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Dear All,
I know this is more of a WinMo oriented forum, I still could your advice as mobile enthusiasts.
I'm in the market for a new phone. I've narrowed my selection to the Iphone 3GS or Omnia HD.
I like to do everything, so the more options the merrier.
My problems with the Iphone:
-Where I live, it's expensive as hell. I'm talking 1000$
-Apple is doing good playing catch on the hardware options, but it's still missing things i value like an fm radio and a good camera.
My problems with the Omnia HD:
-Unknown territory with the new symbian performance.
-no app store.
The TP2 is too bulky for my taste, the new xperia X2/X3 might take ages to arrive and N97.....well i just dint like it.
My last phone was the Xperia, was happy with it, tragically died in an accident. Infact, if i don't decide, i'll probably get another xperia.
Any ideas, advice, suggestions?
1000$ ????? There are fools that spend this money??? No iPhone!!!
D'rath
D'rath said:
1000$ ????? There are fools that spend this money??? No iPhone!!!
D'rath
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dude, it's horrible!. The 32gb 3GS is going for 1250$.......
utrx said:
Dear All,
I know this is more of a WinMo oriented forum, I still could your advice as mobile enthusiasts.
I'm in the market for a new phone. I've narrowed my selection to the Iphone 3GS or Omnia HD.
I like to do everything, so the more options the merrier.
My problems with the Iphone:
-Where I live, it's expensive as hell. I'm talking 1000$
-Apple is doing good playing catch on the hardware options, but it's still missing things i value like an fm radio and a good camera.
My problems with the Omnia HD:
-Unknown territory with the new symbian performance.
-no app store.
The TP2 is too bulky for my taste, the new xperia X2/X3 might take ages to arrive and N97.....well i just dint like it.
My last phone was the Xperia, was happy with it, tragically died in an accident. Infact, if i don't decide, i'll probably get another xperia.
Any ideas, advice, suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where I live is also very expensive to buy a device, what I do is to buy overseas so I can get good prices, said that and regarding your question,
my personal opinion is to go for HTC Hero, Diamond 2, or Toshiba tg01 if you are worried about tp2 too bulky.
I would never think on buy Iphone or Omnia...
Just my 2 pesos
Good luck on your desicion!
utrx said:
My problems with the Iphone:
-Where I live, it's expensive as hell. I'm talking 1000$
-Apple is doing good playing catch on the hardware options, but it's still missing things i value like an fm radio and a good camera.
My problems with the Omnia HD:
-Unknown territory with the new symbian performance.
-no app store.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, to begin, I want to comment on the price. My friend, $1000? I'm guessing it's the unlocked retail version. If you purchase it online, you can save quite a bit of change. On the other hand, the Omnia HD is now surprisingly cheap. In fact, I have been watching it since it's release, and it has steadily went down in price (on eBay, at least) by $20 every week. When it was released, it would have cost you $720 online. You can now get it for $600 (even less if you're diligent).
But enough about price, lets get to the point. From my perspective, this is what it comes down to:
1) Screen - Omnia HD; not only is the i8910's screen bigger and it's AMOLED, but it even has a better resolution.
2) Battery Life - Roughly equal
3) Specs - Equal; Both have the Cortex A8 600Mhz with an accelerated video chip
4) Camera - Absolutely Omnia HD; the picture is of a better quality, higher res, and video recording is far superior.
5) Applications - iPhone; Do I need to explain why?
Ultimately, as my evaluation above suggests, the question really comes down to what is more important: The i8910's HD capability or the iPhone's incredibly variety of apps.
You're worried about Symbian's performance, but it performs very well (albeit the i8910 seems to stutter in some places). One thing is for sure: It performs better than Windows Mobile (sorry guys). What is my opinion regarding these two phones (which I happen to have an interest in myself)?
If you were to ask me, I would go with the Omnia HD. The price plays a large factor in it, but what really turned the table was the incredible specs. The 3.7in, capacitive AMOLED is simply impossible to ignore and the CPU is just damn nice. The camera's capability is also very impressive, albeit I do not worry much about phone cameras myself. Word of warning, however: there have been multiple complaints regarding this aspect of the Omnia. Many says it does not work as advertised and it is true to an extent (for example, the listed 24fps recording is not completely accurate).
Furthermore, while performance on Symbian shouldn't be an issue, the variety of apps really is disappointing. Windows Mobile itself seems to beat Symbian in apps. The i8910 and the 3GS has the same CPU, but honestly, the iPhone's apps makes far better use of the power. Truthfully, Symbian itself is a rather old OS and it badly needs an overhaul to compete better with new OSes. These new revisions just aren't cutting it.
Anyway, to reiterate my stance, here is the main benefits of each phone:
Omnia HD
1) Best screen
2) Great camera/HD capabilities (although not perfect)
3) Great interface
4) Better extra specs (e.g. secondary camera, FM radio, etc)
iPhone 3GS
1) Best apps/games by far
2) 3GS is available in America and makes better use of American 3G (i8910 does not have 850 frequency)
3) Better support/community (this is debatable)
Whichever above is more important to you, I suggest you get that phone.
8525Smart said:
Well, to begin, I want to comment on the price. My friend, $1000? I'm guessing it's the unlocked retail version. If you purchase it online, you can save quite a bit of change. On the other hand, the Omnia HD is now surprisingly cheap. In fact, I have been watching it since it's release, and it has steadily went down in price (on eBay, at least) by $20 every week. When it was released, it would have cost you $720 online. You can now get it for $600 (even less if you're diligent).
But enough about price, lets get to the point. From my perspective, this is what it comes down to:
1) Screen - Omnia HD; not only is the i8910's screen bigger and it's AMOLED, but it even has a better resolution.
2) Battery Life - Roughly equal
3) Specs - Equal; Both have the Cortex A8 600Mhz with an accelerated video chip
4) Camera - Absolutely Omnia HD; the picture is of a better quality, higher res, and video recording is far superior.
5) Applications - iPhone; Do I need to explain why?
