NVIDIA launches GoForce 5500 for mobile phones

Written by Tim Smalley

February 14, 2006 | 10:56

Tags: #console #dvb-h #h264 #handheld #low-power #photography #sound #surround #wmv9

Companies: #motorola #nvidia

Yesterday, NVIDIA unveiled its GoForce 5500 graphics processing unit for mobile phones and handheld devices. It's the first handheld GPU enabling true digital TV, high-fidelity surround sound, rapid multi-shot photography and console-class 3D graphics.

For many years, the capabilities of GoForce 5500 have been limited to home entertainment systems, personal computers, digital still cameras or the likes of Sony Playstation or Microsoft's Xbox. NVIDIA says that this changes with the new GoForce GPU, as all of these features will be available to the mobile phone.

It's capable of effortlessly playing back H.264, WMV9 and MPEG-4 video streams at D1 resolution (NTSC: 700x480, PAL: 720x576), while being compatible with DVB-H, ISDB-T and DMB mobile television standards.

NVIDIA has also implemented the world's first handheld surround sound processor, capable of delivering an immersive audio experience in the palm of your hand. It features crossfade and mulistream technologies in order to aid the preventiuon of annoying breaks between songs and abrupt music cut outs when the phone activates its ring tone.

The company say that it's possible to experience the likes of Quake 3 Arena at 'unrivalled speeds' on a handheld device and is said to be up to three times faster than the previous GoForce 4800 handheld GPU. Along with the high quality video playback, surround sound and console class 3D gaming, GoForce 5500 has support for taking digital photographs with a resolution of up to 10 megapixels with added rapid multi-shot capabilities.

Finally, it'd be hard to pack this impressive feature set into a mobile phone without decent power consumption. The GPU design was focused around low power consumption, allowing the phone to deliver more hours of entertainment while still maintaining a respectable talk time.

NVIDIA says that they're expecting the new GPU to appear in designs by major handset manufacturers - possibly including the likes of Motorola, Samsung and LG - before the end of 2006. Do you fancy playing all-time classics like Doom and more recent titles like Quake III Arena on your mobile phone? Share your thoughts with us in the forums.
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