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Fastest & Most Responsive VGA PPC Phone?

Hi everyone,
I was just wondering what are the fastest & most responsive VGA-screen PPC Phones out there (or coming by end 2009)? I quantify performance in terms of 2D graphics, and I've been using SPB Benchmark Graphics benchmark. Of course, one can always argue there's more than 2D graphics in terms of speed, but slow phones really pissed me off. I used to had a HTC Universal and that was a steaming pile of junk. Switched to HTC Hermes 2-3yrs back... and it's been barely tolerable.
Right now, I've only found 2 "fast" VGA PPC Phones - ASUS P565 and Samsung Omnia II. However ASUS P565 is a questionable VGA phone since it's screen is a puny 2.8" size (might as well get a ASUS P552W). Both have a graphics benchmark of around ~2500, which is quite sad since that's equivalent to the Eten M600 speed (ok it runs as a QVGA). Compare this to Samsung Omnia I (~5000) or the ASUS P552W (~11,000) both of which uses the slower Marvel 624MHz CPU, Monahans and Tavor generation respectively.
I read that Toshiba TG01 Snapdragon is coming soon, but are there any concrete benchmarks done on it?
So, does anyone know if there is any fast & responsive VGA PPC Phones out there? Or do we have to wait for Snapdragon, Tegra or Marvell's 1GHz CPU? Can we expect such CPUs to make VGA screened phones fast enough? Or should I just get the ASUS P552W which means giving up my QWERTY keyboard , and wait for another 2-3years?

Hi
I can think on Tosh tg01 that is already on sale as the fastest to this date (I believe)
On december some snapdragon tosh models will be launched! perhaps HTC also...
Other ones not so fast but also good options are:
Touch pro 2
Hero

Acer M900?

YOu cannot treat a processors MHz as the be-all-end-all. Its an indicator and nothing more. You cannot compare processor speeds across diferent manufacturers either.
And no matter how fast the processor, if the drivers/design around it is sh*t, the phone will suffer greatly. A good example of this, Acer Shell to access contacts can be a little slow, SPB Shell however, is instant.
You can only compare by running the same app performing the same task on each phone. Benchmarks try to do this but can become far too specific at times. Again, they are a (good) indicator but not the be-all-end-all.
On a side note, I have an m900 and if you turn off Acer Shell (coz it sucks!) it is VERY fast.
When you want speed, why do you need speed exactly? Are you talking about accessing contacts etc? Are you talking about screen orientation or maybe playing games?
Your best bet is try and get hold of devices, install the required game/software and THEN see how responsive it is.

Monty Burns said:
YOu cannot treat a processors MHz as the be-all-end-all. Its an indicator and nothing more. You cannot compare processor speeds across diferent manufacturers either.
And no matter how fast the processor, if the drivers/design around it is sh*t, the phone will suffer greatly. A good example of this, Acer Shell to access contacts can be a little slow, SPB Shell however, is instant.
You can only compare by running the same app performing the same task on each phone. Benchmarks try to do this but can become far too specific at times. Again, they are a (good) indicator but not the be-all-end-all.
On a side note, I have an m900 and if you turn off Acer Shell (coz it sucks!) it is VERY fast.
When you want speed, why do you need speed exactly? Are you talking about accessing contacts etc? Are you talking about screen orientation or maybe playing games?
Your best bet is try and get hold of devices, install the required game/software and THEN see how responsive it is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Easier said than done, I would love to have a try out by to replicate real-life performance one has to install all the apps one normally use, so it's not practical unless you have a dozen friends with different PPC Phones. While benchmarks aren't perfect, I don't see anything better to replace it. Sure, there is software optimizations and driver stuff, but if it sucks... no matter how much you cook your ROM and optimize, it sucks.
Take for example HTC Universal. That is one slow piece of junk. No matter how much optimization you do, you're not going to beat say the current HTC Hermes that I am using in terms of responsiveness. Another example is the last 1-2 yrs of HTC <Insert Model> running Qualcomm CPUs. So many users have reported the unbearably slow speed, and it doesn't help that many of them come with VGA resolution screens. Almost all evidence point to date that VGA phones are slow and crappy... and I was wondering if technology has advanced the point whereby this can be rectified.
Speed? It's the most importing thing when dealing with PPC Phones. For many years now, I the name Pocket PC is a real misnomer, as previous generation and maybe even current generation of phones acts in no way like a real personal computer.
What is acceptable? Fast 2D graphics. Instant response when I click on something, as I was using a laptop. No lag. No lag when rotating the screen. Faster loading of webpages instead of waiting for ages... and then it crashes. And btw I use Phone Weaver, Pocket Plus and SPB Diary on my Today screen, which makes it more taxing on the 2D system. Sure the HTC Universal with a fresh install can rotate screen in 1-2 seconds when optimized, but load in all my Today plugins it takes like 10-20 seconds!
Next comes fast 3D graphics and the ability to play movies. Right now my HTC Hermes can't play normal sized video files, i.e. 640x480, XVID/DIVX. Of course you can always recode with a lower res, but what's the point? It's all extra work.