Ultimately, as my evaluation above suggests, the question really comes down to what is more important: The i8910's HD capability or the iPhone's incredibly variety of apps.
You're worried about Symbian's performance, but it performs very well (albeit the i8910 seems to stutter in some places). One thing is for sure: It performs better than Windows Mobile (sorry guys). What is my opinion regarding these two phones (which I happen to have an interest in myself)?
If you were to ask me, I would go with the Omnia HD. The price plays a large factor in it, but what really turned the table was the incredible specs. The 3.7in, capacitive AMOLED is simply impossible to ignore and the CPU is just damn nice. The camera's capability is also very impressive, albeit I do not worry much about phone cameras myself. Word of warning, however: there have been multiple complaints regarding this aspect of the Omnia. Many says it does not work as advertised and it is true to an extent (for example, the listed 24fps recording is not completely accurate).
Furthermore, while performance on Symbian shouldn't be an issue, the variety of apps really is disappointing. Windows Mobile itself seems to beat Symbian in apps. The i8910 and the 3GS has the same CPU, but honestly, the iPhone's apps makes far better use of the power. Truthfully, Symbian itself is a rather old OS and it badly needs an overhaul to compete better with new OSes. These new revisions just aren't cutting it.
Anyway, to reiterate my stance, here is the main benefits of each phone:
Omnia HD
1) Best screen
2) Great camera/HD capabilities (although not perfect)
3) Great interface
4) Better extra specs (e.g. secondary camera, FM radio, etc)
iPhone 3GS
1) Best apps/games by far
2) 3GS is available in America and makes better use of American 3G (i8910 does not have 850 frequency)
3) Better support/community (this is debatable)
Whichever above is more important to you, I suggest you get that phone.
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iPhone does not need support, you download the appliations, you use it, that's it. It doesn't function for tweaking and it doesn't feature running as a background processes. So it is very unlikely for you to have trouble. Really, when the phone freezes you don't need a community for that to sticky that. All you need is to google or use yahoo answers to get that.
Also using Cydia and unlocking your device is easy. No community is needed.
Furthermore the applications are comparable to Symbian because obviously the applications only run in foreground, therefore making the applications pointless and ****ty.
You have to understand that when you install applications in iPhone you don't really change the settings, so there is almost rarely a chance for program incompatibility...once again, they run in the foreground only 1 AT A TIME. So support for this phone? It's not needed.
yup same here in my country. iphone 3G was about $1000 before the 3GS released.
and IMO if i were u, i would still get xperia. It was familiar for me, no need to worry if i got some errors, many apps had been collected, what else? as long as u're satisfied, nothing's wrong to buy it again
I got my iPhone a few weeks ago..............best phone ever! As much as I'd love to talk about all the great things, I think the name iPhone says enough Camera isn't bad it's quick and takes good pics. MMS has an easy solution email, every cell phone has an email address u can send/rec pics with. Light, very fast, good battery, perfect touch ui, safari, and iPod. If ur worried about fm radio there are plenty of free apps to stream local radio stations.
poetryrocksalot said:
iPhone does not need support, you download the appliations, you use it, that's it.
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Click to collapse
Ah, but it does. Community/support simply doesn't mean help for when you have trouble using the iPhone. Those things you mentioned (jailbreaking, Cydia, etc)? Those were things created by the iPhone community.
I suppose we may refer to them as different things, but I have always consider all things related to a particular device/software/etc to be that particular thing's community (e.g. XDA would be a part of the Windows Mobile community). Whichever we want to refer to it as, however, the iPhone undoubtedly has a very large and active group of people working to improve it, and I don't see why they shouldn't be included.
After all, look at how many people here takes into consideration 'XDA support' as a reason to purchase a particular phone or not, so I think it's a valid thing to include.
orb3000, 8525Smart, TheChampJT, ingerasu.
I thank you for the information you provided.
Yes, i have heard about how the Omnia's HD camera does not do 24fps and the sound is usually out of sync.......I need to download videos from reviews and check it out first hand.
So far I'm leaning towards the Omnia. I get addicted to Apps(iPhone) and Flashing(WinMo), perhaps the lack of them with the Omnia will be a bit of a relief. What I see is almost all of what I get.
If I find an Omnia HD around for an accepatble price, I'll get it.
Everyone has an Iphone, need to diversify
TheChampJT said:
I got my iPhone a few weeks ago..............best phone ever! As much as I'd love to talk about all the great things, I think the name iPhone says enough Camera isn't bad it's quick and takes good pics. MMS has an easy solution email, every cell phone has an email address u can send/rec pics with. Light, very fast, good battery, perfect touch ui, safari, and iPod. If ur worried about fm radio there are plenty of free apps to stream local radio stations.
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Good for you!
Shame you won´t have more customisation/personalization/flashing...
Any grandma out there can have one exactly identical to yours
Hope at least you save one winmo/htc to play with it!
Cheers friend!
utrx said:
Everyone has an Iphone, need to diversify
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Click to collapse
Well said!
don't get these posts what do people expect to get as reply?
it's like going to www.worldhunger.com and asking give to the needy or whopper with bacon ?
IPhone does have excellent support community. In fact even better than XDA in my opinion. The amount of tweaks and customization that iPhone geeks do would shock you guys. Check out for example www.modmyi.com. All the popular Cydia software vendors have dedicated sub forums there. People there do go very deep into tweaking.
i would rather have the IPhone 3Gs over the Omnia HD.
just my opinion....
crazy talk said:
i would rather have the IPhone 3Gs over the Omnia HD.
just my opinion....
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Click to collapse
You can record video with a Iphone 3Gs yes but you cant still do a video call with a a 1000 USD phone and no optional memory can be inserted.
Is Steves engineers retards or something? Like then they build the macbook air.
While with a 100 USD phone I expand its memory, take better pictures and even do a videocall.
So why pay 1000 USD for Iphone?
Besides my S/E X1 I have Omnia HD. If S/E had given the X1 a bigger screen like the Omnia. Then the X1 would have been better. Cause the current isn't finger friendly like Omnia HD.
