Samsung "Cheats" To Gain Benchmark Performance Edge Over Competition - AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 General

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7187/looking-at-cpugpu-benchmark-optimizations-galaxy-s-4
Anandtech did some digging and discovered Samsung has added a few "features" that improve their benchmarks.
Here is a pretty good summary on Arstechnica:
Benchmarking is not the end-all, be-all for potential gadget buyers. But these tests are good for showing a device's raw, potential power. Sites like Ars rely on them to help paint a more thorough picture of anything we review. Manufacturers know this and, apparently, some even take steps to boost performance within popular benchmark tests.
Anandtech recently dusted off a pair of international model Galaxy S 4's equipped with first-gen Exynos 5 Octa (5410) SoCs to investigate a beyond3D forum rumor that Samsung was allegedly only exposing its 533MHz GPU clock to specific benchmarking tests while limiting other apps and games to 480MHz. Anandtech's initial results had the team wondering about CPU performance as well. And their final research showed that three tests—AnTuTu, GLBenchmark 2.5.1, and Quadrant—"get fixed CPU frequencies and a 532MHz max GPU block" while others did not. So the Anandtech team next examined the specific .apk responsible for this behavior and found more possible benchmark exceptions hard coded within (like Linpack and BenchmarkPi). It seems as if Samsung intentionally let its device perform better on certain benchmarks than in genuine day-to-day use.
Ultimately, Anandtech currently uses different benchmarks when evaluating devices (and, full disclosure, when Ars reviewed the S 4, we used a US-model and ran the Geekbench 2.3.5, GLBenchmark 2.7, Google Octane, Kraken 1.1, and Sunspider 0.9.1 tests). And it's worth noting that this isn't the first time devices and drivers have specifically aimed to boost benchmark performance. But the lack of transparency is alarming to tech enthusiasts. Anandtech finished their update by calling for honesty from Samsung, suggesting the company either open up stronger settings for use across the board or abandon them all together.
"The risk of doing nothing is that we end up in an arms race between all of the SoC and device makers where non-insignificant amounts of time and engineering effort [are] spent on gaming the benchmarks rather than improving user experience," wrote Brian Klug and Anand Lal Shimpi. "Optimizing for user experience is all that’s necessary, good benchmarks benefit indirectly—those that don’t will eventually become irrelevant."
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Benchmarks are way over rated.

Deleted

rugmankc said:
You're trolling dude--go back to the HTC forum
Both forums have out grown this crap--
Close thread
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There isnt any trolling. Multiple sites have already reported this yesterday.

Anyone that believes in benchmarking deserves to be fooled.

rschauby said:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7187/looking-at-cpugpu-benchmark-optimizations-galaxy-s-4
Anandtech did some digging and discovered Samsung has added a few "features" that improve their benchmarks.
Here is a pretty good summary on Arstechnica:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In hind site rschauby, my apologies as I may have jumped the gun on interpreting your post. Was a long/bad couple days health and work wise. Even started a thread on a topic already posted. Never did that before. Kenny quickly closed it as he should have.
When I saw the thumbs down and that you own an HTC phone, I just thought here we go again on phone bashing. I have owned both HTC and Samsung and am not a fanboy of any one phone.
But, I don't see any reason based on your posting history that you had any ill will toward the S4.
So, again my apologies--

All companies do this Samsung just got caught.

jetlitheone said:
All companies do this Samsung just got caught.
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Just use the Gaming PC Industry as an example. Intel, Nvidia, & AMD all put massive amounts of work into driving up popular benchmark scores.
It was bound to happen in mobile, but it is a bit disappointing none the less.
And I have no doubts others do this, or will begin doing this.

If they all do it to the best of there phones abilities it evens out

Uh huh, Uh huh, WHAT?

Nothing we haven't seen in the video card world.

While I too disagree with Samsung's cheating ass techniques you all have to admit that if you have rooted and overclocked your phone's CPU and GPU witha custom kernel you are running at higer clocks almost all the time so its not the same as with a stock non rooted rom. I hope we don't see this crap from Samsung agian though but reguardless of their attempts to hide it this is quite a device with some impressive hardware second oly to the Octacore version

who cares. this **** is still fast. and with those youtube VS videos, the S4 seems to beat everything.

Samsung's reply...
http://www.sammobile.com/2013/07/31/samsung-speaks-out-against-allegations-of-benchmark-rigging/