Ronnie,
Have you thought about doing the 128MB memory upgrade, and overclocking the CPU on the Universal? May help things a bit.
Some other devices that may be faster:
Xperia X1
Acer F1
02 XDA Flame
Asus P835
Here is a site that test floating point and OGL performance in smartphones. Donot know how legit it is however.
http://www.glbenchmark.com/latest_results.jsp?benchmark=glpro

Most certainly don't look to HTC.
e.g. Kaiser - even if the CPU/GPU supports faster performance, they don't deem that necessary and don't include the required drivers.
The video 'hack' to speed up 2-D performance for the Kaiser proves that there are even more inefficiencies/missing drivers for that HTC phone.

I would suggest that the new Acer Tempo range and new Samsung Omnia's are a good way to investigate. Both these brands are selling the fact that there chips have built in 3d graphics and I believe the Samsungs even come with a free 3d game - could be wrong though. Either way, you wouldnt sell the fact you have a 3d games capability if you haven't programmed proper 3d drivers - something HTC have never really done afaik.
Again, the Acers are only showing a 528mhz (something like that anyway) but don't be fooled by a mhz rating. For example, just because a snapdragon is showing a 1ghz processor doesn't means its faster than a 528mhz Samsung... if you use google you will find plenty of winmob experienced people that feel its not as fast as it should be.
edit: Im sure the Samsung Omnia II's come with a Need For Speed Variant?

Playstation2 for Android (samsung galaxy)

So, with the new Samsung Galaxy on its way (waiting for some carries to get a move on) there (to me) seems to be a possibility to get a PS2 emulator running quite well with the new specs.
1Ghz HummingBird "Cortex A8"
PowerVR SGX540
---{"Samsung Galaxy S’ “Hummingbird” A8 chip will be able to process around 90 million triangle per second. That is compared to the Moto DROID’s 7 mill tri/sec, the Nexus One’s 22 million tri/sec, and the iPhone 3G S’ 28 million tri/sec."}---
---{"In other words, the Samsung Galaxy S will have around 36% the video processing power of a PS3. Hopefully it doesn’t get as hot as a PS3."}---
With this in mind I would think that is it quite possible to run a PS2 emulator on the new Samsung Galaxy S. Not to mention the rumored 1.5Ghz dual core Snapdragon coming to T-mobile either this Christmas season or early next year.
One thing to remember, is that although a PC with say a 3Ghz Dual core with 4Gb ram trying to run a PS2 emulator runs like crap, the architecture of the PC processor and graphics is different form that of consoles, which is why it requires to much to get a smooth play out of it. Cell phones share a very similar structure (from my knowledge at least) to consoles. This to me says that newer android phones should be quite capable of running a PS2 emu.
If you head over to the GLBenchmark website (.com) and look up the result database you will see the Galaxy S at the top (minus a comal naz-10, whatever that is) and if you compare the Galaxy S results with the Droid, Droid X, Droid 2, Iphone 4, you will see that it just rapes each phone by a huge range. I am not sure of playstion 2 specs but I am more then sure the phone should be able to handle it!
Playstion2 specs can be found on wikipedia (will not copy and paste all that info.)
To me it seems like its highly possible, and I would love to play my racing games on the phone (Tokyo Extreme Racer Drift2, TXRD2)
Thoughts and opinions welcome, no bashing (I get this in other forums).

even a 3 Ghz i7 isn't able to emulate a ps2 @fullspeed (depending by the emulated game - sure, there are many playable games - i know that because im interested in emulation and tested many games (search youtube for "frankyfife"). there is many code to translate by the emu, to produce native code for the plattform running on. the ps2 has vector units, the emotion engine, spu and gs which need to be emulated. no way to do this an a 1 Ghz cellphone, even with similar specs or identical main cpu architecture/function.