Why do people keep forgetting that application is the most important thing to look at? Camera is but just one of the many applications. There are many more that we need. Whichever could deliver the best application solutions is the winner.
newuser888 said:
Why do people keep forgetting that application is the most important thing to look at? Camera is but just one of the many applications. There are many more that we need. Whichever could deliver the best application solutions is the winner.
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not even the best, just what you need in a presentation you like using.
i know this is a Winmo forum so iphone=crap. but it really is a decent device.
the OP will not be disappointed in either phone. so his best bet is to try both.
to me atleast you really cannot make a bad choice when it comes to current smartphones. they all work quite well.
It is hard to argue that phones have not plateaued in terms of functionality. The iPhone 4S is simply an incremental upgrade to the iPhone 4. The next generation of Android phones are pushing pocket-able screen sizes to the limit. There is only so much you can do with a certain form factor, and this upcoming generation of phones is it. Applications run entirely smoothly, batteries are lasting entire days of moderate to heavy use, everything from a TV to a Vacuum Cleaner can interact with your phone through it's plethora of radios. And screens are so crisp that the human eye cannot even detect the pixels, perfect for watching full length, high definition movies on-the-go.
Two-year contracts sound like an eternity since the rapidly improving operating systems of Apple, Android, and Windows. However, there is an exponential decline of innovation between iterations of firmware. Donut to Eclair. HUGE. Eclair to Froyo. Big. Froyo to Gingerbread. Bug fixes and optimizations. Gingerbread to ICS. Superficial. What could possibly be next for a phone? Two years will surprisingly be too short for all but the nerdiest and niche interest groups. It's already been more than a year and a half with my Samsung Vibrant and other than tech-lust, there is no genuine reason for me to upgrade.
The next step for phones really isn't about phones at all. The next step is to systematically destroy every other gadget you currently own. The first to go? Laptops. The Atrix began this process, but it was for the most part a broken and overpriced experience. That will change as phones are becoming exponentially more powerful. One could argue that gaming laptops will still exist. Sure, for a couple more years. Kal-El, Wayne, Logan, Stark, Nvidia's superhero line-up of gpu/cpu chips. Stark being 100x more powerful than Tegra 2! One Hundred. These are theoretical, but the potential is staggering. Compounded with cloud-assisted browsing from Amazon Silk or Opera Mobile? Laptops are dead. Long Live Laptop Docks.
Next to go are dedicated tablets. Operating systems such as Android's Ice Cream Sandwich will unify the tablet and phone experience. ASUS wants to capitalize on this with their Padfone. Why buy a full price phone and tablet when you can buy just a phone and the tablet as an accessory for half the price? For myself, I would come home and plop my phone into the tablet. When I go out, I remove it. No more syncing. It's all consolidated. Not to mention when my tablet husk is home, it'll be charging all day. I won't even have to charge my phone or change my battery before I couch surf. Ah, laziness.
Last to go are game consoles. In fact, casual gaming is already on the horizon of being completely overrun by mobile devices. Portable gaming devices such as the Vita and 3DS are probably near the last of their kind. Nvidia's Stark will most certainly be able to support Full Stereoscopic HD output, if a processor before it cannot. This is my most speculative moment, but I can picture a future where your phone gets plugged into an HDMI/HDD Dock connected to your TV and you download most of the data for rented video games and stream the more volatile aspects such as sound effects, textures, and geometry. Discs will still exist due to their practicality, ownership, and offline use. Services like On-live will also become more prevalent as bandwidth costs decline. Okay, maybe consoles will be around for quite some time still, but their days are numbered.
In the meantime, phones will even make the phone part obsolete. Minute plans will be optional since not only is VoIP much cheaper, it's so much more clear and crisp. T-Mobile and Walmart are already headed down this direction. GPSs? Already dead. External webcams? Gone. Digital Cameras? Nope. External Hard drives? Cloud and SDXC will cover the masses.
Unless you are an IT or Content Creation professional, this next generation of phone will literally handle anything that you will ever need or want in a stand-alone phone device. For most of you, this is it. If you want a social networking, casual gaming, high quality photo-taking, VoIP/Webcam chatting, Global positioning, Netflix streaming, Hulu watching, cloud storing/syncing Super-phone, the wait is finally over. This is your year. This is not to say that phones will continue improving in performance and incremental updates, but there is literally NO more room for groundbreaking innovation within this particular form factor, only the hybridization and replacing of every other gadget that you own.
Oh, except for one feature I want. Built in noise-canceling support for headphones, like the Sony X-Series.
While this might be true, never forget that the platforms you use and love evolve. And that might get users to upgrade after all!
Take facebook for example. Right now, video calling is only available via Desktop operating systems. But I'm pretty sure that over the next few years this will come to mobile, meaning that your handset must be strong enough to handle it smoothly.
I don't think that even the average consumers will last with their 2011/12 handsets "forever".
This was a very good editorial.
I must say, that before every generation of new phones, people think "this is it, this will replace my pc/psp/etc...". While I do believe, that huge things are coming, I don't think this is THE generation yet.
We're getting more power, more apps, better screens, but we still lack (in my opinion) a solid OS that could replace Windows in every day use, and - perhaps more importantly - the average consumer lacks the mentality, that everything he wants done, can be done on his smartphone.
Also, to your list of killed devices, I would add "MP3 players"
good post and interesting read.
But isn't the next upgrade in generation of phones always been about replacing some other technology?
cameras, mp3 player, pda, operating system (android, ios) etc..
And all the while replacing these other things, the cell phone gets more efficient at it.
@smirny stuff like facebook specific video calling i would consider as incremental and non-essential. with upcoming generation, google talk is a viable option for video chat, plus there are many services such a Qik and Fring. I doubt (hope) that people aren't holding out on their phone purchase for facebook video. I couldn't imagine video chatting with an acquaintance from high school. All of your closest (video worthy) friends probably have another way of contacting you than facebook. I know that was just an example, but with quad-core devices on the horizon, video chat is covered.