Related

GPS PASSION - HTC CRUISE test

here the test and review by GPS PASSION
http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=105771
energy59 said:
here the test and review by GPS PASSION
http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=105771
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This device, as attractive as it may be, is starting to rack up some real negatives:
1) the confused (for consumers) situation with the Qualcomm chip and the US Court injunction (what effect may that have on overall sales and consequently warranty, quality control etc ?)
2) variations in build quality (sliders, screens unglued etc)
3) constant WWE ROM supply problems and high prices
4) the ongoing argument over video drivers (may not be a real issue, since it seems unlikely to me that any class action will actually occur)
I'm getting a small amount of "sand in my shoes"
I wonder: why are we bashing this device more and more lately? The more we bash, the less people buy, the worse TC sales are, the less support we'll get and eventually we might wind up with NO software updates at all..
So let's try to think about the positive things shall we
ianl8888 said:
1) the confused (for consumers) situation with the Qualcomm chip
2) variations in build quality (sliders, screens unglued etc)
3) constant WWE ROM supply problems and high prices
4) the ongoing argument over video drivers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1: is a non-issue, by the time in 2009 when HTC will need to use a new chip, this device will have been replaced in all likelihood, or will have a slightly different chipset. No problem.
2: I've not heard of any problems, slight noise from a screen and concerns here and there, but no issues with previous build so why this one? Anyway, you get a defective one, you return it!
3: supply will level in a month or two, place an order now and you should have it early Feb. The fact that it's popular should tell you a lot.
4: again is a non-issue - either you want a multi-purpose phone like this or you don't. The video will be as released, I don't believe anything more will happen with it. It's fine as released for general purpose stuff...
Essentially, if you wanted a high-performance video device this one was never for you; if you want a great PDA phone it is. Make your choice. For me build quality is excellent and the rest is of no importance.
If you want great video performance buy a Cowon iAudio A3 (I got the A2), great rendering to high resolutions too in widescreen format, bigger and heavier than the TC but good for all your video/audio/FM radio/pictures/document needs. No input possible of course. That's why I needed the TC
SabbeRubbish said:
I wonder: why are we bashing this device more and more lately? The more we bash, the less people buy, the worse TC sales are, the less support we'll get and eventually we might wind up with NO software updates at all..
So let's try to think about the positive things shall we
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Simple.
Post cognitive dissonance:
http://www.ciadvertising.org/sa/fall_03/adv382J/mbabbott/advertising.htm
There have been high expectations from the device for a long time, combine that with the difficulty in actually getting hold of one and a couple of new models from other manufacturers on the horizon, and those expectations will change. Cognitive Dissonance is a much more difficult problem for companies to manage these days, mostly because of the internet.
I must say, truly interesting! And indeed I've caught myself luring to Eten and LG devices, but none are up to the TC challenge imho.
All i can say is i am right with rickgillyon.
Everyday, i am happy to have TC.
GPS, sound, screen, weight, radio, phone are perfect.
A lot of Applications are available.
I haven't buy this device for video but if it works well, i will use it some times.
Ziggy
fishes234 said:
Simple.
Post cognitive dissonance:
http://www.ciadvertising.org/sa/fall_03/adv382J/mbabbott/advertising.htm
There have been high expectations from the device for a long time, combine that with the difficulty in actually getting hold of one and a couple of new models from other manufacturers on the horizon, and those expectations will change. Cognitive Dissonance is a much more difficult problem for companies to manage these days, mostly because of the internet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True enough, although I have not yet made a decision to dissonate about. I had been somewhat interested in the ETEN X800 until some independent tests showed a slowness in its response - some people report it is now improved with some ROM changes, others don't think so.
My decisions tend to be based on the actual experience of the product - paper specifications simply weed out those that do not interest me to start with.
It's also interesting that the optimists here discount issues - eg. one reply to my "sand in my shoes" post suggested that by 2009 the Qualcomm Court injunction will be irrelevant as HTC will be using a different chip. But I don't really intend to change devices annually, so for me it is a potential issue, particularly as the outcomes cannot be easily predicted.
Supply is an issue - we've been given way too many false dates since August to believe "the next one". And there has been no real attempt at an explanation - but given the seemingly unglued screens and flimsy controls reported on some units, quality control on production issues may be a factor. Simply returning it is a very last resort, especially from O/S. It's far better to avoid the problems to begin with.
But then, without the optimists life would be dull I suppose. Even when they quote posts selectively ...
ianl8888 said:
It's also interesting that the optimists here discount issues - eg. one reply to my "sand in my shoes" post suggested that by 2009 the Qualcomm Court injunction will be irrelevant as HTC will be using a different chip. But I don't really intend to change devices annually, so for me it is a potential issue, particularly as the outcomes cannot be easily predicted.
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The outcome is already known, replacement chips are ready according to Qualcomm, and you won't have to change your device - they won't make us hand our phones back in...
As I say, it's a non-issue for the end user.
rickgillyon said:
The outcome is already known, replacement chips are ready according to Qualcomm, and you won't have to change your device - they won't make us hand our phones back in...
As I say, it's a non-issue for the end user.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've discussed this out in another thread - so repetition is pointless. If you believe Qualcomm's rationalisations (after they have been convicted of knowing patent infringement), then I have some shares in the Sydney Harbour Bridge for you. Cheap, too. Such chips need to be fabricated, then assembled in new devices for testing. Qualcomm's "new" chips are also subject to a further Court examination next February before design release- the time and results of that are not predictable.
I'm not suggesting that the devices already sold will be recalled - do you understand the term "straw man" ? If world wide sales of the P3650 are repressed through this issue, HTC will reduce development and support for this model as fast as it can ... that's the core of my comments.
It's racking up real negatives. The only defence to this is cool examination of potential outcomes, or risk wasting money.
Chips need to be fabricated? Really? I'd never have guessed...
Fact is that Qualcomm, naughty as they undoubtedly are, have been working on this problem for some time as they knew they would lose. I see no reason to doubt that chips will be ready, and will be available. The reason Qulacomm will be hurrying out a replacement is to avoid the punitive commission they are paying right now.
HTC support? Surely you're kidding?
If, as you say, the issue stretches beyond early 2009, and supplies stop in early 2009, what's the difference? How often have you seen real support or development of an HTC product after the first few months? IME that support and development only comes in the cooked ROMs.
This still looks to me like the best device available right now, and with Qualcomm and HTC able to use the chip until 2009, not much of an issue for us. What's the alternative?
I am surprised at the amount of stick this device seems to be generating. I bought it as a replacement for my original Touch as I missed 3G and I have to say it's a fairly stunning device. Build quality on my unit is excellent, the slider and the scroll wheel are firm and responsive. The unit itself performs what I expect of it: PDA, email, fast internet. I fully expect this to be my longest lasting phone for quite a while, easily until end of FY 2009/2010. Problems like video drivers etc I don't really understand, it's adequate for a phone. If I want to watch videos I tend to use a full video capable device (eg PSP) rather than try to watch them on a phone.
SabbeRubbish said:
I wonder: why are we bashing this device more and more lately? The more we bash, the less people buy, the worse TC sales are, the less support we'll get and eventually we might wind up with NO software updates at all..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But if we don't bash them, they think everyone's happy with the current performance and they don't bother improving it or doing anything about it.
andyturner said:
But if we don't bash them, they think everyone's happy with the current performance and they don't bother improving it or doing anything about it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No no, I do insist we bash them PERSONALLY, but not on the sales websites, as potential future customers may be scared in the future, even if the issue is already resolved, and therefore make the release of TC a fiasco, which would make HTC not distribute any sw updates...
Just a question:
How much would an external antenna help to get a better signal?
I would like to use the TC to track a short hike. Due to the test mentioned above, I would be forced to take the TC in my hand all the time. So I thougt I plug in an external antenna and fix the end somewhere to my clothes/backpack. Would that help?
Straputsky said:
Just a question:
How much would an external antenna help to get a better signal?
I would like to use the TC to track a short hike. Due to the test mentioned above, I would be forced to take the TC in my hand all the time. So I thougt I plug in an external antenna and fix the end somewhere to my clothes/backpack. Would that help?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depends on the satellite coverage... My country has only 8 satellites covering it, so we couldn't utilize it fully even if we wanted to. (I don't know the background but thats the max number of lockons everyone gets around here)
But if your TC performs well in the city, i don't see any need for an external antenna, but an extra battery is a different story. And I hope you have other tracking softwares in your arsenal than the included TomTom...
gnick666 said:
...And I hope you have other tracking softwares in your arsenal than the included TomTom...
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Click to collapse
With TomTom it would be a very short trip.
No, I plan to use TrackMe which was created by someone here in the community. It allows you to turn of the display, so the device consumes less power.
The problem is, that the TC didn't perform that good and I was thinking if it performs better with an external antenna. Especially in wooden areas I hope to gain a significant better signal.
Straputsky said:
...Especially in wooden areas I hope to gain a significant better signal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You'd definitely get a better reception, but that would increase battery drainage. Bigger external antenna, heavier the drain on the battery.
But you can always pack the external antenna, and use it if needed. You won't loose anything, and we'd get some fieldtest results from the woods in Germany
@rickgyllion
Wot, no Harbour Bridge shares ? I'll even lower the price ! Oh well ...
"If, as you say, the issue stretches beyond early 2009 ..." I never said that, I simply pointed out that Qualcomm still faces unpredictable Court examination of its new designs. An inconvenient fact ...
"How often have you seen real support or development of an HTC product after the first few months?" Since the 1st non-English ROM devices have now been out a few months, one might think that stage has already been reached.
Between Qualcomm and HTC, it's a real stuff-up.
My attempt at resolution is that I have pre-ordered both the P3650 and an alternate non-HTC device. Both are due "in February" or "real soon now" or whichever comes first. When one or the other finally makes it to the retail market, then I'll make a decision.

