Minimum Windows 7 Mobile specifications revealed?

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.

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