Apple Inc. (AAPL), Google Inc. (GOOG): What Will Googorola’s iPhone Killer Look Like?

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was the first smartphone vendor to catalyze Gorilla Glass adoption, and it may be the same one to signal an eventual shift toward sapphire displays. Sapphire suppliers like Rubicon Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:RBCN) and GT Advanced Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:GTAT) could potentially benefit from that transition if it materializes meaningfully over the next couple years.

All that and a bag of chips
Inside the X Phone should be one of QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM)‘s latest and greatest Snapdragon processors, potentially its high-end 800 Series that was just announced in January and is currently sampling for mid-year commercial launches. Specifically, phoneArena believes it may be a quad-core 2 GHz chip inside.

As with all rumors, none of the above may be true, especially since the rumbling directly contradicts another X Phone rumor from earlier this month. Android World had speculated that the device would carry a 4.7-inch display and notably a different processor — NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)‘s quad-core Tegra 4i.

Sources: Qualcomm and NVIDIA.

That processor is NVIDIA’s first processor with integrated connectivity and would be a big win against Qualcomm if it scores the X Phone spot. The Tegra 4i uses less powerful cores compared to the regular Tegra 4, which may not be able to challenge the Snapdragon 800 as well. If Googorola is set on using a chip with integrated LTE, it has to go with one of these two chips since the other choices only offer discrete connectivity.

Tag team
Until the X Phone’s launch, the Android army will have to rely on the Galaxy S4 and HTC One to keep the heat on the iPhone. Just don’t expect the X Phone to kill the iPhone.

The article What Will Googorola’s iPhone Killer Look Like? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Evan Niu, CFA, owns shares of Apple and Qualcomm. The Motley Fool recommends Apple, Corning, Google, and NVIDIA. The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple, Corning, Google, and Qualcomm.

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