Async Cores and Benchmarks

I know this has been discussed off and on in the Sensation vs Galaxy II thread, but I would like to have a more focused discussion on this.
It seems to me that the the async cores could be a plausible reason for the lowe (for example) quadrant scores. What do you guys think? I mean, how can mt4g and desire HD, overclocked, score as high as the stock sensation? I am currently a graduation student at the University of Notre Dame. I am pursing a degree in nueroscience...so this is not my field of study. But I am very good friends with a few of the computer science and tech Phds up here, and I asked them about this. One of them is a avid phone tech geek, and he said that this is exactly the reason for the low benchmarks...even with smartbench. The reasons he rambled off are over my head (again I'm nueroscience), and he talked to me about for at least an hour. His conclusion was that at the very least the modified A8 snapdragons are as powerful, or very close to the A9's on the Galaxy S II. He said the async actually should allow the phone to perform better, sync individual cores can be assigned individual task, thus allowing increased multitasking and prevent a bottleneck at the processor level.
He also mentioned some of samsung's implantations in the phone, such as the ridiculously high read speed on the sd card (artifically made, faster than most solid state drives...somewhere in the 400 mb/s) seem to have been intended for the purpose of benchmarks, due to such programing would not benefit real world use. Smart move by samsung, though, as it makes for pretty numbers and fanfare.
I mentioned the browser, for example, difference and he said this is the result of software alone. As such, HTC will remedy this. The graphic excel is great on the Galaxy S II, but if HTC doesn't match this...Ice Cream will. Still...in my opinion...great thinking on samsung's part in this aspect (even if it will be short lived)
For the purpose of this argument, lets put aside the broswer examples (which does not speak for the actually processing power of the phone, and will not be a long lasting advantage). Also, there is debate around the camera, but again we are talking processing power here. Beyond these two examples, I have not seen a comparision in which the galaxy S II was faster in opening apps, or flying between various parts of the UI.
Leave out the sam dudes (sorry, don't remember full name) comparisions. Beyond the fact that they focus on the browser, etc, there also seems to be some controversy around that.
Anyway, I wanted to see what you guys think.
Take care, and enjoy the discussion.
I am no genius when it comes to chip technologies, but I have been thinking that maybe the async cores of the sensation are not running on full throttle with those benchmarks.
BlueGoldAce said:
I know this has been discussed off and on in the Sensation vs Galaxy II thread, but I would like to have a more focused discussion on this.
It seems to me that the the async cores could be a plausible reason for the lowe (for example) quadrant scores. What do you guys think? I mean, how can mt4g and desire HD, overclocked, score as high as the stock sensation? I am currently a graduation student at the University of Notre Dame. I am pursing a degree in nueroscience...so this is not my field of study. But I am very good friends with a few of the computer science and tech Phds up here, and I asked them about this. One of them is a avid phone tech geek, and he said that this is exactly the reason for the low benchmarks...even with smartbench. The reasons he rambled off are over my head (again I'm nueroscience), and he talked to me about for at least an hour. His conclusion was that at the very least the modified A8 snapdragons are as powerful, or very close to the A9's on the Galaxy S II. He said the async actually should allow the phone to perform better, sync individual cores can be assigned individual task, thus allowing increased multitasking and prevent a bottleneck at the processor level.
He also mentioned some of samsung's implantations in the phone, such as the ridiculously high read speed on the sd card (artifically made, faster than most solid state drives...somewhere in the 400 mb/s) seem to have been intended for the purpose of benchmarks, due to such programing would not benefit real world use. Smart move by samsung, though, as it makes for pretty numbers and fanfare.
I mentioned the browser, for example, difference and he said this is the result of software alone. As such, HTC will remedy this. The graphic excel is great on the Galaxy S II, but if HTC doesn't match this...Ice Cream will. Still...in my opinion...great thinking on samsung's part in this aspect (even if it will be short lived)
For the purpose of this argument, lets put aside the broswer examples (which does not speak for the actually processing power of the phone, and will not be a long lasting advantage). Also, there is debate around the camera, but again we are talking processing power here. Beyond these two examples, I have not seen a comparision in which the galaxy S II was faster in opening apps, or flying between various parts of the UI.
Leave out the sam dudes (sorry, don't remember full name) comparisions. Beyond the fact that they focus on the browser, etc, there also seems to be some controversy around that.
Anyway, I wanted to see what you guys think.
Take care, and enjoy the discussion.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To put it simply either the Sensation is less powerful than the other dual core devices or HTC have done something wrong with the implementation of the hardware and/or the software.
Benchmarking software like Smartbench 2011 works just fine with multiple cores as does the version of Android that is shipped on the Sensation.
So the question is this, if the Sensation is more powerful than the benchmarks show, as some people believe it is, then why would they expect it to reach maximum performance when a user is going about their normal everyday tasks but not when a benchmark program is burning up the phone?
Obviously I'm looking at the phone as a whole since we can't just test the CPU alone but when talking about the CPU itself, like I said in another thread I always expected the Qualcomm dual-core offering to be No. 4 when it came to raw power. Behind Tegra 2, Exynos, and OMAP.
However it is strange how much further behind it scores in benchmarks that don't involve the screen. Is it possible that HTC used cheaper components in the phone to maximise profits and this is showing in the benchmarks?
I was set on getting the HTC Incredible S until the bootloader proved to be too much (three months now). One thing that was strange to see with that phone was that it was consistently benchmarking around the 1500 mark on Quadrant when last year's HTC Desire HD (Same SoC) would benchmark at around 2000 or more.
In other tests that are CPU rather then GPU based the Incredible S was behind again:
http://www.cnet.com.au/htc-incredible-s-339310045.htm
Perhaps it isn't different components but a change made by HTC to reduce CPU power but to increase battery life.
I don't know what it is but starting with the Incredible S new HTC phones have been getting lower scores expected even against earlier HTC phones using the same SoC.
That idea is quite plausible.
But wouldn't it be qualcom who makes the processor? Unless you mean the components that bridge the rest of the phone together.
But could it also be the design/intent of the processor? I thinking like this. Single core processors are ample fast for the majority of android use. But when one is multitasking while performing other task, such as web browsing, a single core can struggle. So what if HTC designed the cores as such that allow to process independently. The theory is that maybe one of the cores is maxing out while the other is doing very little. This would mean that qualcom put restriction on the hardware so that when you are doing something like, say browsing a flash filled site, you still have ample power to perform other task. Does that make sense? This is a very basic version of the reason the Professor gave to me. He specializes in microchips, such as we see on mobile phones.
