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Good Afternoon Everyone.
I appologise if I am not allowed to post this here but I thought XDA-Developers would be a great place to come for this.
I am thinking of retailing a Google Android 7" Touch Screen Device.
I am still waiting for some more information and some tests to come back to me but I have got the basic specification and some pictures of the device and I was wondering if I can get some thoughts back from other members here.
I have currently setup a survey at: http://www.dhcd.co.uk/surveys/AndroidTouchDevice.aspx
If some of you could take a look and leave you thoughts that would be great.
I am currently talking with the factory because I beleieve that the Ram needs doubling, the processor needs increasing and the Storage capacity needs improving alot other than that I personally think its a great device but would love some feedback on it.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Max
More like pentuple the RAM. Current Android phones have about 512 MB of RAM [and that's phones not tablets], and processors of 1GHZ.
Actually, i looked at this device at ebay yesterday while looking for an ebook reader. Looks nice but having around 384-512MB RAM would definitely help with web browsing. The CPU could be a bit faster but even as it is it should be able to handle ebooks and www well enough. A few MHz more would be nice extra for games and media but it's not that critical in my opinion.
What don't like is the proprietary connector. It would be much better if there was a standard miniUSB for recharging and copying files over to the device.
I don't have any complaints about storage memory - 4GB might not be much today but it's more than enough for your apps and SDHC card slot means almost unlimited storage space for everything else. So i'd say leave the internal memory as it is.
The overall design looks nice. I especially like the fact that it isn't a straight ipad clone. Okay, ipad may look nice but its knock-offs rarely do.
However it seems that someone didn't think the screen size trough. 800x480 screen is too narrow for this device size and leaves ugly thick black borders at the sides. having a 800x600 screen put into that thing would be really sweet It would also greatly improve ebook reading experience in portrait mode (a few more words per line).
The stated price seems fair, especially if it would remain the same after upgrades (sorry, chose "High price" in survey by mistake ).
From what i read, these devices run android 1.6. It would be really great if they got 2.x upgrade along with upgraded specs since more and more apps require android 2.
Anyway, for now i'm sticking with my old TC1100 tabletPC as books and pdf docs reader but if you manage to get this device upgraded it might be a nice lightweight alternative to the full-featured tabletPC.
Thanks for the feedback all very helpful.
I am taking what is said back to the factory and hopefully I can get the device upgraded.
Regards,
Max
Yeah I think if you bump up the specs as suggested above (ROM memory especially), you'll probably move some at the price you mentioned in the survey. However, I think you'll need to be sure to play up the fact that your device does have the real Android on it...there's Chinese/Taiwanese "KiRF" (knockoff) hardware out there that looks like a full featured device, but is running a home-brew Android look-alike OS, with far less features...don't want yours getting confused with those
I know this has been discussed off and on in the Sensation vs Galaxy II thread, but I would like to have a more focused discussion on this.
It seems to me that the the async cores could be a plausible reason for the lowe (for example) quadrant scores. What do you guys think? I mean, how can mt4g and desire HD, overclocked, score as high as the stock sensation? I am currently a graduation student at the University of Notre Dame. I am pursing a degree in nueroscience...so this is not my field of study. But I am very good friends with a few of the computer science and tech Phds up here, and I asked them about this. One of them is a avid phone tech geek, and he said that this is exactly the reason for the low benchmarks...even with smartbench. The reasons he rambled off are over my head (again I'm nueroscience), and he talked to me about for at least an hour. His conclusion was that at the very least the modified A8 snapdragons are as powerful, or very close to the A9's on the Galaxy S II. He said the async actually should allow the phone to perform better, sync individual cores can be assigned individual task, thus allowing increased multitasking and prevent a bottleneck at the processor level.
He also mentioned some of samsung's implantations in the phone, such as the ridiculously high read speed on the sd card (artifically made, faster than most solid state drives...somewhere in the 400 mb/s) seem to have been intended for the purpose of benchmarks, due to such programing would not benefit real world use. Smart move by samsung, though, as it makes for pretty numbers and fanfare.
I mentioned the browser, for example, difference and he said this is the result of software alone. As such, HTC will remedy this. The graphic excel is great on the Galaxy S II, but if HTC doesn't match this...Ice Cream will. Still...in my opinion...great thinking on samsung's part in this aspect (even if it will be short lived)
For the purpose of this argument, lets put aside the broswer examples (which does not speak for the actually processing power of the phone, and will not be a long lasting advantage). Also, there is debate around the camera, but again we are talking processing power here. Beyond these two examples, I have not seen a comparision in which the galaxy S II was faster in opening apps, or flying between various parts of the UI.
Leave out the sam dudes (sorry, don't remember full name) comparisions. Beyond the fact that they focus on the browser, etc, there also seems to be some controversy around that.
Anyway, I wanted to see what you guys think.
Take care, and enjoy the discussion.
I am no genius when it comes to chip technologies, but I have been thinking that maybe the async cores of the sensation are not running on full throttle with those benchmarks.
BlueGoldAce said:
I know this has been discussed off and on in the Sensation vs Galaxy II thread, but I would like to have a more focused discussion on this.
