Since hearing about the HTC Ignite, we’ve been expecting a change to Microsoft’s chassis specs for Windows phone devices, authorizing the use of an 800MHz processor like the Ignite’s. This week at MIX, Microsoft has revealed one such new spec profile, featuring support for lower-speed chips, implementing the new sensor we heard about, and running a higher-performance graphics accelerator.

It looks like Microsoft is really approaching spec revision with kid gloves, as all-in-all, very little is changing compared to previous hardware requirements. The biggest change is in the new choice of SoCs, as these Windows Phone devices won’t all be using the 1GHz QSD8250 anymore. Manufacturers will still be using Qualcomm chips, but will now be able to choose from those in the MSM7x30 and MSM8x55 lineups. The MSM7x30 runs at 800MHz, the same chip type used in the HTC Epic Shift 4G or Desire Z. While operating at a slower clock speed, the newer chip should hopefully deliver comparable performance to existing, older 1GHz WP7 devices.

Both new varieties of Snapdragon include an Adreno 205 GPU, which should give gaming and media playback a performance boost over the Adreno 200s in current WP7 smartphones. There’s also the inclusion of a gyroscope sensor, like we looked at yesterday. This one won’t be a mandatory requirement, and as we discussed earlier, the phone can always use its other sensors to act as a stand-in for a low-precision gyro.

Source: MobileTechWorld