Samsung has reportedly chosen Marvell’s SoC to power its upcoming Galaxy Tab 3, rather than an indigenously designed Exynos processor.
According to the GLBenchmark site, test results indicate the device will be equipped with a Marvell PXA986 processor – which can best be described as a 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex-A9 dual core chip with integrated support for HSPA+ connectivity and Vivante GC1000 graphics for hardware-accelerated video as well as 3D.
As Liliputing’s Brad Linder notes, the benchmark results seem to indicate that the Galaxy Tab 3 won’t exactly be a top-tiered device, with Nvidia’s Tegra 3, Samsung’s Exynos 4 and Rockchip’s RK3188 outperforming Marvell’s silicon in the majority of tests.
Meaning, the Galaxy Tab 3 will likely be positioned as a lower-cost alternative to Samsung’s more expensive Galaxy Note tablets.
Additional specs? A 1024 x 600 pixel display, 1GB of RAM, up to 16GB of storage, a microSD card slot, WiFi, Bluetooth, A-GPS and front/rear cameras.
Pricing has yet to be announced, but as the folks at AppleInsider point out, the above-mentioned specs suggest Samsung plans to undercut the $329 starting price of Apple’s iPad mini. A $250 price point is probably somewhat unrealistic to expect, so perhaps $300 or thereabouts is a bit more reasonable.