I really hate to be a nerf herder but if a 1Ghz snapdragon droid can play playstation one games, and the galaxy s with 1Ghz hummingbird and graphics chip that is way more powerful then the droid should be able to handle it fine.
Take for example facts that lead to a hypothesis of power.
Motorola Droid: TI OMAP3430 with PowerVR SGX530 = 7-14 million(?) triangles/sec
Samsung Galaxy S: S5PC110 with PowerVR SGX540 = 90 million triangles/sec
These results are based off SOME facts with SOME uncertainties that leads to a hypothesis. If this is INDEED the case, the galaxy S is ALMOST 7 times more powerful then the droid (6.4xxxxxxxx when 90 is divided by 14). And your saying that it can't handle it without trying? I've seen youtube video's of phones playing playstation games smoothly with little jitterbugging and medium quality sound. Take into account the faster processor and cpu in the galaxy s and you use less resources to play the game, leaving more for sound processing, which in turn will make the ps1 games run perfect (theoretically) and possible ps2 if not DECENT ps2.
EDIT: Not to mention the PS3 running at 250 million triangles/sec, that makes the galaxy s like 38 some % of a ps3!

No, just no. It can't be done with cellphones as @xdaywalkerx said. I have been able to play Guilty Gear and some visual novels on PS2 emulator on my i5 @ 4.00GHz and with 4GB of DDR3 RAM. Unless you find a way to efficiently emulate all the hardware in PS2 it is impossible.

Quintasan said:
No, just no. It can't be done with cellphones as @xdaywalkerx said. I have been able to play Guilty Gear and some visual novels on PS2 emulator on my i5 @ 4.00GHz and with 4GB of DDR3 RAM. Unless you find a way to efficiently emulate all the hardware in PS2 it is impossible.
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Click to collapse
PC Processors and GPUs work completely different then consoles, that's why it takes so much power to even try to squeeze out performance. Phones have the same if not extremely similar processors and gpu's (at least how they are made and how they work).
Running a emulator on a phone is different then a PC. If the droid can run final fantasy and other games from playstation one, then what is the galaxy gonna be able to do with over 6x more graphics processing power?

keep on dreaming

Just stop, it is impossible. It doesn't matter if the architecture is similar, you're still emulating which takes way more resources than the native machine requires.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

namcost said:
PC Processors and GPUs work completely different then consoles, that's why it takes so much power to even try to squeeze out performance. Phones have the same if not extremely similar processors and gpu's (at least how they are made and how they work).
Running a emulator on a phone is different then a PC. If the droid can run final fantasy and other games from playstation one, then what is the galaxy gonna be able to do with over 6x more graphics processing power?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can't just take theoretical numbers like that and simply assume that just because the Hummingbird can crunch out (throwing a random number right here) 15 million polygons/second, it doesn't mean that it can emulate PS2 titles and crunch out 15 million polygons/second emulating a PS2 title.
As xdaywalkerx said, the Emotion Engine is much more difficult to emulate when compared to the PlayStation 1's MIPS R3051. PS2 emulation is not even well done on Windows computers; not necessarily because of the lack of CPU/GPU power, but the difficulty in emulating the titles as well.
Hell, the Droid can't even run every single PS1 title available, even when overclocked.

how about a psp emu? some psp games look and feel like ps2 games.

Maybe possible with very dumbed down graphics and super-low resolution... but then would it look like ps2? Probably not

SNES StarFox and Stunt Race FX don't run full speed on my Galaxy S.
Burnout 3? Vice City? GOW? MGS2? No chance.
But a Sega Saturn emulator...well...

I've seen the captivate run crash bandicoot 3 on psx emu @ full speed with no problems, just lack of control since its touch screen and requires quick reactions.....

