Technical Glossary (1935 terms)

Standardized hardware and benchmark definitions across smartphones, laptops, CPUs, GPUs, SoCs, and tablets.

• MUX Switch — A hardware switch that lets a laptop GPU drive the screen directly for more gaming performance. [ GAMING ]
• MacBook Air M1 — Apple's fanless ultrabook with the M1 chip — launched in 2020. [ PRODUCT LINES ]
• MacBook Air M2 — Apple's redesigned ultrabook with the M2 chip — launched in 2022. [ PRODUCT LINES ]
• MacBook Air M3 — Apple's ultrabook with the M3 chip — launched in 2024. [ PRODUCT LINES ]
• MacBook Air M4 — Apple's ultrabook with the M4 chip — launched in 2025. [ PRODUCT LINES ]
• MacBook Pro 14 — Apple's pro laptop with a 14-inch Liquid Retina XDR display — launched in 2021. [ PRODUCT LINES ]
• MagicOS — MagicOS is Honor's custom Android interface for phones. [ SOFTWARE ]
• MagicOS 9 — MagicOS 9 is a generation of Honor's Android interface. [ SOFTWARE ]
• Mali — Arm's GPU brand used in many MediaTek, Exynos, and Kirin SoCs. [ BRANDS ]
• Mali-G710 — Arm's high-end GPU used in the Dimensity 9000 (launched in 2022). [ CHIPS ]
• Mali-G720 — Arm's GPU used in the Dimensity 9300 (launched in 2023). [ CHIPS ]
• Mali-G78 — Arm's flagship GPU used in the Exynos 2100 (launched in 2020). [ CHIPS ]
• Mali-G925 — Arm's flagship GPU used in the Dimensity 9400 (launched in 2024). [ CHIPS ]
• Marvell — Chip designer for networking, storage, and Arm-based processors. [ BRANDS ]
• Maxon — Developer of Cinema 4D and the Cinebench rendering benchmark. [ BRANDS ]
• Maxwell — NVIDIA's GPU architecture used in GTX 900 and GTX 750 (2014). [ CHIPS ]
• MediaTek — Taiwanese chip designer producing Dimensity and Helio SoCs used across midrange and flagship phones. [ BRANDS ]
• Megabits per second — Megabits per second (Mbps) is a network speed unit. [ GENERAL ]
• Megabyte — A megabyte is one million bytes, a common measure of file size. [ GENERAL ]
• Megahertz — Megahertz is one million hertz, used for older clock speeds. [ GENERAL ]
• Megapixel — One million pixels in a camera sensor; more MP can mean more detail, but sensor size matters more. [ CAMERA ]
• Memory Bandwidth — How much data memory can move per second (GB/s); crucial for GPU and SoC performance. [ MEMORY ]
• Meteor Lake — Intel's Core Ultra 1st-gen microarchitecture with tile design and NPU (2023). [ CHIPS ]
• MicroLED — An emerging emissive display using microscopic LEDs; promises OLED contrast with no burn-in and extreme brightness. [ DISPLAY ]
• MicroSD — Removable flash cards that expand a phone or tablet's storage if a slot is available. [ STORAGE ]
• Microsoft — US software company behind Windows, Surface devices, and Xbox. [ BRANDS ]
• Milan — Milan is AMD's 3rd-generation EPYC server CPU codename. [ CHIPS ]
• Mini-LED — LCD with thousands of small LEDs for local dimming, improving contrast close to OLED at lower cost. [ DISPLAY ]
• Miracast — A standard for mirroring a screen wirelessly to a display. [ CONNECTIVITY ]
• Mistral — Mistral was an ARM CPU core design used in some SoCs. [ CHIPS ]
• Modem — The chip that handles cellular connectivity (4G/5G); its specs set peak download and upload speeds. [ CONNECTIVITY ]
• Monsoon — Monsoon was an early Apple CPU core design used in the A-series chips. [ CHIPS ]
• Moto G85 — Motorola's best-selling midrange phone launched in 2024. [ PRODUCT LINES ]
• Motorola — US phone brand known for the Razr foldable and the Moto G/E budget lines. [ BRANDS ]
• Motorola Edge 50 — Motorola's premium edge-to-edge phone launched in 2024. [ PRODUCT LINES ]
• NAND — The flash memory technology used in SSDs, phones, and memory cards. [ STORAGE ]
• NFC — Tap-to-pay and tap-to-pair tech embedded around the camera module. [ CONNECTIVITY ]
• NFC chip — An NFC chip enables short-range tap-to-pay and pairing. [ CHIPS ]
• NOR flash — A flash memory type used for firmware and code storage rather than bulk data. [ STORAGE ]
• NPU — A dedicated AI accelerator for photo, voice, and on-device machine learning. [ PERFORMANCE ]
• NR carrier aggregation — Combining multiple 5G bands to increase data throughput. [ CONNECTIVITY ]
• NSA — Non-Standalone 5G, where 5G data rides on an LTE core. [ CONNECTIVITY ]
• NTFS — The default Windows file system, supporting large files, permissions, and journaling. [ STORAGE ]
• NTSC — A legacy color gamut still used to quote display color coverage. [ DISPLAY ]
• NVIDIA — US company making GeForce/RTX graphics cards, the CUDA platform, DLSS, and AI accelerators. [ BRANDS ]
• NVLink — NVLink is Nvidia's high-speed interconnect between GPUs and CPUs. [ CHIPS ]
• NVMe — Fast flash storage protocol over PCIe; much quicker than eMMC/UFS in phones and laptops. [ STORAGE ]
• NXP — Dutch chipmaker for automotive, NFC, and IoT semiconductors. [ BRANDS ]
• Nanometer — Unit for chip feature size; 3 nm is today's cutting edge for phones and laptops. [ PERFORMANCE ]
• Natural mode — A display preset tuned for more accurate, less saturated colours. [ DISPLAY ]