This topic starts with Windows Phone 7. As early as Microsoft and various mobile phone manufacturers jointly promoted the WP7 mobile phone, we will find that basically all WP7 mobile phones adopt the same chip scheme and the same model, such as the original Samsung I8700 (Omnia 7) HTC T8698 (7 Mozart), Samsung I917 (Focus), etc. These products can be regarded as the first batch of mobile phones equipped with Windows Phone 7 system. They all use Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 processor.

After the launch of the second batch of Windows Phone 7.5 mobile phones represented by Nokia, we saw all kinds of products equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 processor, such as Nokia 800, HTC C110e (Radar), HTC X310e (Triumph), Samsung I8350 (Omnia W), ZTE V965 (Tania), etc. Although some products such as Nokia 610 with Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM7227A as the core have appeared, they still have the characteristics of single processor. At this time, the corresponding Android smart phones have already involved Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, nVIDIA, MTK, Samsung and other processor manufacturers. They not only contain a wide range of types, but also have the performance ahead of Windows Phone 7 mobile phone processors - when Windows Phone 7 was still in the era of single core, Android has entered the dual core era and is very mature.

Continuing to develop, it is the third batch of Windows Phone 8 phones that have recently appeared with WP8 system. Windows Phone 8 can be regarded as an advanced version of Windows Phone 7. X, but there are essential differences between the two. Microsoft's choice at the moment is to abandon Windows Phone 7. X and make the new WP8 mobile phone known as a watershed, while the previous WP7 system products no longer provide upgraded WP8 services. With the upgrading of the system, we also noticed that the Windows Phone 8 mobile phones are not as good as the dual core era: Samsung ATIV S, Nokia Lumia 920/820, and HTC 8X are also equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8960 processors, and the only special HTC 8S is equipped with a low-end Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8227 processor. However, Windows Phone 8 marks that the Windows Phone system has officially entered the dual core era, and at least dual core hardware is required to provide support.

By the time WP8 officially entered the dual core era, Android had been deeply cultivated in the four core field, and the mainstream flagship models had already entered the four core era. At first glance, it can be seen that the hardware configuration of WP8 mobile phones is relatively low. Why does this happen?

The hardware limitations of WP8 are related to Microsoft. Different from Android's active open source, WP8 system is somewhat similar to Apple's iOS, and Microsoft also adopts an incomplete open source approach to support hardware manufacturers. As a result, a lot of support for the underlying hardware needs to be developed by Microsoft, which occupies a large part of Microsoft's development resources. For a finished mobile phone, the whole process of software and hardware adaptation development combined with product design optimization in the later stage is relatively long. By the time the WP8 mobile phone is launched, the fast moving Android product has entered the four core era. It seems that the hardware configuration of WP8 mobile phones is relatively low.

However, incomplete open source has its own advantages. Microsoft can control the quality of its products and enhance the user experience through this action, without causing the product to be mixed.

The ARM platform has made great achievements in the era of mobile terminals. Smartphone products, including Microsoft, Apple and Google, mostly use the ARM platform as the hardware support. However, with the gradual expansion of hardware manufacturers in the ARM camp, the hardware architecture of the ARM camp is also facing differentiation problems The GPUs are different, and the diversification situation is gradually expanding, which makes Microsoft, an incomplete open source system manufacturer, have to make a choice. At the same time, the Windows platform based on ARM must not take care of all chips like Android, but only one or two.

At present, in the mobile phone field, all WP8 mobile phones of all brands use Qualcomm's processor products, and the repeatability is very high. Several high-end WP8 mobile phones currently released use the same Qualcomm S4 dual core processor. In fact, in order to make the hardware and software systems work well together, Microsoft has already paid a lot of development work for this chip. Although Microsoft is powerful, it is not Guanyin after all. At present, it can only develop several representative chip products. Compared with its competitor Android, the hardware they develop is always facing the problem of forced backwardness.

According to industry insiders, Microsoft's current ARM platform partners are Texas Instruments, Qualcomm and nVIDIA. These manufacturers are listed as the first echelon. Most of Microsoft's development resources are occupied by Win8 (including WP8) in the first echelon. Other chip manufacturers (including several domestic chip manufacturers) have no opportunity to cooperate with Microsoft for the time being.

Speaking of this, the author associates Huawei, Microsoft's partner. At the launch of Windows Phone 8, the long-awaited Huawei WP8 mobile phone failed to come out as it did. Is it related to Huawei's own chip business? It may be speculated that Huawei wants to use HiSilicon processors on its own WP8 mobile phones, but Microsoft has not enough energy to develop HiSilicon, which has led to the delay of Huawei's WP8 products. Of course, this is only a hypothesis, because Microsoft is not likely to develop HiSilicon processors independently, which are not widely used.

Finally, although Microsoft claimed that old products such as the Nokia Lumia 800 could not upgrade the WP8 system, was it really impossible? In fact, from the chip point of view, although the MSM8255 processor on the Lumia 800 is not mainstream in performance, its chip architecture is not completely different from the dual core MSM8960, and theoretically it has certain versatility. Microsoft's statement just means that Microsoft will not optimize the development of this chip product. If a private expert carries out system transplantation, it is more likely to let Lumia 800 run WP8. However, it is not an official work after all, and there may be some problems at that time. Now that Microsoft has abandoned its old users and products for high-end reasons, what can we say?