It's simply not possible.

I'd say... it won't work. The processor wouldn't even run it...
The GPU would fail.
However,
A psp emulator, could potentially work.
The facts
You see, a standard PSP (not the PSP Go) is overclocked automatically to 333mhz for SOME games... This 333mhz is the maximum. Most games run at 266mhz. To Emulate something you need roughly 4 times the processing power. And for graphics, you also would need a decent GPU.
So processing wise, a PSP emulator for phones is actually very possible. The graphics could possibly be pulled off.
But this would only work on High end phones with a decent enough screensize... e.g. the streak, droid (X) to name a few.
Edit:
Did some research.
Pixel Fill Rate of the PSP's GPU is 664 Megapixels per second, on a high end phone the GPU is around 133 to 250 Megapixels per second. The PSP does 33 Million triangles a second.. Whereas, we'll get possibly 7 to 22 million triangles per second. This shows that even a emulating a PSP entirely would be impossible... However you COULD emulate it. It just never would be full speed..
So if a PSP, won't run perfectly, I'm afraid a PS2 emulator won't.

Synyster_Zeikku said:
Pixel Fill Rate of the PSP's GPU is 664 Megapixels per second, on a high end phone the GPU is around 133 to 250 Megapixels per second. The PSP does 33 Million triangles a second.. Whereas, we'll get possibly 7 to 22 million triangles per second. This shows that even a emulating a PSP entirely would be impossible... However you COULD emulate it. It just never would be full speed..
So if a PSP, won't run perfectly, I'm afraid a PS2 emulator won't.
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Click to collapse
Samsung Galaxy S is rumored to be super powerful compared to the measly droid.
It is also rumored to have 90 million triangles per second.
http://www.androidpolice.com/2010/07/03/samsung-galaxy-s-is-a-beast-runs-quake-3-perfectly/
I hate to be an ass but the PS3 has 250 million triangles per second from what I've seen around the web (rsx chipset?), the psp is no where near that entirely. PS3 runs the RSX chip? or w/e it is, and its said to run 250 million triangles per second, and also seen a comparison (but i don't really believe it) says the 360 does 500 million triangles per second.
"66 million vertices / triangles per second calculated by the Emotion
Engine, and 75 million triangles per second can be drawn by the
Graphics Synthesizer (obviously the EE can only feed 66M per second to
the GS, thus as a result the EE can never overload the GS "
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Click to collapse
"PSP can *calculate* 33 or 35 million vertices / triangles per second
at the full 333 MHz clock frequency, which currently restricted to 222
MHz, so that cuts vertex / triangle rate down by 1/3. so, this
33~35 million per sec is currently at about 22-23 million per sec. at
222 MHz. Remember, this is the amount that can be transformed /
calculated, so you can think of this PSP triangle/sec number as you
would the 66M per sec that Emotion Engine in PS2 does. "
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/33327-13-versus-triangles-second
I still think its possible with newer phones, especially if the dual core 1.5ghz snapdragon comes out @ christmas like its rumored.....

You're confusing two entirely different things.
Yes, high-end Android phones are able to run games that are similar in graphics to the PSP/PS2.
But emulation? Impossible. To emulate a system, you generally need to be at least 3 times as powerful, and that's probably way too little.
If it was this easy, you'd think the people that made the PS2 themselves would be able to emulate it on the PS3.

Lesiroth said:
You're confusing two entirely different things.
Yes, high-end Android phones are able to run games that are similar in graphics to the PSP/PS2.
But emulation? Impossible. To emulate a system, you generally need to be at least 3 times as powerful, and that's probably way too little.
If it was this easy, you'd think the people that made the PS2 themselves would be able to emulate it on the PS3.
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Click to collapse
They did emulate it on the PS3, they took it out on the newer models for god knows what reason. I have the original PS3 from launch and it plays all my PS2 games without a hickup.....
And where do you get this 3x more powerful, if that's the case, my dual core amd 3.0ghz with 4 gig of ram and a 5770 should run ps2 games just fine and it dont, its laggy.
Emulation on a PC is massively different then emulating on a phone. The phones shares more architecture with consoles then actual PC's do, hence why phones are just now hitting the 1ghz and 1.5ghz level. There are already videos of the galaxy s running crash bandicoot 3 with the droid emulator set to 60fps max and it runs perfectly, and I mean PERFECTLY. (except lack of controls). The Galaxy S also runs quake 3 arena perfectly (minus lack of controls, but that one i think can be solved with a simple bluetooth mouse and keyboard?).
Its possible, people just like to write it off..... w/e, I'm done with this website, too many haters with no facts.

