Technology Android

[masta247]

The S4 first benchmarks. Like I said, they are awesome, and dual core:

Linpack reports a whopping 106.8 MFLOPS in single-threaded mode and 218.2 MFLOPS in multithreaded mode. For comparison, a Tegra 3 chipset with four Cortex-A9 cores at 1.3GHz score 135.9 MFLOPS in the multi-threaded benchmark.

That's also why I said that HTC Ville is the phone to go for if you want HTC, not the Endevour, which will be nothing special.

http://www.gsmarena.com/qualcomm_s4_chipset_benchmarks_promise_amazing_performance-news-3860.php

 

[masta247]

The Panasonic droid looks pretty sweet:

The poorly named Eluga is powered by a dual-core 1GHz TI OMAP 4430 processor and 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory, which we have come to expect from high-end droids these days. At the front we find a 4.3-inch OLED display with qHD 960 x 540 pixels resolution.

It's also water- and dust-proof with NFC on-board. Remarkably, this hasn't made the device as thick as one might expect. The Eluga is just 7.8mm thick and weighs only 103grams, which, to bring it in a perspective, beats the Galaxy S II hands-down.

http://www.gsmarena.com/panasonic_uncovers_eluga_specifications-news-3859.php

I don't think that Eluga is a poor name. In fact, it reminds me of Belugas which are awesome.
Anyway this phone has 2 drawbacks:
- lack of camera flash
- small battery (1150mAh) HOWEVER Panasonic have been known for decent energy efficiency.

 

[masta247]

And a third post in a row dedicated to MWC. It's coming next week Oh man oh man it's going to be cool, so many new phones. Lg have annouced that they are going to officially annouce these 3 new ICS phones:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/21/2813626/lg-l-style-l7-l5-l3-mwc-announcement

Personally I really don't like the design. Seems like good screen sizes and ICS and those new displays sound interesting but oh man, they look like cheap chinese SGS2 knock offs. I expected something at least like the LG Swift Black, which had a great design.

 

[Flipmo]

I fail to see awesomeness (cuteness, yes)

 

[masta247]

They're cute, yes. Also pretty awesome I think:

 

[ARon]

Those phones are too bulky...

I was talking up the s4 pages ago. I was saying its bullshit if you think the s2 will be superior to either one

 

[masta247]

Which one is bulky? The new Panasonic is the slimmest (7,2mm in its thickest point) and lightest (103g) smartphone around.
Yeah, but according to benchmarks the dual core S4 is twice as fast as Tegra3 in CPU power. That processor appears to be really awesome. It comes with Adreno 225 GPU at the moment which isn't super awesome but it'll run any Android game with max framerate and differences appear only in benchmarks. In the near feature Qualcomm will pack Adreno 3xx GPUs. Certainly we're talking huge performance differences with the upcoming generation of chips.

 

[ARon]

Lmao I was talking about the whales

Yeah the tegra 3 will have better graphics performance. Once the quad core s4 comes out it will have a matching gpu to go along with the processing so it will be real nice

 

[masta247]

Nec and Fujitsu heading to the European market.

Fujitsu:

The company gave us some details about the smartphone in advance and we got to know that it will pack an impressive 13 megapixel camera and NFC connectivity. There's also going to be a fingerprint scanner onoboard, so you can prevent unauthorized access to your smartphone.

One of the coolest bits about the upcoming Fujitsu smartphone is that it will be both water and dust resistant. We assume it's using some kind of nanocoating as most of the phones from Japanese manufacturers demonstrated at CES.

Coming with a 4.6" screen, this Fujistu smartphone is shaping up to be one of the hottest smartphones of the season. We'll make sure to stop by the company's booth at the MWC and see if the actual product matches the high expectations created by those specs. Here's hoping!

http://www.gsmarena.com/elementresi...id_with_tegra_3_to_debut_at_mwc-news-3867.php

NEC:
http://www.gsmarena.com/nec_is_prep...lte_android_devices_for_the_mwc-news-3866.php

I really dig vanilla ICS and the phone in the middle. The concept of that phone to the left is also cool.

 

[Flipmo]

Agreed - digging the middle phone.

 

[Flipmo]

Acer CloudMobile shown off in its 4.3-inch 720p glory

By Daniel Bader on February 24, 2012 at 10:13am in Mobile News

Acer’s CloudMobile may have one of the worst names in mobile (well, maybe not) but from the looks of the device itself, the company is not playing around. With a 1.5Ghz dual-core processor and a 4.3-inch 1280×720 display running Ice Cream Sandwich, the CloudMobile is going to pack quite a punch when it debuts in Q3.
A few Italian bloggers got the chance to play with the device during Milan Fashion Week, and had some positive things to say (in Italian, of course). Notebook Italia claims the CloudMobile has “excellent sound” thanks to the Dolby Digital codecs built in, and goes on to say that it has “unparalleled performance” on Android 4.1. This could be a typo, but we’ll wait for confirmation before making any assumptions.
The CloudMobile also comes with an 8MP camera and NFC built in. The showstopper feature, Acer Cloud, which should allow for real-time streaming of video, music and photos, is not yet operational, so we can’t vouch for its effectiveness. The prototype also incorporates both soft- and hard-buttons on the device, which is likely to be eliminated before the final product ships. We do wish that manufacturers would get behind Google’s attempts to eliminate capacitive buttons from devices, but there must be a reason for keeping them.
The Acer CloudMobile looks to be a fairly well-rounded device, but whether it will be able to take on the likes of the Samsung, Sony, LG, HTC and others in the crowded North American market remains to be seen. For a video of the CloudMobile in action, check after the break.

