NEC Intros First Smartphone with Liquid Cooling
This phone is headed to Japan, but its innovative design could cause ODMs to rethink their smartphone layouts.
The Inquisitor reports that NEC's Medias X N-06E is the first smartphone to feature liquid cooling.
Before now, phones didn't have a cooling system at all. But the new Medias X sports a liquid-filled heatpipe that pulls heat away from a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core SoC and disperses it all via a graphite "radiator" through the phone's polycarbonate exterior to slow overheating. The system board is also designed to disperse the heat.
What's surprising about this cooling aspect is that the Snapdragon chip isn’t overclocked – it's not even maxed out at 1.9 GHz. Instead, the chip is toned down to a slower 1.7 GHz even with its liquid-cooled core installed. Still, overclocked or not, the chip will generate heat from heavy use like graphic-intensive game playing and media streaming. The liquid-cooling system should help the overall device stay cool to the touch even during heated FPS shootouts.
In addition to the liquid cooling, this phone will feature Android 4.2 "Jelly Bean", a 1.3MP camera on the front, a 13.1MP Exmor RS camera on the rear and a backside illuminated sensor. There's also a 4.7-inch OLED display with a 1280 x 720 resolution, NFC and Wi-Fi connectivity, a 2,300mAh battery and compatibility with Japanese digital TV services. That's right: it's only heading to Japan's NTT DoCoMo this summer.
Still, if this liquid cooling design is successful, it could find its way into other smartphones sold in more regions. It may eventually become necessary as components decrease in size but increase in number within smartphone form factors and in sheer desktop-like performance. It certainly would be the preferred alternative to a noisy fan.
The weird aspect about this phone is that NEC isn't marketing the device to gadget nerds. Instead, it's shooting for the ladies, packing the phone with a pretty pink color option and girly charms. Some of us would buy it nonetheless just to take it apart and see how the cooling system performs... and for the pretty charms.
She just placed it where it belongs, LOL.
Heatpipe is NOT liquid cooling, at least not by the widely accepted definition of it. If anything, it's phase-change cooling.
Nope, heat pipes are not solid. They are generally filled with a liquid/gas that evaporates and condenses at the correct temperature to allow the convective flow of the gas to transport the heat from the source to the sink.
A well designed heat pipe can move many times more heat than the same diameter solid copper pipe.
well, we man rare complain about the heat because we kinda ignore it...
I think the fancy liquid cooling is more about spreading heat around more effectively to reduce uncomfortable hotspots than anything else.
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are you for real? lol since when are heatsinks filled with liquid? Pretty sure they are solid
Nope, heat pipes are not solid. They are generally filled with a liquid/gas that evaporates and condenses at the correct temperature to allow the convective flow of the gas to transport the heat from the source to the sink.
A well designed heat pipe can move many times more heat than the same diameter solid copper pipe.
She just placed it where it belongs, LOL.
Heatpipe is NOT liquid cooling, at least not by the widely accepted definition of it. If anything, it's phase-change cooling.
This is not powered cooling, it's the phase-change that creates the movement of fluid through the heat pipes. Everything is passive. No power required.
Ahem, "liquid-filled" heatpipes.
How much heat the heat pipe can transfer is pointless since the ultimate heatsink in mobile devices is the device's body. No matter how good the heatpipe may be, you still do not want to exceed what power the device's body can dissipate without generating uncomfortable heating.
Personally, I find hotspot - uneven heating - on modern devices somewhat annoying so I would welcome lower TDP chips with more efficient heat-spreading to eliminate hotspots.