namcost said:
They did emulate it on the PS3, they took it out on the newer models for god knows what reason. I have the original PS3 from launch and it plays all my PS2 games without a hickup.....
And where do you get this 3x more powerful, if that's the case, my dual core amd 3.0ghz with 4 gig of ram and a 5770 should run ps2 games just fine and it dont, its laggy.
Emulation on a PC is massively different then emulating on a phone. The phones shares more architecture with consoles then actual PC's do, hence why phones are just now hitting the 1ghz and 1.5ghz level. There are already videos of the galaxy s running crash bandicoot 3 with the droid emulator set to 60fps max and it runs perfectly, and I mean PERFECTLY. (except lack of controls). The Galaxy S also runs quake 3 arena perfectly (minus lack of controls, but that one i think can be solved with a simple bluetooth mouse and keyboard?).
Its possible, people just like to write it off..... w/e, I'm done with this website, too many haters with no facts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, emulating process is the same on all architectures - creating virtual machine and "translating it" to be understandable for device's architecture. Of course it's not that simple, but hope you understand . Even if sb wrote PS2 emulator, I doubt it'll have over 5 fps.
Quake 3 is running smooth, because it's running natively (ported engine for ARM and GPU is supporting OpenGL, which quake uses). Maybe PSX is running great on Galaxy S, but even my very old PC with Pentium III 400MHz and geforce 2 mx could run it at full speed
Oh and your PS3 is running PS2 games smooth, because first consoles had PS2's chip inside . They removed it later.

How about you get your facts straight first?
It was on the first batch of PS3s because Sony put some of the PS2s hardware in the PS3, as they couldn't possibly launch without backwards compatibility.
They took the PS2 hardware out later to reduce costs.
Emulation on phones is not "massively different" than PCs, our phones use ARM architecture CPUs, while the PS2 uses MIPS processors for its Emotion Engine.

make an emulator that works and we will buy it. shouldn't be hard since you seem to know a lot about it

Dual core processor?

Why would a phone need it? Wouldn't battery life just suck?
Sent from the key to my world.

Sure, if you want a portable console lol.
The response speed would be great thought, and camera will be able to record in full HD without trouble. But, the software will need to be programmed to take advantage of the dual-core processor.
As for the battery, not necessary. The cpu will throttle back its speed a lot, and a dual-core might be able to drop really low and remain fully operational which will require less battery. Also the new dual-core cpu nanometer architecture would most probably be lower which means better battery consumption but at full load (like when playing graphically intensive games) battery probably won't last long. Still thought, new battery technology will need to be manufactured soon to keep up with this new phone technology. Next you'll see are dual-gpu phones lol
I'm waiting for the 2011 CES to see if anything dual-core will be announced before dropping $800 on a phone as I would love such a device, just for fun.

CES is just next week right?
They've already announced one phone to run it, I just think technology is getting crazy with portability. My computer still has a 1.6ghz processor, these new phones will undoubtedly surpass my poor system. Ha.
Sent from the key to my world.

One thing that the makers of the chips take into consideration, is power usage. And it's easy to see that too. I'll use desktop cpus and laptop cpus for example. Intel and AMD's 6 core designed both have a TDP of under 125W. Old single core pentiums had a TDP higher than that, and were much bigger in nm range. Laptop cpus now only use at the most, 1/4 the tdp of a desktop cpu.(Not as fast though)
Other than that, right now I can bet that there is no multi-threaded apps available, and is Android really able to take advantage of a multi-core system? Probably not on it's own.