It seems to me that the the async cores could be a plausible reason for the lowe (for example) quadrant scores. What do you guys think? I mean, how can mt4g and desire HD, overclocked, score as high as the stock sensation? I am currently a graduation student at the University of Notre Dame. I am pursing a degree in nueroscience...so this is not my field of study. But I am very good friends with a few of the computer science and tech Phds up here, and I asked them about this. One of them is a avid phone tech geek, and he said that this is exactly the reason for the low benchmarks...even with smartbench. The reasons he rambled off are over my head (again I'm nueroscience), and he talked to me about for at least an hour. His conclusion was that at the very least the modified A8 snapdragons are as powerful, or very close to the A9's on the Galaxy S II. He said the async actually should allow the phone to perform better, sync individual cores can be assigned individual task, thus allowing increased multitasking and prevent a bottleneck at the processor level.
He also mentioned some of samsung's implantations in the phone, such as the ridiculously high read speed on the sd card (artifically made, faster than most solid state drives...somewhere in the 400 mb/s) seem to have been intended for the purpose of benchmarks, due to such programing would not benefit real world use. Smart move by samsung, though, as it makes for pretty numbers and fanfare.
I mentioned the browser, for example, difference and he said this is the result of software alone. As such, HTC will remedy this. The graphic excel is great on the Galaxy S II, but if HTC doesn't match this...Ice Cream will. Still...in my opinion...great thinking on samsung's part in this aspect (even if it will be short lived)
For the purpose of this argument, lets put aside the broswer examples (which does not speak for the actually processing power of the phone, and will not be a long lasting advantage). Also, there is debate around the camera, but again we are talking processing power here. Beyond these two examples, I have not seen a comparision in which the galaxy S II was faster in opening apps, or flying between various parts of the UI.
Leave out the sam dudes (sorry, don't remember full name) comparisions. Beyond the fact that they focus on the browser, etc, there also seems to be some controversy around that.
Anyway, I wanted to see what you guys think.
Take care, and enjoy the discussion.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To put it simply either the Sensation is less powerful than the other dual core devices or HTC have done something wrong with the implementation of the hardware and/or the software.
Benchmarking software like Smartbench 2011 works just fine with multiple cores as does the version of Android that is shipped on the Sensation.
So the question is this, if the Sensation is more powerful than the benchmarks show, as some people believe it is, then why would they expect it to reach maximum performance when a user is going about their normal everyday tasks but not when a benchmark program is burning up the phone?
Obviously I'm looking at the phone as a whole since we can't just test the CPU alone but when talking about the CPU itself, like I said in another thread I always expected the Qualcomm dual-core offering to be No. 4 when it came to raw power. Behind Tegra 2, Exynos, and OMAP.
However it is strange how much further behind it scores in benchmarks that don't involve the screen. Is it possible that HTC used cheaper components in the phone to maximise profits and this is showing in the benchmarks?
I was set on getting the HTC Incredible S until the bootloader proved to be too much (three months now). One thing that was strange to see with that phone was that it was consistently benchmarking around the 1500 mark on Quadrant when last year's HTC Desire HD (Same SoC) would benchmark at around 2000 or more.
In other tests that are CPU rather then GPU based the Incredible S was behind again:
http://www.cnet.com.au/htc-incredible-s-339310045.htm
Perhaps it isn't different components but a change made by HTC to reduce CPU power but to increase battery life.
I don't know what it is but starting with the Incredible S new HTC phones have been getting lower scores expected even against earlier HTC phones using the same SoC.
That idea is quite plausible.
But wouldn't it be qualcom who makes the processor? Unless you mean the components that bridge the rest of the phone together.
But could it also be the design/intent of the processor? I thinking like this. Single core processors are ample fast for the majority of android use. But when one is multitasking while performing other task, such as web browsing, a single core can struggle. So what if HTC designed the cores as such that allow to process independently. The theory is that maybe one of the cores is maxing out while the other is doing very little. This would mean that qualcom put restriction on the hardware so that when you are doing something like, say browsing a flash filled site, you still have ample power to perform other task. Does that make sense? This is a very basic version of the reason the Professor gave to me. He specializes in microchips, such as we see on mobile phones.
He also noted that the currents phones are nothing compared to what technology exisit, but won't be release anytime soon. Makes sense, keep slowly uping the phones = more profits. There is nothing to gain in releasing a super phone that will last 5 or + years.
asynce is quite like your professor has explained to you one processor can be at 1.2ghz and the other be from 0 to 1.2ghz depending on the load
well, I am still getting the sensation when sim free handsets becomes available. I am upgrading from a touch hd wm 6.1 so I dont think a dual core will dissapoint me no matter buggy
Overall...I understand the theory very well. I am just giving him credit. I had assumed this, based of some of my reading, but I didn't post since I don't have the credientials to make these claims...but he does. Now if you need some advice involving the nervous system, I'm you guy. Of course...I only have a bachelors...still a few years away from my PhD. Maybe I could then follow that up with a degree in computer science, you know essential make a career out of being a student .
Imho, htc become very greedy and they basically dont give a crap about the benchmarks and reviews anymore. This is why they locked the bootloaders and probably why they clocked down the processor to 1.2. In a way they must be thinking that they have proven themselves in the industry with quality products and they already have a customer base that who cares about their reputation not the benchmark scores. So I am hoping the petition for the locked bootloders and their initial sales will indicate that they are not alone in market anymore and people actually care about the preformance of their devices. May be they will get back into the game once again.
ceroglu said:
Imho, htc become very greedy and they basically dont give a crap about the benchmarks and reviews anymore. This is why they locked the bootloaders and probably why they clocked down the processor to 1.2. In a way they must be thinking that they have proven themselves in the industry with quality products and they already have a customer base that who cares about their reputation not the benchmark scores. So I am hoping the petition for the locked bootloders and their initial sales will indicate that they are not alone in market anymore and people actually care about the preformance of their devices. May be they will get back into the game once again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Benchmarks are not everything. If a piece of hardware can perform as well, or even better, but doesn't display a long bar in quadrant, who cares? HTC Sensation does beat the Galaxy II in linpack. Yes it has a slightly lower FPS, but it has a higher resolution.
