How to know if your phone is an MTK device
Before we
delve into the topic of the day, it will be very important for us to first
identify what MTK stands for and what it truly mean for the benefit of those
who it might sound alien to.
What does MTK stand for?
In relation
to this topic, MTK stands for MediaTek, and MediaTek is a well-known chip
manufacturing company based in Taiwan that mostly outsources their products,
hence they are regarded as Fabless companies.
They specialize
in manufacturing the Central Processing Unit (CPU chips) for wireless telecommunications,
HDTVs, DVD etc. Their largest demands come from the Chinese mobile tech market.
From that
little description of MTK, you can deduce by now that when we say MTK phones,
we are talking of phones that make use of MTK chips.
Since MTK
are largest suppliers of their chips to the Chinese mobile tech markets, it now
tells us that most of the mobile devices produced in China are MTK devices.
Note: I said
most and not all, because there is other notable semiconductor companies aside
from MTK that also serve the Chinese market and other mobile tech markets
across the globe. For example we also have other notable one like SPD (Spreadtrum).
But we are
focusing on how to detect MTK devices when you are on hand with them. Since these
chips are hardware components and with models embedded inside the devices, it
will be difficult to tell if they are MTK devices, SPD and others by looking at
or handling the device without uncoupling.
It is a
common idea that most ranges of Chinese phones like Tecno, Gionee, Infinix etc.
are MTK devices. But as we mentioned above, you can’t categorically tell by
mere seeing or handling them.
In-fact what
I want to tell you now will even go a long way helping you in differentiating
original Android devices from fake ones. In other words, cloned phones from
other manufacturers mimicking original manufacturers like Samsung, hTC, LG and
the rest can easily be detected with this method.
Now for you
to really determine whether your android devices are MTK devices or not, follow
the simple steps below;
= =>With
your android device on hand, just head to Google Play Store.
=
=>Search for and download this simple and free app CPU-Z
= =>After
installation, launch the app and you will see all your phones and hardware
components models. You can see image below.
= =>While
on the open app, you will see about 5 menu buttons at the top; SOC (System on
Chips), System, Battery, Sensors and About menus.
On the SOC
menu, you will see the chip and model of your device boldly written at the top portion of your screen. On the other way
round you can also navigate to the system
menu to see the hardware component. The models for MTK devices always start with Mt
prefix, while that of Spreadtrum
often start with SPD or SC.
You can use
this app to detect other models and chipsets of any android device. Now for
those cloned Samsung devices, when you use this app and find out that the
chipsets are MTK, it should tell you
that it is not from signed Samsung original products, as Samsung have their self-manufactured
chipset as in the Exynos and aside
from theirs, they also prefer using American chipsets like Qualcomm Snapdragon,
Nvidia etc to MTK chipset.