He also noted that the currents phones are nothing compared to what technology exisit, but won't be release anytime soon. Makes sense, keep slowly uping the phones = more profits. There is nothing to gain in releasing a super phone that will last 5 or + years.
asynce is quite like your professor has explained to you one processor can be at 1.2ghz and the other be from 0 to 1.2ghz depending on the load
well, I am still getting the sensation when sim free handsets becomes available. I am upgrading from a touch hd wm 6.1 so I dont think a dual core will dissapoint me no matter buggy
Overall...I understand the theory very well. I am just giving him credit. I had assumed this, based of some of my reading, but I didn't post since I don't have the credientials to make these claims...but he does. Now if you need some advice involving the nervous system, I'm you guy. Of course...I only have a bachelors...still a few years away from my PhD. Maybe I could then follow that up with a degree in computer science, you know essential make a career out of being a student .
Imho, htc become very greedy and they basically dont give a crap about the benchmarks and reviews anymore. This is why they locked the bootloaders and probably why they clocked down the processor to 1.2. In a way they must be thinking that they have proven themselves in the industry with quality products and they already have a customer base that who cares about their reputation not the benchmark scores. So I am hoping the petition for the locked bootloders and their initial sales will indicate that they are not alone in market anymore and people actually care about the preformance of their devices. May be they will get back into the game once again.
ceroglu said:
Imho, htc become very greedy and they basically dont give a crap about the benchmarks and reviews anymore. This is why they locked the bootloaders and probably why they clocked down the processor to 1.2. In a way they must be thinking that they have proven themselves in the industry with quality products and they already have a customer base that who cares about their reputation not the benchmark scores. So I am hoping the petition for the locked bootloders and their initial sales will indicate that they are not alone in market anymore and people actually care about the preformance of their devices. May be they will get back into the game once again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Benchmarks are not everything. If a piece of hardware can perform as well, or even better, but doesn't display a long bar in quadrant, who cares? HTC Sensation does beat the Galaxy II in linpack. Yes it has a slightly lower FPS, but it has a higher resolution.
I doubt benchmarks are at the forefront of there minds. The majority of the market doesn't even know what quadrant is.
BlueGoldAce said:
That idea is quite plausible.
But wouldn't it be qualcom who makes the processor? Unless you mean the components that bridge the rest of the phone together.
But could it also be the design/intent of the processor? I thinking like this. Single core processors are ample fast for the majority of android use. But when one is multitasking while performing other task, such as web browsing, a single core can struggle. So what if HTC designed the cores as such that allow to process independently. The theory is that maybe one of the cores is maxing out while the other is doing very little. This would mean that qualcom put restriction on the hardware so that when you are doing something like, say browsing a flash filled site, you still have ample power to perform other task. Does that make sense? This is a very basic version of the reason the Professor gave to me. He specializes in microchips, such as we see on mobile phones.
He also noted that the currents phones are nothing compared to what technology exisit, but won't be release anytime soon. Makes sense, keep slowly uping the phones = more profits. There is nothing to gain in releasing a super phone that will last 5 or + years.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, I was thinking HTC. Qualcomm may make the asych processor but how it is actually setup and how the software and other hardware components function with it is up to HTC. However it is possible that the design or feedback system is faulty so only one core is working or the second core never goes beyond 50% of the speed of the first core. This could also be down to configuration/other components in the phone, which would be down to HTC.
I don't think that Qualcomm or HTC would have deliberately limited the way the cores can function in the way that you suggest (beyond making them async, which can most likely be turned off too). As I understand it doing something like playing a flash video only uses one core anyway (due to the nature of flash). With a phone like the Sensation this should mean that even if core 1 is at 1.2GHz, core 2 could be at 300 MHz or whatever is required to fetch your email, run the phone, Wi-Fi, etc. With other dual-core implementations both cores will run at 1.2GHz, which will also allow you to do other stuff. The benefit of having async cores is supposed to be battery life.
As for holding back stuff, this is how consumer electronics firms work. If you could get access you could go and look at the next few iterations of products which exist now in various forms and which will be released over the next few years unless there is major disruption to a market by something unexpected.
DuoM said:
Nope, I was thinking HTC. Qualcomm may make the asych processor but how it is actually setup and how the software and other hardware components function with it is up to HTC. However it is possible that the design or feedback system is faulty so only one core is working or the second core never goes beyond 50% of the speed of the first core. This could also be down to configuration/other components in the phone, which would be down to HTC.
I don't think that Qualcomm or HTC would have deliberately limited the way the cores can function in the way that you suggest (beyond making them async, which can most likely be turned off too). As I understand it doing something like playing a flash video only uses one core anyway (due to the nature of flash). With a phone like the Sensation this should mean that even if core 1 is at 1.2GHz, core 2 could be at 300 MHz or whatever is required to fetch your email, run the phone, Wi-Fi, etc. With other dual-core implementations both cores will run at 1.2GHz, which will also allow you to do other stuff. The benefit of having async cores is supposed to be battery life.
As for holding back stuff, this is how consumer electronics firms work. If you could get access you could go and look at the next few iterations of products which exist now in various forms and which will be released over the next few years unless there is major disruption to a market by something unexpected.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you are positive the benchmarks are reading it correctly? The async cores are new, so the benchmarks may not fully utilize them.
I hope you are wrong about the quality of the phone, beyond the processor.
Sense could be the problem it as well. I know with the Evo, take off sense and you score in the 1500s, with sense stock you get 1000.
Been saying this for the longest also to mention since gingerbread using ext 4 with Samsung internal memory about 16 gigs to can easily make quadrant ridiculous high by getting a ridiculously fast sd card partition ext4 and get data2ext 4 on the sd card. Samsung could of did the same with their rom with their internal memory and rom. All is theory but in test we really won't know unless we test to computers. Which we can perform better test on.
Sent from my demonSPEED Glacier using XDA Premium App
BlueGoldAce said:
So you are positive the benchmarks are reading it correctly? The async cores are new, so the benchmarks may not fully utilize them.
I hope you are wrong about the quality of the phone, beyond the processor.