I doubt benchmarks are at the forefront of there minds. The majority of the market doesn't even know what quadrant is.
BlueGoldAce said:
That idea is quite plausible.
But wouldn't it be qualcom who makes the processor? Unless you mean the components that bridge the rest of the phone together.
But could it also be the design/intent of the processor? I thinking like this. Single core processors are ample fast for the majority of android use. But when one is multitasking while performing other task, such as web browsing, a single core can struggle. So what if HTC designed the cores as such that allow to process independently. The theory is that maybe one of the cores is maxing out while the other is doing very little. This would mean that qualcom put restriction on the hardware so that when you are doing something like, say browsing a flash filled site, you still have ample power to perform other task. Does that make sense? This is a very basic version of the reason the Professor gave to me. He specializes in microchips, such as we see on mobile phones.
He also noted that the currents phones are nothing compared to what technology exisit, but won't be release anytime soon. Makes sense, keep slowly uping the phones = more profits. There is nothing to gain in releasing a super phone that will last 5 or + years.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, I was thinking HTC. Qualcomm may make the asych processor but how it is actually setup and how the software and other hardware components function with it is up to HTC. However it is possible that the design or feedback system is faulty so only one core is working or the second core never goes beyond 50% of the speed of the first core. This could also be down to configuration/other components in the phone, which would be down to HTC.
I don't think that Qualcomm or HTC would have deliberately limited the way the cores can function in the way that you suggest (beyond making them async, which can most likely be turned off too). As I understand it doing something like playing a flash video only uses one core anyway (due to the nature of flash). With a phone like the Sensation this should mean that even if core 1 is at 1.2GHz, core 2 could be at 300 MHz or whatever is required to fetch your email, run the phone, Wi-Fi, etc. With other dual-core implementations both cores will run at 1.2GHz, which will also allow you to do other stuff. The benefit of having async cores is supposed to be battery life.
As for holding back stuff, this is how consumer electronics firms work. If you could get access you could go and look at the next few iterations of products which exist now in various forms and which will be released over the next few years unless there is major disruption to a market by something unexpected.
DuoM said:
Nope, I was thinking HTC. Qualcomm may make the asych processor but how it is actually setup and how the software and other hardware components function with it is up to HTC. However it is possible that the design or feedback system is faulty so only one core is working or the second core never goes beyond 50% of the speed of the first core. This could also be down to configuration/other components in the phone, which would be down to HTC.
I don't think that Qualcomm or HTC would have deliberately limited the way the cores can function in the way that you suggest (beyond making them async, which can most likely be turned off too). As I understand it doing something like playing a flash video only uses one core anyway (due to the nature of flash). With a phone like the Sensation this should mean that even if core 1 is at 1.2GHz, core 2 could be at 300 MHz or whatever is required to fetch your email, run the phone, Wi-Fi, etc. With other dual-core implementations both cores will run at 1.2GHz, which will also allow you to do other stuff. The benefit of having async cores is supposed to be battery life.
As for holding back stuff, this is how consumer electronics firms work. If you could get access you could go and look at the next few iterations of products which exist now in various forms and which will be released over the next few years unless there is major disruption to a market by something unexpected.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you are positive the benchmarks are reading it correctly? The async cores are new, so the benchmarks may not fully utilize them.
I hope you are wrong about the quality of the phone, beyond the processor.
Sense could be the problem it as well. I know with the Evo, take off sense and you score in the 1500s, with sense stock you get 1000.
Been saying this for the longest also to mention since gingerbread using ext 4 with Samsung internal memory about 16 gigs to can easily make quadrant ridiculous high by getting a ridiculously fast sd card partition ext4 and get data2ext 4 on the sd card. Samsung could of did the same with their rom with their internal memory and rom. All is theory but in test we really won't know unless we test to computers. Which we can perform better test on.
Sent from my demonSPEED Glacier using XDA Premium App
BlueGoldAce said:
So you are positive the benchmarks are reading it correctly? The async cores are new, so the benchmarks may not fully utilize them.
I hope you are wrong about the quality of the phone, beyond the processor.
Sense could be the problem it as well. I know with the Evo, take off sense and you score in the 1500s, with sense stock you get 1000.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe that they are reading it correctly but that doesn't mean that the phone is performing correctly. The benchmarks just fire off a number of threads, in the case of Smartbench 2011 four threads, which should engage both processors since the benchmarks are designed to stress the phone.
If that doesn't get both cores to respond, what will?
Sense could be the problem. It just gets heavier and heavier. I know that some people are buying this phone because of Sense but for me it is just bloatware now. Some things it adds are nice but it seems that instead of improving the areas where it adds true functionality e.g. email and SMS, HTC have added more eye candy.
I didn't know about the EVO benchmarks though.
