Global sales of the Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone have officially topped three million units. By way of an official press release, Samsung confirmed it took just 55 days to accomplish the feat. Coincidentally a rumor surfaced this morning that a Windows Phone variant of the Galaxy S II may be coming. Will the next million Galaxy S IIs be power by Windows Phone?
There’s two obstacles preventing the wide-scale adoption of Windows Phone: a Mango update and new hardware. Three million units sold is all the proof Microsoft and the Windows Phone team need to confirm a WP7 Samsung Galaxy S II is the way to go. Imagine a dual-core, Super AMOLED Plus smartphone measuring a razor-thin 8.9mm was available. The combination of outstanding hardware and Windows Phone 7 Mango is an attractive proposition.
As tempting as this may sound, the sole governing body behind all things Windows Phone is Microsoft. The hardware guidelines for Mango would make it very difficult for the dual-core Cortex-A9 processor of the Galaxy S II to fly under the radar. Although we haven’t seen a dual-core Windows Phone device, rumors last month suggested the first wave of Nokia Windows Phone hardware would use the 1 GHz Qualcomm MSM8x60 chipset.
The Qualcomm MSM8x60 chipset is currently being used in the HTC EVO 3D and offers clock speeds up to 1.5 GHz. Bundled with an Adreno 220 GPU, 1080p video capture and playback, HDMI mirroring and Dolby 5.1 support, this chipset could find its way inside the Galaxy S II. But what about the Galaxy S II’s 1.2 GHz clock speed? To our knowledge, the 1.5 GHz single core processor of the rumored HTC Eternity will be the fastest to date. Of course, that’s assuming the HTC Eternity earns itself a retail launch.
So will the next million Samsung Galaxy S IIs be powered by Windows Phone? As enticing as the idea may sound, Microsoft runs a tight ship. Hardware guidelines will always be the limiting factor for device innovation on the platform. If Samsung was willing to drop the Cortex-A9 processor for a Qualcomm-based solution, a variant of the Galaxy S II running Windows Phone is very much possible.