HAPPY NEW YEAR people!!
Yeah, CES is just next week. I know they announced some phone but I would like to know when they are coming so I know if I should buy the best thing right now or not.
I wouldn't have a clue if Android can handle multicore processors but maybe the new Honeycomb version of Android will enable this? If this is the case then maybe this phones will come March/April....sigh
And yeah, TDP of this chips will be lower then current chips. I bet they are working hard to make the best use of the battery.

ceg1792 said:
Why would a phone need it? Wouldn't battery life just suck?
Sent from the key to my world.
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Click to collapse
A multi core cpu does not necessarily use more power than a single core cpu; it's mostly dependent on the architecture.

NVIDIA talks about benefits of dual core:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/08/nvidia-touts-the-benefits-of-multi-core-processors-for-smartphon/

I think there is a definite need for Dual-Core Processors in phones. Gaming is making a mainstream shift from dedicated handheld gaming consoles to Smartphones. In order for developers to make more robust and graphically appealing games, they are going to need more processing power. Another point is that Dual-Core Processors will help browser rendering speeds. With HSPA+, WiMax, and LTE we are getting some serious downlink on our devices. But if you notice, a smartphone getting 3mbps down and one getting 10 mbps down renders a webpage at the same speed. Right now the processor bottlenecks webpage rendering, not our data connection. With these faster processors it helps eliminate the bottleneck to provide a gratifying web experience to the end-user.

It'll help if the application has multi-thread support. But if the app can only use 1 core/thread, then that's where dual core is useless. Also gaming isn't the main focus of Smartphones, there's probably a huge minority of people using their Smartphones as a serious gaming machine compared to people who are using their smartphone for work, talk, text, or other multimedia.

question cpu power

I posted this in the general forum but did not get an answer, so posting here hoping for a reply. Sorry if this is breaking forum rules, I doing think it is but....if it is flame away and delete ...anyways. I am just curious with the introduction of quad core tablets, how do they match up to similar spec CPU in raw power. I understand that android, iOS, and windows ( in the future) are mobile OS, So directly comparing the to a laptop is useless. I did however notice that the new t33 clocked and 1.6ghz is only .1 slower than my laptop to with is running a AMD quad core at 1.7ghz. So I'm just wondering is it a direct comparison in just processing power alone or is the architecture so different in the laptop and desktop that even at the same speed they win in the power category .

Totally different. Due to the ARM architecture, the CPU is a lot less powerful than comparably clocked CPUs using the x86 or x86_64 architecture.

Keep
jdeoxys said:
Totally different. Due to the ARM architecture, the CPU is a lot less powerful than comparably clocked CPUs using the x86 or x86_64 architecture.
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Click to collapse
Thank you for the reply. Do you have any idea on the scale? How fast would a arm CPU have to be clocked to equal a x86 or x64?

fd4101 said:
Keep
Thank you for the reply. Do you have any idea on the scale? How fast would a arm CPU have to be clocked to equal a x86 or x64?
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Click to collapse
There is literally no comparison. I have a crap old AMD Athlon 64 x2 clocked at around 3 ghz with ddr2 RAM (lolwut, in 2012?). It gets 3x better sunspider scores than my infinity does. I don't know if that's the browser or what but, I think an ARM CPU would have to be at least 5-6 times higher clocked to get similar performance from x86 CPUs. For modern day ones, I think maybe even up to 10-20x. Of course, this is just my talking out of my ass here, I don't really know the exact numbers.

Well I guess my dreams of have a tablet that is truly as powerful as my laptop are still far off. But with the way tech is progressing I'm sure we'll have it someday..

fd4101 said:
Well I guess my dreams of have a tablet that is truly as powerful as my laptop are still far off. But with the way tech is progressing I'm sure we'll have it someday..
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Why? You didn't mean to play Diablo 3 on it, did you? The apps for tablets take this difference into account, so it is really a question of what apps suit your needs.
(BTW, my i3 laptop is only 4 times faster than Chrome on the Infinity running ICS, it will be probably only 3 times faster when the JB for the Infinity shows up; and we don't really need all the CPU power of i3/i5/i7 for casual web browsing..)

fd4101 said:
Well I guess my dreams of have a tablet that is truly as powerful as my laptop are still far off. But with the way tech is progressing I'm sure we'll have it someday..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ms surface. Core i5. Although it won't have quite the god tier 16:10 resolution of the infinity.
I got b& at /g/ for sh!tposting ;_;

ARM Cortex-A9(same as Tegra3) is in between Intel's Atom and their Desktop x86 CPUs.
A dual core Cortex-A9 is considerably faster than an Intel Atom N270 in some operations. However, it is difficult to really compare as few benchmarks are optimized for both ARM *and* x86.
The ARM architecture's primary focus is low power while being inexpensive so it will be slower than Intel's x86 by design.