Killbynature said:
Been saying this for the longest also to mention since gingerbread using ext 4 with Samsung internal memory about 16 gigs to can easily make quadrant ridiculous high by getting a ridiculously fast sd card partition ext4 and get data2ext 4 on the sd card. Samsung could of did the same with their rom with their internal memory and rom. All is theory but in test we really won't know unless we test to computers. Which we can perform better test on.
Sent from my demonSPEED Glacier using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The author of Smartbench was in another thread, I don't know if you saw his comments. Anyway he said that he had reduced the weighting of I/O in Smartbench to prevent fast I/O for skewing the results so much.
Also because the results are so much lower than expected he is also going to take a look at the Sensation just to be sure that his software is reporting correctly with that phone.
DuoM said:
I believe that they are reading it correctly but that doesn't mean that the phone is performing correctly. The benchmarks just fire off a number of threads, in the case of Smartbench 2011 four threads, which should engage both processors since the benchmarks are designed to stress the phone.
If that doesn't get both cores to respond, what will?
Sense could be the problem. It just gets heavier and heavier. I know that some people are buying this phone because of Sense but for me it is just bloatware now. Some things it adds are nice but it seems that instead of improving the areas where it adds true functionality e.g. email and SMS, HTC have added more eye candy.
I didn't know about the EVO benchmarks though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bull****.All you guys blame Sense for lags etc,but it's not the case.Not completely at least.
Try a Desire HD.Single core an all as it is,Sense 3 runs like heaven,nicer than Sense 2-2.1 .So Sense doesn't **** up your phone that much.
If you want my opinion,wait till some respectable devs get their hands on the phone(Not that devs who already have it aren't respectable,but we can't know until we have something custom made ).Then,if and when they start tinkering with it,getting it to perform as it should,we'd see everything work better.Maybe it's something in the kernel limiting the CPU or something.And even GPU benchmarks aren't fair,as HTC's devices' GPUs always underperform with the default Ondemand governor.It would only be fair if we benchmarked both phones(GS2 and Sensation) rooted,on stock roms with performance governor.Only then we'll be comparing fairly.
Also,we could wait until the authors of Linpack update it to support multi-threading to further test the CPU.
I can't help but get the feeling this thread is grasping at straws somewhat. It could simply be a case of the Sensation not being as fast as people believed it would be. We shall see if the developer of Smartbench finds changes he needs to make, the next version should tell us where the Sensation stands and if this Async argument holds water.
DuoM said:
Also because the results are so much lower than expected he is also going to take a look at the Sensation just to be sure that his software is reporting correctly with that phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct.
And here are the series of charts I have put together so far:
This one shows the progress of Productivity Index over time: http://bit.ly/lWC3gb
And this one shows the progress of Games Index: http://bit.ly/jBu8Lx
Interesting? May be. Perhaps you guys can tell me what you see in these.
I will also plot similar charts for the individual tests as well (this helps because each tests are supposed to stress the CPU/GPU in its own unique ways). I've looked at it briefly, but I can already see few strange results within. As soon as I find more time, I'll post more articles on the above site.
EDIT: Fixed the link to the games index page.
What is is maybe what is...
Killbynature said:
Been saying this for the longest also to mention since gingerbread using ext 4 with Samsung internal memory about 16 gigs to can easily make quadrant ridiculous high by getting a ridiculously fast sd card partition ext4 and get data2ext 4 on the sd card. Samsung could of did the same with their rom with their internal memory and rom. All is theory but in test we really won't know unless we test to computers. Which we can perform better test on.
Sent from my demonSPEED Glacier using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, initial reports were that because the dual cores are so ne that the quadrant trackers could not "properly" measure. HOWEVER, no mater what review I have seen so far comparing the Galaxy and the Sensation, the Sensation ALWAYS looses. If a top of the line sports car cna go from 0-60 at .X seconds faster than the other it is something that is going to be touted and used as a benchmark. Therefore, i don't buy that the quadrant scored don't really matter all the time.
Now, more to your point about Samsungs speed. It seems like HTC, by the way they allocated memory, may have done the phone a speed disservice.
"The HTC Sensation measures in at 4.96 x 2.57 x 0.44 inches and 5.22oz is what it weighs. You’ll find that the unibody metal chassis combined with the soft-touch plastic inserts make for a rather comfortable phone to hold, and nice to rub up against your beard if you’ve got one. So smooth! The back is creak-free, the entirety of the battery cover coming off at once, the battery, SIM card, and microSD card popping in and out without an issue like they truly should.
Flaws in this whole situation include the fact that while the Galaxy S II pairs its 1.2GHz dual-core with 1GB of RAM, the HTC Sensation uses just 768MB. Samsung’s device has 16GB of memory packed in, while HTC makes due with just 1GB. There’s an 8GB microSD card in there, but you can add a bunch more memory to the GSII the same way if you want. Davies notes the truth: “here’s just no way that even a fast microSDHC card can be as quick as NANDFlash connected directly to the logic board, and that leaves the Sensation at a speed disadvantage.”
http://androidcommunity.com/htc-sensation-review-via-slashgear-20110523/
Acei said:
Correct.
And here are the series of charts I have put together so far:
This one shows the progress of Productivity Index over time: http://bit.ly/lWC3gb
And this one shows the progress of Games Index: http://bit.ly/lWC3gb
Interesting? May be. Perhaps you guys can tell me what you see in these.
