What does MTK stand for?
The aims and objectives of this tutorial will enable you understand if your mobile device falls into the MTK category or not.
The aims and objectives of this tutorial will enable you understand if your mobile device falls into the MTK category or not.
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.
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, go to Google Play Store.
- Search and download this simple and free app named CPU-Z.
- 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 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.
You will notice that I was able to use single stone in this piece to kill two birds for you, and so if you are happy with this, please you can use the comment box to express yourself and also share to your friends so they can also gain from this knowledge.