 

[masta247]

Looks like Qualcomm are at a dominating position right now. They already have their Krait at 28nm to be released in upcoming phones and even the dual core S4 crushes everything (it's almost twice as fast as Tegra 3) and it's a freaking mid-end chip. If you need even more performance the 2,5ghz quad core S4 is coming out in a few months.

In comparison TI will not catch up with this until at least Q4 2012 since that's when their A15 28nm chips will start coming out in phones and they have nothing that could beat Snapdragons, they will be on par at best.
Samsung and their Exynos chips will be made in an older 32nm technology. Also we don't know exactly when they will be released - most probably with the Galaxy S3. However they might not be on par with Snapdragon S4s, on paper Snapdragons are better and more energy efficient.

I'm curious about Intel's Atoms. 32nm but a different architecture that proves to be very fast.

 

[dilla]

They're saying that Google may have patents that hint at Android for computers. Interesting. And considering good number of engineers at Google use OSX, maybe it won't be too far-fetched to think about partitioning my HDD for it.

Also, Ubuntu is coming to the TouchPad. Although I thought it was already running on the TP some time last year. Maybe an official release from Canonical, or something.

 

[ARon]

I'm gonna be pissed if the s3 comes with an exynos based off of a9 and not a15.

 

[ARon]

Just read an article on bgr about the s3. Word is it will have a back made of ceramic and not cheap plastic. Yay for build quality

 

[masta247]

I'm gonna be pissed if the s3 comes with an exynos based off of a9 and not a15.

I really doubt that. They would rather rush their new Exynos chips (perhaps those A7/A15 ones confirmed last year) or use one from Qualcomm.

As far as build quality is concerned the Galaxy S2 was really good. The plastic on Samsung phones was of high quality and they could take a lot of force. The ceramic thing doesn't sound like it could withstand as much but it makes me wonder, because they have the means to do it right.

 

[ARon]

Samsung basically has the option to use the 4 series or 5 series exynos for the s3. The 4 is a9, 5 is a15.
No one really knows which direction they're going.

It comes down to a matter of preference for samsungs build quality. The plastic may be strong but its flimsy and it feels cheap. I don't know, I see blogs say the same, but then some say different. In the article I was talking about bgr said it was cheap. Seems that ceramic could be a good choice, very firm and strong and of course it deals with heat well.

 

[masta247]

I think Samsung's plastic is about preference. It is indeed durable. If it feels cheap.. well each to their own. In my opinion LG phones feel a bit cheap because the plastic is similar but it looks cheaper. I don't mind it as much on Samsung unless it's that cheap "glossy" one.

If it comes to Exynos they had big plans for these:
http://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-exynos-big-little-cortex-a7-cortex-a15-28929/

I was pretty sure that they'd use one of those for the Galaxy S3, but they're pretty quiet about this.
The four core A9 has its positives. Basically the A15 architecture isn't all around successful. Sure it's much faster but it drains battery really fast because it's based on systems that aren't battery-dependent - servers. It will drain batteries faster than A9, at 4 cores we're talking about draining a 1500mAh battery within 3-5 hours by a processor itself.
Qualcomm's Krait architecture is superior here so I assume that Samsung have a problem now and their A7/A15 solution might be the way to go.

So as far as processors go the new Qualcomm chips (28nm ones) are the way to go for me, and I can already recommend them although it would be good to see a few real life tests. Intel's Atoms might suffer from poor power/performance ratio in comparison but I'm looking forward to them too. The rest isn't really too relevant. Qualcomm's 28nm are by definition better than Samsung's 32nm - no matter if we're talking A9 or A15. One is sure though, A9 is far inferior to Krait, as a matter of fact Krait is also better/similar to A15 performance-wise, but 28nm is better than 32nm and Krait is almost designed to offer a better performance/power ratio. That's why I also think that Krait (S4 snapdragons) are the best we will have anytime soon.

 

[masta247]

On a side note Samsung are not in a neat position. HTC have what appears to be really decent "Samsung killers" coming up.

The HTC Ville / One S is basically a Galaxy S2 murderer. S4 Krait - 30% to 300% faster than Exynos in the Galaxy S2 depending on a benchmark.
Also it packs a 4,3 inch Super Amoled screen but of a slightly higher resolution and a slim, metal body. The design is not perfect but it's good enough since they target that phone at below their flagship One X.
Actually if the price is right I might go for that phone (One S).

And The HTC Edge/Endevour/ One X wants to be a Galaxy Nexus Killer. Personally I think it won't be as good though. The 4,7 inch screen is said to be S-LCD, Tegra 3 is okay but not great. However it's a decent alternative.

 

[masta247]

Sony and HTC announced their 2012 lineups:

http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_mobile_xperia_p_xperia_u_mwc-news-3893.php

http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_officially_debuts_the_one_x_one_s_and_one_e_at_mwc-news-3892.php

For starters, you can read about their specs in links above but both companies have phones superior to the Galaxy S2. It's funny that we can expect the Galaxy S3 coming in the upcoming months and it took companies a year to beat previous Galaxy phones.

HTCs finally look neat. Hoping for an affordable price on the One S, and a decent battery on it.