@darktori i think that any OS that could replace Windows entirely would have to be on a different form factor than a phone. there will never be a way for a smartphone to do a better job creating a document than a laptop. that's where the hybridization comes in. my article discusses this is the end of the stand-alone smartphone road in terms of innovation. anything meant to replace windows in everyday use will break the phone form factor, whether it is tablet hybrids or laptop docks. those who want a smartphone, this is the year, because the only reason in the future to upgrade is to get this extra functionality. and yes, i did forget mp3 players
@dpmace yes it is. however, the phone has reached it's limit in its own form factor. everything from here on out will need a different form factor. to replace laptops, they need a dock, to replace game consoles, they need a controller built in (xperia play), to replace tablets, they need to become one. Phones themselves are maxxed out in terms what the can do as stand-alone devices. So this upcoming generation, the generation right before the mass hybridization of devices is the best time to buy a stand-alone smartphone for a long period of time. the upgrades afterwards will be superflous to those who don't need a laptop or tablet. their phones are already fast and capable of handling everything they need them to. they have an 8MP camera, why do they need a 16? they have a good phone GPS, why do they need a phone with a better one? they have a good GPU, why do they need a stronger one if they don't plan on outputting it to a TV? etc
Very nice and well thought out editorial piece. I'd have to disagree though, there's no way this is the best we're getting.
Regarding the iPhone 4S: Apple have always used incremental updates to get the most money possible from their users, and have mostly gotten away with it until now, because the earlier iPhones were missing really basic features. The iPhone 3G was big because it had 3G (what phone didn't even then?). The 3GS mostly upgraded the camera and I think the processor? The 4 was the only one that fundamentally changed anything in my honest opinion.
Software I'll mostly agree on, but I think ICS serves a great purpose of making android look better to the masses, standing out, and doing a much better job with multi-tasking.
Hardware is the big one. They still have a long way to go, in many ways.
Cameras are never likely to replace a dedicated camera, for the simple fact of space. A camera only gets so much space within the phone, and for every advance made in cameras that gets used on a phone, that same advance could be used on dedicated cameras, as well as extra ones that require more space.
Batteries are a big one, it's the reason you'll see so many posts on every phone's section of these forums, asking about battery life, and with kernels and mods aimed at giving extra battery life. It's why "battery extenders"can be downloaded so much in the market. If a phone came out next year, or the year after, where they concentrated their efforts on a great battery, and gave significantly more battery life, I'd definitely buy it.
I'll admit that the phones are reaching limits on what they've been concentrating on for now (screen size and processor/RAM) but they'll just expand in other ways. There's no way the phone manufacturers are just going to pump out similar phones and hope the customer prefers theirs to the one next to it on the shelf because of brand. There's still plenty of new ideas coming out every day, and they can add to the phone's functionality, not just superficially (like 3D). There's NFC, flexible screens (which on its own could bring about a lot of new ideas), added durability, and I'm sure a lot of things we haven't heard of.
Did you ever hear the quote that says "Technology has advanced more in the past thirty years than in the previous two thousand..."? That is 100% true and there is no sign of slowing down. Things that you can't imagine today can be possible within years. So I just can't agree to the fact that you are basically stating that besides a few tweaks and improvements, technology has come to a complete halt.
Excellent editorial. Love all your points except with gaming consoles becoming extinct. I find this to be untrue and impossible in the sense that phones, computers, Hard drives, or whatever, the concept of them storing your games, e.g. PS3 games which are at most 50gb (note gaming data size will grow too since it is proportional to graphics), is impractical. In the sense that you can only "hold so much", and our "so much" capacity isn't nearly close to our desire capacity. So gaming consoles will stay.
Unless you are suggesting we develop a different evolutionary storage medium or sort of micro usb which stores the game and the phone simply reads off the device and plays. Now that is plausible. The only problem there is will the phones withstand the heat exerted? As we all know in proportional to the graphic intensity of the game so will the amount of power demanded by the GPU or porcessor, which in turn will be expended as heat. So considering it will take a lot of power, it will give a "lot" of heat. Story short, our phones will not withstand the heat and melt.
Kailkti said:
Excellent editorial. Love all your points except with gaming consoles becoming extinct. I find this to be untrue and impossible in the sense that phones, computers, Hard drives, or whatever, the concept of them storing your games, e.g. PS3 games which are at most 50gb (note gaming data size will grow too since it is proportional to graphics), is impractical. In the sense that you can only "hold so much", and our "so much" capacity isn't nearly close to our desire capacity. So gaming consoles will stay.
Unless you are suggesting we develop a different evolutionary storage medium or sort of micro usb which stores the game and the phone simply reads off the device and plays. Now that is plausible. The only problem there is will the phones withstand the heat exerted? As we all know in proportional to the graphic intensity of the game so will the amount of power demanded by the GPU or porcessor, which in turn will be expended as heat. So considering it will take a lot of power, it will give a "lot" of heat. Story short, our phones will not withstand the heat and melt.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The future of gaming lies with Onlive. Your device will just be a thin client, awaiting video from the Onlive servers that will do the heavy lifting for you. I envision a gaming world where you use a bluetooth controller to play a game that's streamed to your TV in HD resolution via your smartphone.
We have the technology to do this already, it's just not the kind of gaming experience hardcore gamers will accept, but give the technology a couple more years to develop.
Oh right. Forgot about OnLive, prolly cuz i haven't heard about it since the release. But you are right it is a promising feature. the only problem is it requires a steady data connection, which sadly, we know not everyone is blessed with. But soon enough the entire world will modernize to have data being able to flow to every where so that won't be a problem, the problem will be in the case of system failure, both data provider and server, which I am sure happens a lot.
Have you not seen Iron Man 2? I want a phone that is just a sheet of glass and is fully integrate-able with everything around it on the fly. When that comes out, I think the innovation has ceased.
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If any of you guys play Shadowrun 4th edition, you'll know that the ultimate is a display in your glasses, goggles, contact lenses, or even cybernetic implants in your eyes.