I will also plot similar charts for the individual tests as well (this helps because each tests are supposed to stress the CPU/GPU in its own unique ways). I've looked at it briefly, but I can already see few strange results within. As soon as I find more time, I'll post more articles on the above site.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for this. What I see in this is that the Sensation is simply not as powerful as the Galaxy S II.
BTW Sensation is a released device in Europe and the later batch of scores you are seeing are from the final released device. I believe that the UK got it on Thursday the 19th of May but I it is in several countries now.
I also noticed that you posted this score: "Samsung Galaxy S2 at 1GHz: 3229", do you have figures for it at 1.2GHz?
The links you posted both go to the Productivity Index, do you have the link for the Games Index?
Thanks again.
Im curious. Do you still have unlimited data? What are your plans about keeping it? Whats your next phone?
I switched to the 6GB share plan, and I'm either getting an iPhone 5, or a Droid DNA.
Seriously?..... I guess we should each have our own thread when we decide to get a new phone.
Each day that passes, I look more and more forward to getting away from the redundancy and boringness of these Tbolt forums.
Well I'm loving my TB its on liquid ics 3.2 I think over fast and the next fone should be the Droid DNA or Samsung note 3
Sent from my Thunderbolt using xda app-developers app
Why in the hell would you switch from unlimited to 6GB? You do realize that higher phones will pull more data, higher quality video streams, and so on right? What used to be 4GB on the TB will turn into 8GB on the DNA or other similar phones.
Anyway I bought the DNA and gave it a trial run, found out it really wasnt for me and didnt suit my needs so I'm back on the TB. The only thing I want in a new phone is a bigger screen now. The TB fills every other category on my wish list perfectly.
At this point I'm probably going to wait until I really see something I like come out. The Droid DNA had a lot of potential, but it's major shortfalls (16GB only, no uSD slot, non-removable battery) are hard to ignore. It's tough to justify the GS3 now that it's already 6 months old, so I think I'm going to wait and see what 2013 brings to the table. While I'm fine with the large phone size (although I think phablets like the Note are too large), I do wish one of the big Android manufacturers would put out a top tier phone in a smaller form factor. There's no way my wife could comfortably use the DNA or GS3 (the Tbolt is about her hand's limit), but it seems there's no top tier phone in the low 4" sizes anymore.
I still have unlimited. Next phone? I won't know that for 6 month but it will have 64GB or an SD slot. I have 64 Gig SDXC in my tbolt now.
Why would you want 64GB? Isnt that like 30,000 songs? At least 100 movies? Half the apps in the app store? You should probably get over your memory requirements since removable batteries and stuff are a thing of the past. Phones are moving into the cloud, designed for wireless charging, ultra light weight and portability. To achieve this you need to be able to just cram everything in there any way you can, which makes it less likely for access.
RunNgun42 said:
Why would you want 64GB? Isnt that like 30,000 songs? At least 100 movies? Half the apps in the app store? You should probably get over your memory requirements since removable batteries and stuff are a thing of the past. Phones are moving into the cloud, designed for wireless charging, ultra light weight and portability. To achieve this you need to be able to just cram everything in there any way you can, which makes it less likely for access.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was once asked why anyone would want 1MB (yes megabyte) of RAM in a computer. The "cloud" is finicky, not always available, and not to be trusted if you care anything about privacy. Memory is cheap and light. ($42 retail less than 1g for my 64GB). I'm willing to bet the trend toward no removable battery or memory is money (i.e. cost of manufacture and support) not ability of the designers to execute. The trends seems to be LARGER phones (bigger screens bigger batteries).
Buy a used phone and keep your unlimited data. eBay, swappa, etc. I've bought my wife and I each a galaxy nexus for around $220 each. You won't regret it.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
Keeping the tbolt and bought a tablet to use along side my bolt with tethering on...
Sent from my ThunderBolt using xda app-developers app
tburns said:
Keeping the tbolt and bought a tablet to use along side my bolt with tethering on...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Me, too. I just got a Lenovo A1107 for $120 (as a carputer) and have a 10.1" Samsung Tablet for around the house. The Bolt can stay as a telephone and mobile hotspot.
Verizon sucks, though.
nonews said:
I was once asked why anyone would want 1MB (yes megabyte) of RAM in a computer. The "cloud" is finicky, not always available, and not to be trusted if you care anything about privacy. Memory is cheap and light. ($42 retail less than 1g for my 64GB). I'm willing to bet the trend toward no removable battery or memory is money (i.e. cost of manufacture and support) not ability of the designers to execute. The trends seems to be LARGER phones (bigger screens bigger batteries).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You knew 1MB would never suffice for a computer because you could foresee the advancements in technology requiring more space in the future. So what advancements do you see in cell-phone technology requiring 64gb, 128gb, screw it a full terabyte if storage? You might as well tell me that I'm foolish for feeling 160mph is fast enough in my car, because one day we might all be cruising at 250mph through the neighborhood. Movies arent getting any longer, songs are getting any bigger. There is no practical reason for a feature length film to be more than a couple of gigabytes since the screen size will always be less than 7".
It is precisely because phones are getting bigger that the engineering involved is getting more difficult. Special considerations have to be made when designing a battery that can be removed. It is MUCH easier for a designer if he doesnt have to worry about this. Imagine if cell-phone had removable 4G chips, video processors and ram. Do you really think the design could still be kept as portable as something like the Iphone, DNA, or SGS3? Of course not, you'd end up with a phone as big as a laptop trying to accommodate this.
