BlackBerry (BB 0.33%) is rumored to have a powerful new phone in the works, boasting among other strong specs an octa-core 64-bit chip, which is reportedly a Qualcomm (QCOM 1.14%) Snapdragon chip. However, Motley Fool tech and telecom bureau chief Evan Niu senses something not quite right about the rumors.
In this video from Monday's Tech Teardown, Evan talks BlackBerry with host Erin Kennedy, and discusses why the chip story seems amiss. Qualcomm has been vocally opposed to chips with eight cores, saying that increasing the quality of the cores is far more important than increasing the quantity. With most apps currently only using two cores, chips boasting eight can be seen as more of a marketing technique than a useful incremental improvement, which Evan compares to the recent megapixel race in digital cameras and smartphone cameras.
More importantly, he discusses the broader issue of whether the ailing BlackBerry should be throwing in the towel on its fight to continue bringing hardware to the consumer market, and whether this new phone would be a useful part of the company's desperate turnaround efforts.