Sense could be the problem it as well. I know with the Evo, take off sense and you score in the 1500s, with sense stock you get 1000.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe that they are reading it correctly but that doesn't mean that the phone is performing correctly. The benchmarks just fire off a number of threads, in the case of Smartbench 2011 four threads, which should engage both processors since the benchmarks are designed to stress the phone.
If that doesn't get both cores to respond, what will?
Sense could be the problem. It just gets heavier and heavier. I know that some people are buying this phone because of Sense but for me it is just bloatware now. Some things it adds are nice but it seems that instead of improving the areas where it adds true functionality e.g. email and SMS, HTC have added more eye candy.
I didn't know about the EVO benchmarks though.
Killbynature said:
Been saying this for the longest also to mention since gingerbread using ext 4 with Samsung internal memory about 16 gigs to can easily make quadrant ridiculous high by getting a ridiculously fast sd card partition ext4 and get data2ext 4 on the sd card. Samsung could of did the same with their rom with their internal memory and rom. All is theory but in test we really won't know unless we test to computers. Which we can perform better test on.
Sent from my demonSPEED Glacier using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The author of Smartbench was in another thread, I don't know if you saw his comments. Anyway he said that he had reduced the weighting of I/O in Smartbench to prevent fast I/O for skewing the results so much.
Also because the results are so much lower than expected he is also going to take a look at the Sensation just to be sure that his software is reporting correctly with that phone.
DuoM said:
I believe that they are reading it correctly but that doesn't mean that the phone is performing correctly. The benchmarks just fire off a number of threads, in the case of Smartbench 2011 four threads, which should engage both processors since the benchmarks are designed to stress the phone.
If that doesn't get both cores to respond, what will?
Sense could be the problem. It just gets heavier and heavier. I know that some people are buying this phone because of Sense but for me it is just bloatware now. Some things it adds are nice but it seems that instead of improving the areas where it adds true functionality e.g. email and SMS, HTC have added more eye candy.
I didn't know about the EVO benchmarks though.
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Click to collapse
Bull****.All you guys blame Sense for lags etc,but it's not the case.Not completely at least.
Try a Desire HD.Single core an all as it is,Sense 3 runs like heaven,nicer than Sense 2-2.1 .So Sense doesn't **** up your phone that much.
If you want my opinion,wait till some respectable devs get their hands on the phone(Not that devs who already have it aren't respectable,but we can't know until we have something custom made ).Then,if and when they start tinkering with it,getting it to perform as it should,we'd see everything work better.Maybe it's something in the kernel limiting the CPU or something.And even GPU benchmarks aren't fair,as HTC's devices' GPUs always underperform with the default Ondemand governor.It would only be fair if we benchmarked both phones(GS2 and Sensation) rooted,on stock roms with performance governor.Only then we'll be comparing fairly.
Also,we could wait until the authors of Linpack update it to support multi-threading to further test the CPU.
I can't help but get the feeling this thread is grasping at straws somewhat. It could simply be a case of the Sensation not being as fast as people believed it would be. We shall see if the developer of Smartbench finds changes he needs to make, the next version should tell us where the Sensation stands and if this Async argument holds water.
DuoM said:
Also because the results are so much lower than expected he is also going to take a look at the Sensation just to be sure that his software is reporting correctly with that phone.
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Correct.
And here are the series of charts I have put together so far:
This one shows the progress of Productivity Index over time: http://bit.ly/lWC3gb
And this one shows the progress of Games Index: http://bit.ly/jBu8Lx
Interesting? May be. Perhaps you guys can tell me what you see in these.
I will also plot similar charts for the individual tests as well (this helps because each tests are supposed to stress the CPU/GPU in its own unique ways). I've looked at it briefly, but I can already see few strange results within. As soon as I find more time, I'll post more articles on the above site.
EDIT: Fixed the link to the games index page.
What is is maybe what is...
Killbynature said:
Been saying this for the longest also to mention since gingerbread using ext 4 with Samsung internal memory about 16 gigs to can easily make quadrant ridiculous high by getting a ridiculously fast sd card partition ext4 and get data2ext 4 on the sd card. Samsung could of did the same with their rom with their internal memory and rom. All is theory but in test we really won't know unless we test to computers. Which we can perform better test on.
Sent from my demonSPEED Glacier using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, initial reports were that because the dual cores are so ne that the quadrant trackers could not "properly" measure. HOWEVER, no mater what review I have seen so far comparing the Galaxy and the Sensation, the Sensation ALWAYS looses. If a top of the line sports car cna go from 0-60 at .X seconds faster than the other it is something that is going to be touted and used as a benchmark. Therefore, i don't buy that the quadrant scored don't really matter all the time.
Now, more to your point about Samsungs speed. It seems like HTC, by the way they allocated memory, may have done the phone a speed disservice.
"The HTC Sensation measures in at 4.96 x 2.57 x 0.44 inches and 5.22oz is what it weighs. You’ll find that the unibody metal chassis combined with the soft-touch plastic inserts make for a rather comfortable phone to hold, and nice to rub up against your beard if you’ve got one. So smooth! The back is creak-free, the entirety of the battery cover coming off at once, the battery, SIM card, and microSD card popping in and out without an issue like they truly should.
Flaws in this whole situation include the fact that while the Galaxy S II pairs its 1.2GHz dual-core with 1GB of RAM, the HTC Sensation uses just 768MB. Samsung’s device has 16GB of memory packed in, while HTC makes due with just 1GB. There’s an 8GB microSD card in there, but you can add a bunch more memory to the GSII the same way if you want. Davies notes the truth: “here’s just no way that even a fast microSDHC card can be as quick as NANDFlash connected directly to the logic board, and that leaves the Sensation at a speed disadvantage.”
http://androidcommunity.com/htc-sensation-review-via-slashgear-20110523/
Acei said:
Correct.
And here are the series of charts I have put together so far:
This one shows the progress of Productivity Index over time: http://bit.ly/lWC3gb
And this one shows the progress of Games Index: http://bit.ly/lWC3gb
Interesting? May be. Perhaps you guys can tell me what you see in these.
I will also plot similar charts for the individual tests as well (this helps because each tests are supposed to stress the CPU/GPU in its own unique ways). I've looked at it briefly, but I can already see few strange results within. As soon as I find more time, I'll post more articles on the above site.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for this. What I see in this is that the Sensation is simply not as powerful as the Galaxy S II.
BTW Sensation is a released device in Europe and the later batch of scores you are seeing are from the final released device. I believe that the UK got it on Thursday the 19th of May but I it is in several countries now.
I also noticed that you posted this score: "Samsung Galaxy S2 at 1GHz: 3229", do you have figures for it at 1.2GHz?
The links you posted both go to the Productivity Index, do you have the link for the Games Index?
Thanks again.

