MTK, Qualcomm, Snapdragon, Spreadtrum and other phone chipset are flooding the mobile market, the wave of new Android mobile device entering the Nigerian mobile market had left people asking just this one question. 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 is it MTK?
To better understand this post, MTK means Mediatek. Mediatek is known for its popularity in chip production firm headquartered in Taiwan. 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.
Mediatek produces chips that are used in the OS processing of Mediatek devices. So when you hear MTK devices, it means mobile phones that runs on 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. 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.
MediaTek Inc. is a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company that provides system-on-chip solutions for wireless communications, HDTV, DVD and Blu-ray. Headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan, the company has 25 offices worldwide and was the 3rd largest fabless IC designer worldwide in 2016. Since its founding in 1997, MediaTek has been creating chipset solutions for the global market. MediaTek also provides its customers with reference designs.
Knowing your device chipset / processor is really important and necessary to enable you know ‘stuffs’ that suit your device and how to ‘apply’ these ‘stuffs’ to your device.
By ‘stuffs’, I mean stock firmware files, custom roms, recovery, etc. For instance, when porting custom recovery or Rom to your device, you need to get a port rom / recovery that matches your phone’s chipset so you don’t do things wrongly and hard brick your smartphone. Same thing applies to using a non-matching recovery, which could cause your device to soft-brick.
Also, by ‘apply’, I mean how to use the downloaded firmware package, recovery, etc on your device: that is, flashing the firmware package. For instance, the tool required and procedure for flashing Mediatek devices, differ from that of Qualcomm Snapdragon, Intel Atom, Spreadtrum, etc. Also, the firmware extensions differ by chipsets. Spreadtrum devices require Upgrade tool or Research Download to flash its firmware (stock rom); Mediatek (mtk) requires Smart Phone Flash Tool (SP flashtool); Qualcomm phones need QPST (mostly used to unbrick phones though).
Some device manufacturers’ though have developed its own firmware upgrade / flashing tools: Sony’s Flashtool, PC Companion, Sony Ericsson Update Service (SEUS); Samsung’s Odin, etc. Other manufactures made their own firmware package flashable via their device’s stock recovery: InFocus, and Xiaomi for instance. If you read the brief information about chipsets above and you’re not among the percentage of those who use Android just for calls, SMS, and IM, then you should proceed below.
Now back to the main topic. we are focusing on how to detect MTK devices when you handle them. Since these chips are hardware components and with models embedded inside the devices, it will be extremely difficult to tell if they are MTK devices, SPD or any others by mere handling or looking of the device without disassembling. It is a common idea that most range of Chinese phones like Gionee, Infinix, Tecno etc. are MTK devices. But as we stated above, you can’t tell by mere seeing or handling them.
In-fact what am teaching you now will even go a very long way helping you in differentiating original Android devices from fake ones. In other words, it helps in differentiating cloned phones from other manufacturers mimicking original manufacturers like HTC, Samsung, LG etc. with this method.
Now for you to fully understand and really want determine whether your android devices are MTK devices or not, follow the steps below;
How to Check If My Phone is An MTK Device?
- Now follow the simple steps below to know if your phone is a part of it or not:
- Just head to Google Play Store on your android device.
- Search for and download this simple and free app CPU-Z by CPUID.
- After installation, launch the app and you will see all your phones and hardware components models.
- While on the open app, you will see about 7 menu buttons at the top when you swipe to the right; SOC (System on Chips), Device, System, Battery, Thermal, 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 Device Menu to see the hardware component. The models for MTK devices always start with mt prefix.