RunNgun42 said:
You knew 1MB would never suffice for a computer because you could foresee the advancements in technology requiring more space in the future. So what advancements do you see in cell-phone technology requiring 64gb, 128gb, screw it a full terabyte if storage? You might as well tell me that I'm foolish for feeling 160mph is fast enough in my car, because one day we might all be cruising at 250mph through the neighborhood. Movies arent getting any longer, songs are getting any bigger. There is no practical reason for a feature length film to be more than a couple of gigabytes since the screen size will always be less than 7".
It is precisely because phones are getting bigger that the engineering involved is getting more difficult. Special considerations have to be made when designing a battery that can be removed. It is MUCH easier for a designer if he doesnt have to worry about this. Imagine if cell-phone had removable 4G chips, video processors and ram. Do you really think the design could still be kept as portable as something like the Iphone, DNA, or SGS3? Of course not, you'd end up with a phone as big as a laptop trying to accommodate this.
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Bad assumption, straw man and non sequitur
I had no special knowledge for what computer memory would be used. I only know, looking BACK at computer technology, that EVERY time someone has suggested “No one will ever need more than _____” we blew right past that without a pause. People are pretty clever in using all of a given resource. For myself I am just under 32GB used on my SD right now so 64GB I don’t have to worry about filling given my current usage model. (Which is why I stated that I could live with a 64GB fixed memory phone?) Even so 128GB devices are practically a given and 1TB is not much of a stretch. This trend will probably continue until we can fit no more into 1cm^2. What will use all of this storage? I don’t know. People are very clever in using all of a given resource however.
Does online storage and fast wireless mitigate the need for large local storage? Yes. Does it fully replace the need? No. Are data caps and overage charges making replacing local storage harder? Probably.
As for video I think your assumption of 7” is incorrect. Phones already have outputs (HDMI or the like) to drive large screens. What will those screens be in the future in size and frame rate be? HD, 2K 4K 8K? 24,30,48,60 FPS? I fully expect video files to grow.
Audio – I don’t see it changing much but perhaps bandwidth and storage will favor lossless CODECs.
Your car analogy is weak. Automobiles already operate close to the human ability to perform in many areas, portable devices… not so much. I would like to go 800 miles on a tank of gas.
I really disagree with you regarding designing for bigger vs smaller phones. A larger phone, dominated by say the display should offer more opportunity to fit things in. Of course if the wider and taller phone actually has less volume than previous phones then it would be more challenging and if it has to weigh less even with a larger volume then it may be really tough. Removable storage and batteries ARE harder to design as I said before and I fully understand that the extra cost of design and manufacture of removable storage and batteries favors the design of non-removable storage and batteries. No one mentioned changing SOC or coms or radios but that is another straw man.
Before I go on, I'm just curious, what does your 32gb of cellphone storage consist of?
The key word here is "right now."
Right now 64 GB might seem like a top end tier for mobile storage. But the DNA is 1080p resolution with more phones to likely follow suit. The files will be larger, and data consumption will increase.
Carrier networks are no longer in the unlimited era. Caps, throttling, and insanely annoying persistent wifi alerts rule the day. If carriers insist on treating network bandwidth like gold from Ft. Knox, then I'm going to want to carry more, and cloud less.
16 gigs of storage becomes 11 after OS and bloat. 11 gigs is pretty pedestrian on a device that can hold apps, movies, and songs. How long have we had iPods with more than 11 gigs in storage?
SGS 3 had it right. So does the Note 2. If I want locked down drudgery I'd buy an iPhone.
I love HTC, but they need to get somebody else making decisions over there. Carrier exclusive phones? Fail. No SD Card or removable battery? Sigh.
I'm considering a Nexus 4, but that's only because it has budget pricing, and I can use it with pre-paid service. (Read: I'm cheap)
Duely blundered from my thunderdolt.
RunNgun42 said:
Before I go on, I'm just curious, what does your 32gb of cellphone storage consist of?
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25.6GB of audio
1.1G of nandroids (each about 1Gig)
2G Ti backups, app data, app cache and system stuff
I could live with 32GB if I had to for a while at least.
If you have a few Roms you like and have nandroids of, they're almost a gig a piece.
I hate how new phones are stopping at 16 gigs with no sd slot. It's not enough memory for me, nandroids and app backups are necessary and use a lot of space.
I'm the last person I ever thought would be advocating for less storage space. Believe me I'm with you when it comes to the ignorance of people who always thought ABC/XYZ was enough. I guess a better way to justify the design of something like the Droid DNA is that it at least gets the job done. I watch tons of movies, listen to tons of music, and keep my phone docked in a cradle on my desk to surf at work all day long. I just found alternatives to storage limitation that just so happen to be the direction the industry is trying to push us in. I recognized that I dont need to have 10 movies on my device at any given moment because it's not like I'll ever really be watching them. At least not often enough to justify a need for storage to keep them. I uploaded my entire song library to Google Play which was a huge boon because now I have it with me on any device anywhere I go. I dont keep more than 1 nandroid of my device because my previous build is the only thing worth keeping. When I flash a new rom I simply keep a failsafe, and I only store about 2-3 roms on my device as redundant failsafes for each other in the event things really go sour or I just get really bored.