[Discussion]Power Race In Android

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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Click to collapse
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)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.

Best Buy benchmarking fun

This may be a little random but I felt like people might be interested. Went through Best Buy today and of course browsed the Android tablets. Both the TF201 and TF300 have the 4.1.1 update installed, and their TF700 had 4.0.3. 30 update. I ran quadrant on all of them and, interestingly, the TF700 had the highest score in the low 4000's (around 4200). The prime and 300 got high to mid 3000s respectively (about 3700 - 3500) which is honestly pretty terrible for a Quad core slab. All of the tablets suffered from ****ty I/O scores, the highest being 1200 on the Infinity. So all our hopes of Asus improving the I/O flaws with their stock OTA are almost certainly dashed. As a final aside, these are just floor models and results will vary from tablet to tablet, but it just seems like the 4.1.1 update is going to be underwhelming for the most part.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
wow, i was hoping JB will fix or at least workaround the I/O issue.. for the quadrant score, i don't believe we can compare both tablets as each is running at a different CPU speed even with JB on the TF300 (1.2 Ghz vs 1.6 Ghz)...
Benchmarks are not always indicative of real-world performance. We all know that the hardware cannot be improved by a firmware update, BUT, things can be done to mask the slow I/O, so the benchmarks aren't so important...
Besides, if you are really concerned with I/O being a bottleneck, you will most likely be installing a custom ROM anyhow, which, as we've already seen (with Zeus) can mask the I/O issues (if it even affects your daily use to begin with).
In my case, it's never been a *real* problem to begin with, as I'm not normally downloading a huge file while doing other things. If I'm going to download a huge file, it certainly wouldn't be from my tablet anyway (I would use a hardwired laptop/PC to download said file). Tablets aren't meant to be used for downloading huge files... yes, it can be done, but it's not something that would be recommended.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2
ka1z0ku said:
This may be a little random but I felt like people might be interested. Went through Best Buy today and of course browsed the Android tablets. Both the TF201 and TF300 have the 4.1.1 update installed, and their TF700 had 4.0.3. 30 update. I ran quadrant on all of them and, interestingly, the TF700 had the highest score in the low 4000's (around 4200). The prime and 300 got high to mid 3000s respectively (about 3700 - 3500) which is honestly pretty terrible for a Quad core slab. All of the tablets suffered from ****ty I/O scores, the highest being 1200 on the Infinity. So all our hopes of Asus improving the I/O flaws with their stock OTA are almost certainly dashed. As a final aside, these are just floor models and results will vary from tablet to tablet, but it just seems like the 4.1.1 update is going to be underwhelming for the most part.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Multiple discussion and in my opinion no true conclusion.
As jtrosky indicated benchmarks are number. It stresses system and measures the maximum capability. Just to put into simple context. If you are benchmark test believer, my Antutu score without any special tweak or custom rom other than turned off bloatwares and installed browser2ram, I get 13000+ Antutu total benchmark score. One can argue that Antutu total score if reflective of overall real life experience therefore, this tablet performs the best.
Alternative would be just as many are concerned, just pick the worst benchmark score subsection or component and conclude that the reflective of real life performance. This approach is technically not a bad idea as you basically making an assumption of bottleneck, which max out the entire system performance even before rest of the component can show their true power.
However, one flaw for applying this to IO. That the system is not sequential linear operation i.e. IO -> RAM -> Cache -> CPU/GPU -> Cache -> RAM -> IO then next cycle of operation. It is much more complex than this, and if it was truly above, no system can perform well in current days standard because no nand device is faster than the RAM, and no RAM is faster than the Cache. Also, why would desktop with much slower hard drive perform so well? (assuming other components are good).
Just as an example, instead of doing above one at a time and go back to IO, if you do two operations before you write back to IO, then what happens? You didn't really change nand writing speed, but you can potentially double the overall experience. Obviously, in order to do this RAM and Cache must have enough space to allow two operations before writing back, and also RAM and Cache as well as actual CPU/GPU processing has to be more than 2x faster than IO.
In any event, I am just bringing up an example that benchmark especially picking one component that is relatively lower end of processing chain is not the entire reflection of the system performance. You can do several things (in theory) to make overall performance increase.
My understanding of all these concern came up initially because of
1. Frequent Application Not responding
2. System lag/stutter while downloading/installing applications from Google Play
3. System lag/stutter while downloading file over wifi
Based on my experience (I had infinity from the day #1 release in US, and returned it after 4 weeks and now back), I had significant ANR initially which lead me to seek for alternative device. #3 is well demonstrated on Anandtech video. #2 is most of us experience at one point for sure.
However, currently on my stock rom with bloatware turned off browser2ram installed,
#1 is pretty much completely gone. And Prime user's forum have several comments stating significant improvement specifically about ANRs.
#2 is also reportedly improved according to some comment in prime user's forum after JB.
#3 is I have proven with my video on other thread either because of browser2ram or more recent firmware update, it had significantly improved/eliminated what Anandtech showed back in July.
We should be more concerned if IO issue was actually at RAM level because only way to fix it would be Cache but that has such small space to work. However, if we were to believe benchmark, Antutu RAM score on Infinity is better than that of Galaxy Note 10.1
Now I am not saying though ASUS will indeed fix these. Even there may be potential solution, they simply may not do so... So if you are having truly IO related issue, and after JB you don't see the improvement to the degree of your satisfaction, you may have to use custom rom. If you don't have Infinity yet, and considering buy it from place you can return after Jellybean update and use the system on your own for daily use and see if you can notice any issue because there is a chance that you may not even see the problem. So in the end what is that you are trying to fix (if there is still an issue).
