The HTC Qilin, which has been compared as the Chinese version of the HTC Whitestone for Verizon Wireless, may be one of the more powerful devices that will be made available. The device will feature an TI OMAP3 3430 processor, which should make it a multimedia powerhouse for HTC as it tries to maintain leadership in the Chinese market against home-grown ZTE.

The TI OMAP3 3430 processor is a Cortex A8 processor that has a Superscalar ARM® Cortex™-A8 RISC core. According to tests, the Cortex A8 processor provides three times the performance of a standard ARM chipset. Here are some highlights of the powerful chip that will power the Qilin, according to WMPowerUser:

- New OMAP™ 3 architecture combines mobile entertainment with high performance productivity applications

- Industry’s first processor with advanced Superscalar ARM® Cortex™-A8 RISC core enabling 3x gain in performance

- Industry’s first processor designed in 65-nm CMOS process technology adds processing performance

- IVA™ 2+ (Image Video Audio) accelerator enables multi-standard (MPEG4, WMV9, RealVideo, H263, H264) encode/decode at D1 (720×480 pixels) 30 fps

- Integrated image signal processor (ISP) for faster, higher-quality image capture and lower system cost

- Flexible system support

* Composite and S-video TV output

* XGA (1024×768 pixels), 16M-color (24-bit definition) display support

* Flatlink™ 3G-compliant serial display and parallel display support

* High Speed USB2.0 On-The-Go support

- Seamless connectivity to Hard Disk Drive (HDD) devices for mass storage

- Leverages SmartReflex™ technologies for advanced power reduction

- M-shield™ mobile security enhanced with ARM TrustZone™ support

- Software-compatible with OMAP™ 2 processors

- HLOS support for customizable interface

- Support for OpenGL ES 1.1

It’s unfortunate that the chip is limited to only OpenGL ES 1.1 as 2.0 is more powerful.

It seems that there’s another contender to the smartphone processor arms race–no pun intended on the arm part. We have Qualcomm’s Snapdragon on devices like the Acer F1, Tegra on hardware like the Zune HD, and now the ARM Cortex A8 chip on smartphones like the Palm Pre.

(via: WMPowerUser)