Pocketability be gone!
vadyr56 said:
Have you not seen Iron Man 2? I want a phone that is just a sheet of glass and is fully integrate-able with everything around it on the fly. When that comes out, I think the innovation has ceased.
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or remember when he was designing the suit, everything was virtual and he could touch it.
One day we shall have that!! Then maybe screen sizes will be obsolete.
vadyr56 said:
Have you not seen Iron Man 2? I want a phone that is just a sheet of glass and is fully integrate-able with everything around it on the fly. When that comes out, I think the innovation has ceased.
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Un What about graphene tech? Samsungs going to be releasing foldable and bendable phones. The first one using this tech is apparently due next year.
hungry81 said:
Un What about graphene tech? Samsungs going to be releasing foldable and bendable phones. The first one using this tech is apparently due next year.
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Click to collapse
That would be cool too, how about a phone that can be used in a "normal" size mode (say around 4.5") and then can unfold into a 20" tablet!
Good first try. Not everyone willing to put down their thoughts in a form of long article.
However there are some fundamental flaw:
bdroc said:
The next step for phones really isn't about phones at all. The next step is to systematically destroy every other gadget you currently own. .
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I'm not sure you understand the word "systematically" and "destroy". I simply don't see phones "destroying" EVERY other gadget, especially the following few you mentioned.
bdroc said:
The first to go? Laptops.
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No, at least for a good decade. People been saying this to desktops when laptops became very popular. Now? Desktops are still being made and sold. Nowhere near "been destroyed".
And this paragraph gets ridiculous when you say cellphone SoC can replace dedicated GPU. You are saying essentially play Crysis (PC Game, 2008) on a cellphone, which is NEVER going to happen.
Once you understand how powerful a dedicated GPU is, you will realize how stupid it is to make such claim.
bdroc said:
Next to go are dedicated tablets.
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This is purely based on user habits. My cousins have both iphones and ipads. I have a G2x and a laptop. Unless you can make sure a 4 inch phone screen does not exhaust your eyes with extended use, then you can never make such claim.
bdroc said:
Last to go are game consoles.
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Click to collapse
This is getting more ridiculous. Also mentioned above the "power of a dedicated GPU", cellphones are NEVER to replace game consoles.
I personally still prefer those gadgets you mentioned as separate gadgets and I am not a minority.
So let's calm down with the Android fanboyish hardware craze, and face the reality.
I don't think it's safe to say that phones have reached feature-completeness, although i agree that developers are going to have to start thinking in dimensions other than "what can we do without having to make any serious changes to the system".
When i look at the Android platform, especially, i see huge amounts of possibility. For example, your phone could basically obsolete a huge amount of what we encounter in our daily lives. Bus/train pass? Nope, NFC with a phone app. (These will still exist, of course, but for those with phones there won't be any interaction with them.) Credit cards, likewise, will be gone. Ultimately we'll be going to all-data, eliminating the phone/text/etc nonsense. Or at least, someone will. Probably not the US. That will become more useful in the long term, though.
But i think there's going to be more than just replacing other things with a more unified device.
For example, in the future your phone could ping your home PC and wake it up even if it was sleeping. Then you would be able to "log in" just like a normal user and get your full PC desktop on your phone. This isn't replacing your PC, it's using your phone as an additional way to access it--much like your mouse/keyboard/monitor! You could, for example, do an "OnLive" sort of thing but with your phone. This is actually already possible, but it's a pain to set up and we don't have phones that are strong enough/batteries that last long enough/data connections big enough to truly make it happen.
Or for another possibility, Google Goggles is something that already exists... but in the future it will operate in real time. Hold your phone up and you'll get all the information from Goggles overlaid on top of the image from the camera. You could take it a step further, too, and have a digital "message board" or comment system, where people can write things and attach them to real world objects which will then be displayed for others. (As someone suggested: really you want this sort of tech in your glasses, or something like that, but it will likely go through phones first.)
Heck, you could set that as your phone's wallpaper and not even have to open an app.
The "Tony Stark phone" could be a reality, although not at those precise dimensions. You could have a phone with no "UI" (although Stark's phone has a pretty interesting-looking UI on it if you examine it) but just have the Goggles-enhanced real world overlay on it. To interact with it you could issue voice commands--or touch it to bring up a UI.
Your phone could control your car in a tremendously "what the 1950s thought the future would look like" sort of way: get into the car, pull the phone out, then say "Car, take me to my house". Then sit back and relax, because the car will drive itself there. (Technically you don't even need the phone for that, but hey...)
This is all sort of crazy dreaming, but it's still not even "lateral thinking"--it's just extending things your phone can already do.
As of current development or better preferred term, Evolution, the current trend in the Android Phone genre is increasing the processor cores, size and resolution of the display etc. etc. But the real question is where they will stop.
First, there were the Single core phones like Samsung Galaxy S, iPhone 4
Now There are Dual Core like Samsung Galaxy S ||, LG 2X, HTC Sensation,
Now, it seems that even dual cores are not enough, that's why companies are launching Quad-Core phones like HTC's One X, LG 4X HD etc.
Now, the first question is,'' Do We Really Need Quad-Core Phones''
Nvidia started this buzz in the middle of the previous year with their Tegra 3, soon we heard Samsung joining this group with their announcement of their Exynos 5450.Having more cores means a faster phone, which everybody wants, is not a bad thing. Personally, i don't think that Quad-Core is the answer for mobiles, right now.
Having a latest hardware is of no use until the Software or Opreating System (OS) can utilize it properly, but following the latest trend, the hardware department seems to be developing at a much faster rate than the software's. We have seen this similar scenario in other aspects of technology too, for e.g. There was a time when PC games were really demanding and investing in a dual GPU sounds smart, but today you can easily get away with a two year old graphics card without having to compromise too much. There's a lot of buzz that ICS is gonna be agame changer, but you can see, that it is not very different from Honeycomb, just better optimized. ICS is better optimised, for sure, but whether it will be able to utilize more than two cores properly, is yet to be seen. Even though Honeycomb was “fully” hardware accelerated, Tegra 2 ( yeah, i'm talking to you, XOOM ) just couldn’t translate all that power it had in to the real world, which translated into sluggish performance.