The benchmark score? Or what deemed to be IO based issue? I am pretty sure it is latter and ask yourself so what's the IO issue that you have/had? Because to be honest, again I had issues originally but I no longer have any of those. Yes. I can crash my system by downloading 1GB system in background over wifi and try to play Horn, but I can crash my PC when encoding MP4 and try to play high end graphic game. It really depends on what you want to do.
Awesome post housashen!!! IV never had I/o issues and IV downloaded 6 torrents simultaneously and never had an issue browsing at the same time. This is my 4th infinity (returned the others for build issues) and never had I/o issues on any of them.
I think this whole io thing is overblown and I also believe we have by far the best tablet on the market.
Sent from my MB860 using xda premium
jtrosky said:
Benchmarks are not always indicative of real-world performance. We all know that the hardware cannot be improved by a firmware update, BUT, things can be done to mask the slow I/O, so the benchmarks aren't so important...
Besides, if you are really concerned with I/O being a bottleneck, you will most likely be installing a custom ROM anyhow, which, as we've already seen (with Zeus) can mask the I/O issues (if it even affects your daily use to begin with).
In my case, it's never been a *real* problem to begin with, as I'm not normally downloading a huge file while doing other things. If I'm going to download a huge file, it certainly wouldn't be from my tablet anyway (I would use a hardwired laptop/PC to download said file). Tablets aren't meant to be used for downloading huge files... yes, it can be done, but it's not something that would be recommended.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2
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Click to collapse
While I agree tabs weren't originally designed for this, I will say many people are using the tab/dock combo more like a net book/laptop now and days. So I can see the desire for these features (large file download). For instance I'm at the airport and realize crap, forgot to put a movie on tab for my flight. So I use my bionic and tether 4g goodness and try to dl a movie for the flight. It takes well over 2 hrs to dl because the I/O limits to about 200k/sec. That is an issue for flash memory. I should honestly just start downloading to my phone and then transfer the file to my tab (light bulb just went on) or remember to do it before I leave.
I would like to call bull right now, first of all let's stop over reaching with this tablet. This tablet is by far the best tablet on the market right now no matter what operating system the tablet carries. Is it perfect? No, it has bugs and there are some defective units out there which is expected from any tech company. Android is trying their best to catch up with how far the hardware has progressed since honeycomb so there will be browser issues and other bugs. Saying that the IO issue will never be resolved is malarkey especially with people saying the Zeus Rom made some serious improvements. I don't expect for an 8 gb file to transfer over in 30 seconds. Not gonna happen on a tablet. Even though they say it houses a quad core only an idiot would expect i5 or i7 or even AMD Phenom performance from a tablet so thin and light. Even so Android is just getting it together with JB concerning getting the OS to match the hardware. I have had a few tablets and by far the TF700 is the best one of them all. I have had apps force close and other bugs but that is to be expected when the hardware is more advanced than the OS. ICS is just not optimized for a tablet with specs like this. Will JB solve all the issues with this tablet? Probably not but I don't expect to have a bug free electronic device to begin with.....its just comes with the territory especially from something so thin and light with so much under the hood. Lets come back to reality and just enjoy the tablet for what it is...a tablet and not the cure all of all electronic devices. I know some will say the tablet costs 499 or even 599 and I believe its worth every penny I spent.....I just don't expect it to perform like a laptop or desktop I expect it to perform like a portable device and we all know portable devices are buggy because they are portable. Those that have this tablet could afford it otherwise we would have gotten a lappy but we didn't we got a tabby. IJS
anaviel said:
I would like to call bull right now, first of all let's stop over reaching with this tablet. This tablet is by far the best tablet on the market right now no matter what operating system the tablet carries. Is it perfect? No, it has bugs and there are some defective units out there which is expected from any tech company. Android is trying their best to catch up with how far the hardware has progressed since honeycomb so there will be browser issues and other bugs. Saying that the IO issue will never be resolved is malarkey especially with people saying the Zeus Rom made some serious improvements. I don't expect for an 8 gb file to transfer over in 30 seconds. Not gonna happen on a tablet. Even though they say it houses a quad core only an idiot would expect i5 or i7 or even AMD Phenom performance from a tablet so thin and light. Even so Android is just getting it together with JB concerning getting the OS to match the hardware. I have had a few tablets and by far the TF700 is the best one of them all. I have had apps force close and other bugs but that is to be expected when the hardware is more advanced than the OS. ICS is just not optimized for a tablet with specs like this. Will JB solve all the issues with this tablet? Probably not but I don't expect to have a bug free electronic device to begin with.....its just comes with the territory especially from something so thin and light with so much under the hood. Lets come back to reality and just enjoy the tablet for what it is...a tablet and not the cure all of all electronic devices. I know some will say the tablet costs 499 or even 599 and I believe its worth every penny I spent.....I just don't expect it to perform like a laptop or desktop I expect it to perform like a portable device and we all know portable devices are buggy because they are portable. Those that have this tablet could afford it otherwise we would have gotten a lappy but we didn't we got a tabby. IJS
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I think my and a lot of people's argument to this would be why is it that phones which come in much smaller packages have better I/O rates and performance. Why can a 7" tablet. Zeus didn't fix the problem it masked it. I'm not saying the I/O issues are a deal breaker for me but using a part that probably costs $.50 more and could drastically improve the tab makes people wonder why they didn't just get better flash memory. Sure it's a great tab, but I don't think people have unrealistic expectations. When the I/O scores (and performance of file transfers etc) is well below even phones released a year ago it means the engineers overlooked something big.And this is why everyone is complaining.