Although I realize that the power of tablets have along way to go before they are playing AAA games. I would like tablets to get to a point where they can run the same level of software ( optimized for mobile of course). Desktops will always be more powerful but as it stands right now my laptop can play pretty much any game my desktop can just on lower settings. I would like a tablets to replace this. The benefits of course lower power requirements for battery life and better mobility. I thought that with quad core tablets with ghz reaching closer and closer to laptops that we where getting close but I did not know enough about x86 & x64 to know it made so much of a difference. I need to take a computer class .
I know that the cloud can give the illusion of tablets having more power than they do, but the cloud has along way till it can be fully realized to many restrictions as it stand now. Even with tablets having 4g connection it still limits mobility through contracts, deadzones, lag and makes you pay more multiple times to do what you want. Maybe in the future the cloud will make all this a wash and well all carry thin lower power devices that only need to decode video and receive input, but I see that as along way away.

fd4101 said:
Although I realize that the power of tablets have along way to go before they are playing AAA games. I would like tablets to get to a point where they can run the same level of software ( optimized for mobile of course). Desktops will always be more powerful but as it stands right now my laptop can play pretty much any game my desktop can just on lower settings. I would like a tablets to replace this. The benefits of course lower power requirements for battery life and better mobility. I thought that with quad core tablets with ghz reaching closer and closer to laptops that we where getting close but I did not know enough about x86 & x64 to know it made so much of a difference. I need to take a computer class .
I know that the cloud can give the illusion of tablets having more power than they do, but the cloud has along way till it can be fully realized to many restrictions as it stand now. Even with tablets having 4g connection it still limits mobility through contracts, deadzones, lag and makes you pay more multiple times to do what you want. Maybe in the future the cloud will make all this a wash and well all carry thin lower power devices that only need to decode video and receive input, but I see that as along way away.
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You better hope this never happens. The cloud = gigantic botnet. Google will take ALL your information and beam ideas directly to your head.

Lol well i m not sure anything can stop it but I'll start stocking up on tin foil, I'll make you a hat and ship it to you.

It's hard to say but in terms of gaming we are seeing some quite interesting developments. For example Max Payne and GTA 3 on a tablet is quite impressive if you think what kind of PC you had to own when this games were released.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

And there's Baldur's Gate for Android coming

d14b0ll0s said:
And there's Baldur's Gate for Android coming
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That's already possible since years.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.sourceforge.gemrb
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

That is true games have come along way through optimization. Maybe games with just be better optimized and hardware won't be such a concern.

Nebucatnetzer said:
That's already possible since years.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.sourceforge.gemrb
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Looks cool, but the comments say otherwise. I meant the version intended for Android tablets.

d14b0ll0s said:
Looks cool, but the comments say otherwise. I meant the version intended for Android tablets.
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I tried it quite a while ago so I don't know if anything has changed.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Basically they say it's slow even on some fast phones, gets FCs and you can't go into some menus without doing some crazy tricks. But it's nice to see some development like this. I'm still waiting for the official version, with some fright too, as it's pretty time-consuming..

Is anyone using those cheapie Android computers-on-a-stick for general computing?

I've been wanting to buy something like this or this (which is not technically on a stick...) for a while now. When they all had Allwinner A10s I waited for better hardware, but now that better hardware's here - the ones I linked have quadcore CPUs and two gigs of RAM - I think I've done enough waiting.
Right now I'm using my main box (quadcore gaming computer) for everything, but it's hardly efficient when I'm not actually gaming. My idea is to use the tiny-puter with my 27" 1080p screen for light-duty things; by this I mean browsing the net, watching youtube videos and so on.
The only doubt I have is that I don't really know how effective these things are in this role. I don't want to have to wait for the CPU to render webpages; I've had to endure enough of that on my ancient Atom netbook.
What's your experience in using Android sticks?

Nobody at all?