If this is the tradeoff necessary to have a beautiful 5" display with wireless charging and weighs light as a feather, then I consider this a win. If the alternative is a larger, heavier, more expensive phone to accommodate the best of both worlds (tons of storage and tons of power) then I consider that a loss. I will gladly take form over function since the function can be made up for in other areas that actually add quite a bit of newfound convenience. To me, this whole idea of clinging to old phone standards of sd-cards and removable batteries is just oldschool thinking. It reminds me of the business tycoon still using his monochrome blackberry thinking he's the ****, and that all these kids just dont "get it" with their fancy colors and lack of technical needs. Or the supposedly tech savvy laptop pro who buys the heaviest most impossible to carry device with a 17" screen, optical disc drive, and 10 USB ports for that 1 time he actually needs it. Everything you use your storage for is just for an emergency. 25gb of music, multiple nandroids, etc. They're all just "what if" scenarios that probably see the light of day once every few months. Sacrificing the entire build of a phone for this off-chance scenario is just very backwards thinking imo.
You dont have to believe me but the dna gets excellent battery life for a phone with a 1080p and the lack of an sd card is irrelevant since it is otg capable meaning an external hard drive can be used. The sad part is that a new one x phone is right around the corner.
Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk 2
RunNgun42 said:
I'm the last person I ever thought would be advocating for less storage space. ....
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I glad you found a usage model with which you are happy. I prefer another.
with the launch of Nexus 5 i saw many people switch over to it..
Reasons may be many,the one which seems most evident is its configuration!
which makes me think that when Google launches a "nexus" product with such hardware does it mean that quad cores or octa cores or the massive 2 gigs of memory are really required??
do we actually need that kind of hardware for daily purposes?
Or is it just a market hype or an induced inflation that is being generated by the multinational corps?
one releases a quad... and then the other is ready to pack 8 cores...
i don't posses much of technical knowledge but do we really need all those krait cores and those exynos!
60 years back we sent people on moon with a computer that had 64kb of memory..
now don't get me wrong I am not against the technology its just that all this advanced tech is being put to the same use,which is quite capable of being handled by far less powerful machines.
When it comes to octo cores I really don't feel it's necessary for everyday use. The software is always trying use the least amount of cores possible to maximize battery life anyway. The RAM on the other hand I think is an absolute must. I remember when buying this phone thinking that 1gb of RAM (or whatever the actual usable RAM is, 787mb) was going to be great, oh how I was wrong. Just look at the multi tasking ability (or inability) on this device and that should answer the question of whether we need more RAM.
Sent from my Evita
i agree with you that RAM is a must but my point is even with all those high end specs, what you actually use the phone for has not changed over the years....
there is nothing "exceptional" people are doing with 3 gigs or RAM and 8 cores.
and everyone here must be well acquainted to the good old Nokia days and their Symbian or BB OS (or those java OS's that ran on most mobiles) at that point of time when 'Processor' and what 'GPU' and what 'Pixel density' your phone was actually never a matter of discussion or a way in which those products were advertised.
Now i don't advocate Nokia for keeping their loyal customers ignorant of the specs but it was only when "ANDROID" emerged that 'specs' started becoming a matter of concern.
because Android being a universal OS that could be ported to any device,created kinda a platform for all the companies to battle out each other with increasing specs!
now when a developer phone is launched with such hardware config it silently somehow creates a standard for all the later devices to be more advanced or atleast in par. its like a snowball effect!
and PS M not being like a child who craves for not getting those expensive toys :laugh: but as a consumer who is deluded into believing that all of these specs do matter and can somehow bring a drastic change in the way we utilize these devices.
and secondly these corporations are just giving us the technology and i feel that even they are skeptical about how to put it to use!
I agree with timmaaa, more RAM would be great to have, as the constant reloading of browser tabs (and other apps) every time you try to multi-task on this device is annoying, to say the least. Yes, the aggressive memory management is a part of the issue. But the fundamental lack of RAM is at least partially to blame.
The number of cores on the other hand, seems like one of those near-useless specs that manufacturers just flaunt for marketing purposes to those that don't really have the knowledge to even know what it means ("Look at this awesome 43 MP camera phone!"). Many folks assume more cores is better, but this is actually seldom the case.
However, a fundamentally faster/newer CPU is always going to be a welcome upgrade (similar to the RAM). A faster, smoother, and more responsive device is always going to be desirable. And as fast as smartphones and other computers have become, it always seems the software developers just add more and more bloat to the OS and apps. I know Google is talking about "one Android version" for all devices, including low end ones. But I really don't believe the hype. Consumers are always going to hunger for more features and more eye candy, and the desire for faster and faster CPUs is not going to end anytime soon.
Do we "need" this type of computing power? Heavens no. But we will "want" it nonetheless!
redpoint73 said:
I agree with timmaaa, more RAM would be great to have, as the constant reloading of browser tabs (and other apps) every time you try to multi-task on this device is annoying, to say the least. Yes, the aggressive memory management is a part of the issue. But the fundamental lack of RAM is at least partially to blame.
The number of cores on the other hand, seems like one of those near-useless specs that manufacturers just flaunt for marketing purposes to those that don't really have the knowledge to even know what it means ("Look at this awesome 43 MP camera phone!"). Many folks assume more cores is better, but this is actually seldom the case.