do we need all this in a phone!?

with the launch of Nexus 5 i saw many people switch over to it..
Reasons may be many,the one which seems most evident is its configuration!
which makes me think that when Google launches a "nexus" product with such hardware does it mean that quad cores or octa cores or the massive 2 gigs of memory are really required??
do we actually need that kind of hardware for daily purposes?
Or is it just a market hype or an induced inflation that is being generated by the multinational corps?
one releases a quad... and then the other is ready to pack 8 cores...
i don't posses much of technical knowledge but do we really need all those krait cores and those exynos!
60 years back we sent people on moon with a computer that had 64kb of memory..
now don't get me wrong I am not against the technology its just that all this advanced tech is being put to the same use,which is quite capable of being handled by far less powerful machines.
When it comes to octo cores I really don't feel it's necessary for everyday use. The software is always trying use the least amount of cores possible to maximize battery life anyway. The RAM on the other hand I think is an absolute must. I remember when buying this phone thinking that 1gb of RAM (or whatever the actual usable RAM is, 787mb) was going to be great, oh how I was wrong. Just look at the multi tasking ability (or inability) on this device and that should answer the question of whether we need more RAM.
Sent from my Evita
i agree with you that RAM is a must but my point is even with all those high end specs, what you actually use the phone for has not changed over the years....
there is nothing "exceptional" people are doing with 3 gigs or RAM and 8 cores.
and everyone here must be well acquainted to the good old Nokia days and their Symbian or BB OS (or those java OS's that ran on most mobiles) at that point of time when 'Processor' and what 'GPU' and what 'Pixel density' your phone was actually never a matter of discussion or a way in which those products were advertised.
Now i don't advocate Nokia for keeping their loyal customers ignorant of the specs but it was only when "ANDROID" emerged that 'specs' started becoming a matter of concern.
because Android being a universal OS that could be ported to any device,created kinda a platform for all the companies to battle out each other with increasing specs!
now when a developer phone is launched with such hardware config it silently somehow creates a standard for all the later devices to be more advanced or atleast in par. its like a snowball effect!
and PS M not being like a child who craves for not getting those expensive toys :laugh: but as a consumer who is deluded into believing that all of these specs do matter and can somehow bring a drastic change in the way we utilize these devices.
and secondly these corporations are just giving us the technology and i feel that even they are skeptical about how to put it to use!
I agree with timmaaa, more RAM would be great to have, as the constant reloading of browser tabs (and other apps) every time you try to multi-task on this device is annoying, to say the least. Yes, the aggressive memory management is a part of the issue. But the fundamental lack of RAM is at least partially to blame.
The number of cores on the other hand, seems like one of those near-useless specs that manufacturers just flaunt for marketing purposes to those that don't really have the knowledge to even know what it means ("Look at this awesome 43 MP camera phone!"). Many folks assume more cores is better, but this is actually seldom the case.
However, a fundamentally faster/newer CPU is always going to be a welcome upgrade (similar to the RAM). A faster, smoother, and more responsive device is always going to be desirable. And as fast as smartphones and other computers have become, it always seems the software developers just add more and more bloat to the OS and apps. I know Google is talking about "one Android version" for all devices, including low end ones. But I really don't believe the hype. Consumers are always going to hunger for more features and more eye candy, and the desire for faster and faster CPUs is not going to end anytime soon.
Do we "need" this type of computing power? Heavens no. But we will "want" it nonetheless!
redpoint73 said:
I agree with timmaaa, more RAM would be great to have, as the constant reloading of browser tabs (and other apps) every time you try to multi-task on this device is annoying, to say the least. Yes, the aggressive memory management is a part of the issue. But the fundamental lack of RAM is at least partially to blame.
The number of cores on the other hand, seems like one of those near-useless specs that manufacturers just flaunt for marketing purposes to those that don't really have the knowledge to even know what it means ("Look at this awesome 43 MP camera phone!"). Many folks assume more cores is better, but this is actually seldom the case.
However, a fundamentally faster/newer CPU is always going to be a welcome upgrade (similar to the RAM). A faster, smoother, and more responsive device is always going to be desirable. And as fast as smartphones and other computers have become, it always seems the software developers just add more and more bloat to the OS and apps. I know Google is talking about "one Android version" for all devices, including low end ones. But I really don't believe the hype. Consumers are always going to hunger for more features and more eye candy, and the desire for faster and faster CPUs is not going to end anytime soon.
Do we "need" this type of computing power? Heavens no. But we will "want" it nonetheless!
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i totally agree about the one android version hype i dont think it will materialize ever.
for all the manufacturers who are just pilling up cores and claiming that their phones are 'the best' please develop something that I can take to my 70 year old granny and really blow her mind :laugh: who knows nothing about the hardware.
I know its a poor joke but think about it there is really nothing that the most high end device does which probably can be considered to be state of the art or a miracle to those people who especially no nothing about the chip inside!
i had this thought when i saw an old fellow asking for a dual core long back and his need were just texting,calls and alarms,hell he dint even have internet on his device but still the market forces persuaded him that he needs a dual core.
but then i thought even a person who has a fair technical know how about it purchases a dual core,even he doesn't use it for firing missiles(again a poor joke) but you get the point technology if its not utilized to its potential,is useless.
and forget its use,the sad part is its creating this hype of high end devices!
little off topic apple introduces 64 bit correct me if m wrong all the apps are 32 bits how will they make use of the 64 bit architecture.
its like having an Ultra HD when you don't even have a service provider that offers HD transmission!
and this is not pertaining to any device or a software upgrade issue as it may likely sound!

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