While Tegra 3 fixes some of these issues, putting it in a phone just does not make sense. To start off with, it’s still using the 40nm fabrication, which doesn’t exactly sip power. You’ll need a really chunky battery for this, which could explain why all Tegra 3 phones have large screens, so the phones have to be made bigger to accommodate the larger battery, while keeping it slim.
But don't forget main part, Battery Life. More processing power automatically translates into more power hungry devices, which impacts battery life quite badly. Tegra 3 uses a 5th Companion core to save power, Even if the new quad-core SoCs have the ability to put their cores in idle mode, it’s still consuming a small amount of power all the time, even if you aren’t using them. Android users struggle with battery life, as it is to get a full day’s worth of heavy usage on single-core phones, so don’t get me started on quad-cores.
Another issue we shouldn’t ignore is apps. About 90 percent of the apps, you’ll ever use on a smartphone work absolutely fine on a 1GHz single-core CPU. It’s just a handful of games (mostly from Nvidia) or specialized apps that actually take advantage of two cores. Realistically, you will very seldom be using these apps when you’re travelling, since these drain the battery like crazy, so your only option is to not use it, which defeats the whole purpose of having a multi-core phone.
P.S. It is my first post, suggestions are always welcome.....
They will stop - when the consumer stops foaming at the mouth to buy the newest, most cores/biggest screen piece of technology to brag to their iPhone owning friends about.
I agree with everything you're saying, however it's all about marketing.
Why would anyone buy a new phone if it comes out with the same specs as the phone they currently own? They won't. They'll hang on to their current phone until they break it, brick it, or lose it.
But if you can show them a new phone with better hardware and specs, they're going to feel like theirs is outdated or inferior.
And since the buying frenzy is driven by the unending need to have something better than everyone else, they will continue to facilitate the satisfaction of that need so that they, in turn, can line their pockets with our hard earned money.
Personally, the only reason I'm going to buy the next phone (Galaxy S3 perhaps?) is so that I can hand my SGS2 down to my wife, who currently has my original MT4G (which btw is still an awesome phone that runs everything like a champ). The only justifiable reason she would need the SGS2 IMO is because the hardware buttons on the MT4G will eventually wear out.
Once she has my SGS2, and I have my new phone, I doubt I will be interested in buying another phone for quite some time unless they introduce some completely new technology that I feel is worth the money (Like project glass, which really isn't a phone per se)
Just my two cents.
I agree completely. It's not about whats realistic or necessary. It's about making money. As long as they're making money, they keep churning out what's making them money. And people will continue to buy the bigger and the better specs because they're looked at with envy by those with last year's model.
I wonder the same when i see new cellphones every day on the news... do they sell all this stuff?
Very, very, very, very, very true!!!
I am also from the crowd who wants always the new phones. But whats the point.
They are keep convincing us like the car manifactures more HP better the car and less the fuel. Quadcore is like you have car with 700 HP but no road to drive?!?!
Optimization is the keyword.......
It would be nice if our hardware held value and prowess for more than 6 months. Although the technology advances are nice. The good thing about it, is that we can sell our devices to fund the replacement. It's a trade off I suppose.
Sent from my Galaxy Note (SGH-i717) using XDA Premium.
I don't know. I don't know ,whether their is a need for tablets, either. It seems like that the big companys found something that everyone wants to have, so they are just want to make money i guess.
I can't believe the ATI(Adreno in spirit) and Nvidia(Tegra 1,2,3) battle is now in the mobile era, although the cpu core race is even more daunting...
It was not that long ago when 1 core dominated the market, but now we have Dualcores & Quadcores...My issue with this change is that I don't feel either are exactly required; for instance, WP7 & iOS are faster than Android, but are able to run on older hardware. And lets not forget the iPhones normally run at surprisingly low speeds, however they can get a lot done still.
I mean Samsung's SIII has a Quadcpu, but I doubt that's even necessary, what's wrong with staying in the dualcore/single range and focusing on improving the UI and general performance!?
I know I'm gonna get a lot of backlash for thinking this way, but developers will be lazy with programming if they know the HW will run whatever crap they throw at it. It's just hard to understand the logic behind increasing the core count/speed without actually fixing the problems that plagued the software(android in this case) , if you just take the time to fix the quirks then the device will run smoother. Though, it just seems companies are just interested in marketing gimmicks that most end users won't actually notice, plus most dual cores(S3, exynos,T2, etc) are competent with intensive apps.
The race for now is to produce phones with the most potential. Quad cores, when correctly optimized anyway, have much higher processing capacity and much lower power consumption when doing trivial tasks. The goal is to create interfaces that don't stutter or lag no matter how much you have going on and do so efficiently. There's also the backing of chipsets like the Tegra for high-end mobile entertainment. The end game is superphones, and the game is well afoot.
As to the necessity of it, just depends. I think most business users will be fine on dual core offerings with plenty of ram and a well-implemented overall system. For those who like to max their phones out the possibilities of the high-end development coming out is pretty great. Think about something like the Note with enough processing ability to act as a full input tablet for graphic designers, or that allows programmers to run and edit complex code on the go instead of having to drag a full-size tablet around with them. Think about doctors or researchers being able to monitor multiple sets of real-time data directly from their phones. There's certainly a market for all this, and I don't think it's an arms race just for the sake of showing off.
My $.02; hope that was all coherent.
MissionImprobable said:
The race for now is to produce phones with the most potential.
There's certainly a market for all this, and I don't think it's an arms race just for the sake of showing off.
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Your points are all valid, but I still fear that the Software remains on a level much lower than the hardware; there are tons of Android configurations out there that prevent High Quality HW from performing optimally, due to this, the "potential" of certain devices may never be recognized.