However, a fundamentally faster/newer CPU is always going to be a welcome upgrade (similar to the RAM). A faster, smoother, and more responsive device is always going to be desirable. And as fast as smartphones and other computers have become, it always seems the software developers just add more and more bloat to the OS and apps. I know Google is talking about "one Android version" for all devices, including low end ones. But I really don't believe the hype. Consumers are always going to hunger for more features and more eye candy, and the desire for faster and faster CPUs is not going to end anytime soon.
Do we "need" this type of computing power? Heavens no. But we will "want" it nonetheless!
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i totally agree about the one android version hype i dont think it will materialize ever.
for all the manufacturers who are just pilling up cores and claiming that their phones are 'the best' please develop something that I can take to my 70 year old granny and really blow her mind :laugh: who knows nothing about the hardware.
I know its a poor joke but think about it there is really nothing that the most high end device does which probably can be considered to be state of the art or a miracle to those people who especially no nothing about the chip inside!
i had this thought when i saw an old fellow asking for a dual core long back and his need were just texting,calls and alarms,hell he dint even have internet on his device but still the market forces persuaded him that he needs a dual core.
but then i thought even a person who has a fair technical know how about it purchases a dual core,even he doesn't use it for firing missiles(again a poor joke) but you get the point technology if its not utilized to its potential,is useless.
and forget its use,the sad part is its creating this hype of high end devices!
little off topic apple introduces 64 bit correct me if m wrong all the apps are 32 bits how will they make use of the 64 bit architecture.
its like having an Ultra HD when you don't even have a service provider that offers HD transmission!
and this is not pertaining to any device or a software upgrade issue as it may likely sound!
I have noticed recently that some flagship phones are getting more and more RAM. Some are getting either 3Gb or 4Gb of the stuff.
At the moment my Nexus 4 and & have 2Gb of Ram respectively and neither show any signs of slowing down. However are all bets off with the new 64bit operating systems?
I am in the market for a new phone, and don't want to get sucked into the marketing Arms Race of more and more RAM as a way to make one phone look better than another.
May I ask how much is too much RAM and how much would be considered the sweetspot for an Android phone with a 64bit processor running Marshmallow and future upgrades?
Android frees up RAM on its own when it needs to. It does this by killing running processes (apps), so a phone without enough RAM will seem slow because it has to re-load the app from storage after being killed. So more RAM is always better. How much is "enough"? That all depends, of course. Like you, I've never seen any issues with my Nexus 4, nor my Galaxy S4 with 2GB RAM. And certainly not my OnePlus One with 3GB. But as screen resolution increases and apps (games, mostly) get more complex, more RAM is needed.
I'll put it this way: Your phone is a computer. I built my first PC something like 13-15 years ago. Pentium 3 450MHz, 256MB RAM, 32MB video card., and 8.4GB harddrive. I played games like Halflife, Unreal, and Thief on it. Soon, the 8.4GB HHD wasn't enough, so I got a 20 gig. Then an 80. Then a 200, and with that one, I thought "that'll be plenty for a long time". Now I've got a few TB lying around, and I need more. My phone is several times more powerful than my first PC, and that 200GB harddrive can fit in a microSD card no bigger than your fingernail.
I do think we're hitting a plateau though. A phone, while a computer, is still a phone, and not a PC, gaming laptop, or a X-Box or PS4. What's possible is what drives technology forward. But what is actually necessary might eventually drag that progress down. The last couple of years the trend hasn't been so much what the important advances are, but more what is possible for less money. OnePlus One, Moto G, all the stuff coming from China, etc. Like computers. That first PC I built cost me $2000. My new laptop was $750, and it'll play pretty much any game on the market. I don't game much anymore, so it suites my needs (but it's still pretty badass). And that doesn't even take inflation into account. We're seeing the same from smartphones. Unless you're an iDiot, you don't need to spend several hundreds of dollars to buy a phone that does everything you want and need it to. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't still advance the tech as much as we can. If anything, it makes the older tech more affordable and attainable.
RAM vs battery life
RAM is essentially required but if the platform can make the need for RAM smaller, it will be much better because it is consuming most of your battery life in standby mode.
I will go for a 2GB RAM only if the battery is more than 2500ma.
If the battery is larger, then I would like more RAM.
This is getting weirder and more complex as I read more.
I also seem to remember a while back that Android was going to make their Kit-Kat operating system more lean by using less RAM because there were a lot of budget phones and tablets hitting the shelves with limited amounts of RAM. Google didn't want an operating system to compete with Apple only to have it too bloated for the majority of the budget kit flooding the market. Microsoft's Vista suffered this problem.
But I am still non the wiser about how much is enough and how much is too much when looking for an upgrade. Up until today I would have said 1Gb was too little. This is because I have an ASUS TF300T Tablet, since 2012. In March 2014 ASUS gave it their last official update from Ice Cream Sandwich to Jelly Bean. And from that fateful upgrade, my Tablet became a sluggish pile of crap. And I wasn't alone because ASUS screwed over every TF300T user the world over. I tried a couple of unsupported operating systems (ROM's) but they were just as bad so I gave up and left it for 18 months. I simply had an expensive pile of plastic.
Today however I had another stab at looking for a new operating system. This time I have been successful in my quest as my new operating system has jumped two full incarnations, and more importantly incorporated the slimmed down use of RAM.
My three year old Tablet, which has 1Gb of RAM is now zipping along the latest-ish version of Lollipop 5.1.1.
So with no technical knowledge, am I correct in guessing that 1Gb is the minimum for Android and 3Gb is a bit excessive?