While we wait for Windows Mobile 7 (due in 2010) and chase down rumours about the existence of Microsoft’s Zune project, ZDNet.com’s Mary Jo Foley has landed details about minimum specifications for the the Windows Mobile 7 Chassis 1. While exactly what the Chassis 1 is remains a bit of a mystery (is it the Microsoft Pink or something else?), here are its details:
- Core requirements:
- Processor: ARM v6+, L2 Cache, VFP, Open GL ES 2.0 graphics HW (QCOM 8k, Nvidia AP15/16, and TI 3430 all meet spec)
- Memory: 256MB+ DRAM, 1G+ Flash (at least 512MB fast flash – 5MB/s unbuffered read @4K block size)
- Display: WVGA (800 by 480) or FWVGA (854 by 480) 3.5-inch or greater diagonal
- Touch: Multi-touch required
- Battery: Sufficient to meet Days of Use LTK requirements.
- Controls: Start, Back, Send and End are required (soft controls allowed as long as they are always present)
- Peripherals:
- Camera: 3MP+, flash optional, 2nd camera optional (VGA resolution sufficient)
- GPS: aGPS required
- Sensors required: Light Sensor, Compass (3 axis, 5 degrees, 100 Hz sample rate), Accelerometer (3 axis, 2mg resolution, 100 Hz sample rate)
- USB: High speed required, 20 MB/s transfer rate.
- Bluetooth: BT2.1 required, must run MSFT BT stack, CSR BlueCore6 or later recommended.
- Wi-Fi: 802.11 b/g required, must run MSFT Native Wi-Fi stack, Atheros 6002 or Broadcomm 4325 recommended.
- Connectors: Micro USB and 3.5mm Audio required.
- Options:
- FM tuner: If tuner HW is present it will be detected and supported by the Media application.
- Haptics
- SD Card (Micro SD recommended)
- DPAD, qwerty or 12/20 key keyboards all optional
Foley warns that the specifications are a few months old and that they may have changed but they do come from a trustworthy source who requested anonymity.
I suspect that these are not minimum specifications for Windows Mobile 7 but a class of such devices. For example, the requirements for multi-touch and 3.5-inch displays would rule out a large number of potential devices that could otherwise run the OS without issue. Nonetheless, the specs make for a very interesting device.