bit mode by default, without developers needing to do anything.This is because these apps are all written in Java, and with Android L, they are compiled at the time of installation by ART to the appropriate binary, which if you are on ARMv8, will be 64 bit.
Unlike iOS, Android developers don't even need to recompile their apps to make them 64 bit.
The only exception is native apps developed using Android NDK (mostly games). These apps need to be recompiled by the developer to become 64 bit compatible.
A5 - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
Thanks for clarifying. I'm not an Android (or any mobile) dev, so I don't keep up with SDK news.tipoo - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
Hmm, might be a decent step up from the Moto G/other Snapdragon 400 quad cortex A7 phones. I'd like to see a performance for the CPU and GPU compared to the G.darwinosx - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
What amazing was not mentioned in the ad, I mean article, is that the Android OS itself is not 64 bit so having 64 bit hardware is meaningless. yes I know they are kludging up Android L to be somewhat 64 bit but it is not remotely close the the full 64 bitness of iOS.squirrelboy - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
" As this phone ships with Android 4.4 it's likely that it is running in AArch32 mode only, with AArch64 coming with Android L."