I understand that more cores promotes a sense of efficiency and less power draws, but this tends to lead programmers to optimizing less often. Sense 3.0 was extremely sluggish, same with 4.0, but do you notice the trend? Both Sense 3/4 were made for fast SoCs, to my surprise the result was still horrid. And for your point about the mini tablet(Note), I personally feel you would see those types of Apps on iOS devices instead. For the sake of it, I don't want you to think I am an Apple fan boy(just playing devil's advocate).
Maybe those were the kind of things you only saw on Apple previously, but clearly Samsung and others are serious about competing with them.
I am on a bent for the new Google phones that are going to be being produced. Now, I am not the largest fan of quad core yet but I see great potential in dual cores. Like for running Ubuntu Android, an Ubuntu desktop from your phone to a monitor!
These new phones are looking to have 28nm cortex A15 dual core chips, that would be one hot cookie!
Sent from my PC36100 using xda premium
First, for the dispassionate stuff:
Ace42 said:
but developers will be lazy with programming if they know the HW will run whatever crap they throw at it.
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Developers should be able to be "lazy" with programming: you don't see anyone going back into assembly in order to optimize their programs. Programmer cycles are a lot more valuable than machine cycles, and here more power is a good, not a bad thing.
Ace42 said:
I mean Samsung's SIII has a Quadcpu, but I doubt that's even necessary, what's wrong with staying in the dualcore/single range and focusing on improving the UI and general performance!? ...It's just hard to understand the logic behind increasing the core count/speed without actually fixing the problems that plagued the software(android in this case)
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The "logic" required is elementary economics. A competitive market causes innovation: each firm has to distinguish itself, and match the features of the others in order to stand a chance. Now, some features are more important in consumers' eyes than others, and in particular, core count/speed are very comprehensible, very easy numbers, and viable to innovate. They have to go up asap in order to compete. And so they have.
This does not mean, of course, that your "problems" must remain. In fact, looking at the S3 demos so far, I haven't yet noticed any lag at all, so perhaps they really did "fix" your problems, as you desired.
Now, for the bashing part.
Ace42 said:
My issue with this change is that I don't feel either are exactly required; for instance, WP7 & iOS are faster than Android, but are able to run on older hardware.
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This comes at a cost of so much less customizability. I find WP7 to be particularly guilty of this: only supports 480x800 resolution, no start screen background or landscape? My Launcher 7 is already more powerful than that and, thanks to not attempting any serious 3D stuff, shows no lag at all.
Ace42 said:
And lets not forget the iPhones normally run at surprisingly low speeds, however they can get a lot done still.
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The iPhone, however, makes us pay with user speed as well. Scrolling is slow, in order to maintain the illusion of smoothness, and the simplistic launcher without widgets forces you to switch around and manage everything yourself, getting data only by clicking on the appropriate app. As I hinted at the beginning, people cycles are so much more valuable than computer cycles, and sacrificing the former for the latter is nothing less than a travesty.
Currently mobile phones are more powerful than my laptops and i think this will not change. In the next few years we will have quad-core processors in watches
goompas said:
Currently mobile phones are more powerful than my laptops and i think this will not change. In the next few years we will have quad-core processors in watches
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completely agree
Google sells ads, not software, they don't really give a crap about optimizing it to the max. They leave this dirty job to OEMs, and OEMs want to sell hardware, so they only optimize it for the tiny bit that is strictly necessary in order to sell. They'd rather make better hardware than better software, and no need to blame them: they just do what they know better. Microsoft and Apple instead sell either software or a complete package of both software and hardware, so guess why they care more about it...just my 2 cents. Btw, not that one approach is better than the other, choice is good, you pick what you want.
Sent from my Lumia 800 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
vnvman said:
Google sells ads, not software, they don't really give a crap about optimizing it to the max. They leave this dirty job to OEMs... Microsoft and Apple instead sell either software or a complete package of both software and hardware, so guess why they care more about it...just my 2 cents.
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This analysis doesn't make sense (at least, not as gross as it is right now). A company optimizes software when there's some form of competitive pressure, not because they "sell software". Just look at internet explorer: that didn't get seriously worked on for years, until alternative browsers started to become rightfully popular (that is, while microsoft is surely a software company, they still managed not to "give a crap").
Maybe you mean to say that companies only bother to improve something so that it's "good enough" to face off against the competition - and that's pretty much true. For example, after grabbing the market share, apple has only been innovating just hard enough not to be too far behind its competition.
Maybe you also mean to say that companies innovate better, the closer their incentives are aligned with the innovation. This is also true, but highly misleading. For one thing, the factor most affecting one's incentives is not "the thing they are selling", but (you guessed it from above) competition. Selling software or hardware when you have a monopoly, for instance, gives you little or no incentive to innovate (whereas your criteria would've suggested the opposite).
Mind you, I think you are hitting on something; it just requires a much more thorough analysis of the incentives than just "are they selling software or ads?"
And the incentive situation is itself weird. On one hand, android ad profit is (supposedly) pretty low for google, but on the other hand, they are able to delegate the whole manufacturing and execution to other firms. Fewer rewards, but also lower costs. They do have the majority of the phone market right now (getting dangerously close to monopoly there), but this is a fragile equilibrium, with tablets a whole 'nother story. And, since they are dying to get more stock phones out (with those giant "Google" permanant search bars), one can indeed argue that they've started to care not only about selling ads, but the whole damn thing. It's gotten to the point where they need to improve stock itself (and probably the phones too, hence the motorola acquisition + multiple Nexii partnership) in order to improve their ads. And so you see that the incentives may not be nearly as maligned as you'd originally supposed.
I think that we can only benefit from this race
thebobp said:
First, for the dispassionate stuff:
Developers should be able to be "lazy" with programming: you don't see anyone going back into assembly in order to optimize their programs. Programmer cycles are a lot more valuable than machine cycles, and here more power is a good, not a bad thing.
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Click to collapse
Being "lazy" is the reason why so many Android apps run poorly across the board; fine, I understand more power allows you to offload more work to the cpu, but that doesn't mean that's the correct method. If I were to make an app for a Dual environment I would specifically make sure each core is sharing the burden. When Dual core phones & Ginger were(and still are) united, the result was simply stunning—Ginger was definitely not optimized for dualcores. And it showed, my Sensation was so laggy under 2.3.x, it was so disheartening to see my single core devices could challenge the dual beast with ease.
thebobp said:
Now, some features are more important in consumers' eyes than others, and in particular, core count/speed are very comprehensible, very easy numbers, and viable to innovate.
This does not mean, of course, that your "problems" must remain. In fact, looking at the S3 demos so far, I haven't yet noticed any lag at all, so perhaps they really did "fix" your problems, as you desired.
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The average consumer doesn't know or can't even comprehend the raw power that certain SoCs are capable of, so I doubt they care if X phone has 2GHz and the other has 1Ghz. Apple normally doesn't boast about the CPU count in commercials, they boast about their OS & siri, that's how they win over millions each year. Everyone and their grandmothers know how flawless iOS is. Now I know I'm bashing Android severely, though I am a long time Android user and these are some of my views.
thebobp said:
This comes at a cost of so much less customizability. I find WP7 to be particularly guilty of this: only supports 480x800 resolution, no start screen background or landscape? My Launcher 7 is already more powerful than that and, thanks to not attempting any serious 3D stuff, shows no lag at all.
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True, WP7 offers the bare minimum when it comes to customization, which is an unfortunate sacrifice for speed. And Microsoft has set HW limitations to prevent fragmentation, which if I may, is devastating the Android market. We have Exynos over there, Snapdragon under there, and Tegra round yonder, and a large variety of screen types.
thebobp said:
The iPhone, however, makes us pay with user speed as well. Scrolling is slow, in order to maintain the illusion of smoothness, and the simplistic launcher without widgets forces you to switch around and manage everything yourself, getting data only by clicking on the appropriate app. As I hinted at the beginning, people cycles are so much more valuable than computer cycles, and sacrificing the former for the latter is nothing less than a travesty.
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Scrolling is slow? Are you using the 1st iPhone or something? Last time I tried my friend's 4S is was quite speedy, iOS has always been the fastest mobile OS available. If memory serves, iOS has also been GPU accelerated since the old days, a feature relatively new to Android and maybe WP7. I pretty sure you can visit every Android forum on XDA & at least 10 users will report that they have lag in X, Y, Z app. However if you did a poll with random iOS users I doubt if you would even find a black sheep.
What is it that makes a phone a great phone? There are a dozen measurable factors and a dozen more that are purely subjective.
Price
There are many things that you’ll want to take into consideration when buying a new phone, but one of the biggest is price. Most newer devices will run you quite a bit, but if you’re riding a two-year contract — or just happen to find the right deal — you can snag one of our top picks at a great price. Even if you’re on a budget, you still have some great options for a new phone. If you’re really in a crunch, you can also go with an older phone instead of the latest tech. This will save you some cash and still get you a great device.
Display
Displays on smartphones are all across the board these days, and what size you get really depends on just what you’ll be using your phone for. People that like gaming or watching videos may want to go for a large screen, while those that are just using social networks and email may not need one quite as big.
You’ll also want to consider things like contrast, saturation, and screen brightness. Some screens may look great to you but not to others — and vice versa — so it’s always best to take a look at a few for comparison to see which fits you best. There are different types of display technologies like IPS-LCD and AMOLED as well that will affect a display’s appearance both indoors and out.
Software
If you're here looking for the best "Android" phone then you know each of these phones is running on the same basic system — right now, either Android 5.1 Lollipop or 6.0 Marshmallow. Being on a newer version of Android is always better, but it's also important to make note of the customizations each manufacturer make to Android.
Samsung, LG, Motorola, etc. all make varying amounts of changes to Android, each trying to add more value to differentiate the phone from the group. This may be as simple as a suite of manufacturer apps and a few visual tweaks, all the way up to a complete redesign of the interface, animations and stock apps.
It can be hard to determine which manufacturer adaptation of Android is right for you, so be sure to check out the phone in person if possible or at least see the software selling points listed by the company to get a feel for it.
Battery
Perhaps the single most important feature to consider when buying a new smartphone is battery life. The battery is the heart of your phone when on the go, so 99 percent of the time bigger is always better, though it does mean heavier phones and longer charging times (though quick-charging technology has helped with that).
Everyone will use their phone in different ways, so you’ll have to take into account how you will be using your phone to know just how much battery you’ll be able to squeak out in a day. Watching videos, streaming music, or playing games all use a lot of battery, while web browsing and sending emails won’t have the same immediate effect on battery life.
Batteries are measured in milliampere-hour (mAh) and the higher the number, the bigger the battery. Most newer devices will make it through a day of casual use, but heavy users many run short if they don’t find the time to top-off throughout the day. There are plenty of things you can do to prolong your battery life as well — turning down the screen brightness, disabling features like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when not in use, or just limiting your overall usage time. Charging up when you can doesn’t hurt either. We’ve got plenty morebattery-saving tips which should help regardless of which phone you end up buying.
Camera
It used to be that we used a standalone camera for taking photos, but as technology evolves, more and more people are using their smartphone camera as their full-time camera. If you’re one of these people, you’ll want to make sure that the camera in your device is up to the challenge so you get the best shots no matter what the situation may be.
Most phones will have a rear and front camera, the later being used for “selfies” or things like video chat — meaning the rear stats are what really matter in the long run. Most decent smartphone cameras come in at at least 8MP, with some devices sporting cameras of 13MP, 16MP or more. The camera software on the device can also play a big part in just how good your photos look as well. Take a gander at our photography hints to take some really great snaps with your phone.
THE BOTTOM LINE
This is by no means a conclusive ranking of all Android phones — these are what we consider the best best. Certainly, they're often on the more expensive side, but you'll get what you're paying for. High-end specs and experiences come with high-end prices.