"Basemark relies on the fact that when smartphones are fully charged, they usually enter a power bypass-mode where the internal battery cell is no longer used, and power is instead drawn directly from the connected charger. "
Unless Basemark are doing some careful obfuscation of their device (e.g. having no set impedance across any combination of USB conductor, no reliably measurable delays between requesting and receiving power level changes, etc) this sounds like it would be as easy for smartphone manufacturers to game as software benchmarks have been.
The connectors are all pass-through and power is measured via a shunt resistor on the power pins, it shouldn't be detectable. Plus I doubt vendors would go through the effort of doing this.
Plus I will continue to do important power analysis by external power supply to battery cell pins, so no worries on this ever affecting AnandTech data.
I can see it very useful as power profiling tool for variety of low power devices, like Raspberry Pi. At 5 Watts max it's kinda useless for high-power flagship devices, and above all, virtually all tablets. My Nvidia Shield has 10W TDP SoC, add in screen and communication circuitry.
5W limit? I think that is too limiting for high end devices. I'm not sure if device makers are exceeding their TDPs for a very short time in the millisecond speeds but current Intel CPUs do.
?- How will PAT will calculate internal DC/DC convertion efficiency of phone. ?- If phones power demand exceed chargers input power and system partially feeded over battery. ?- How will power losses on USB Cable/Connectors calculated.
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edzieba - Wednesday, March 2, 2016 - link
"Basemark relies on the fact that when smartphones are fully charged, they usually enter a power bypass-mode where the internal battery cell is no longer used, and power is instead drawn directly from the connected charger. "Unless Basemark are doing some careful obfuscation of their device (e.g. having no set impedance across any combination of USB conductor, no reliably measurable delays between requesting and receiving power level changes, etc) this sounds like it would be as easy for smartphone manufacturers to game as software benchmarks have been.
Andrei Frumusanu - Wednesday, March 2, 2016 - link
The connectors are all pass-through and power is measured via a shunt resistor on the power pins, it shouldn't be detectable. Plus I doubt vendors would go through the effort of doing this.Andrei Frumusanu - Wednesday, March 2, 2016 - link
Plus I will continue to do important power analysis by external power supply to battery cell pins, so no worries on this ever affecting AnandTech data.Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, March 2, 2016 - link
Let's pay $1000 for a $12 ADC wrapped up in a pretty (but useless) package! Sounds like a heck of a deal.frostyfiredude - Thursday, March 3, 2016 - link
I happen to be looking for a 16-bit ADC with atleast 100KS/s, could you link me to one for 12$?LoLo2207 - Wednesday, March 2, 2016 - link
Anyone knows how to measure how good a charger is? Like in http://www.righto.com/2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers... but without using an oscilloscope and that expensive stuffkdr9hu5 - Wednesday, March 2, 2016 - link
This is ridiculously expensive. The PortPilot does the same thing for USD 60. http://portpilot.net/Vatharian - Friday, March 4, 2016 - link
I can see it very useful as power profiling tool for variety of low power devices, like Raspberry Pi. At 5 Watts max it's kinda useless for high-power flagship devices, and above all, virtually all tablets. My Nvidia Shield has 10W TDP SoC, add in screen and communication circuitry.zodiacfml - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
5W limit? I think that is too limiting for high end devices. I'm not sure if device makers are exceeding their TDPs for a very short time in the millisecond speeds but current Intel CPUs do.kadiremrah - Friday, March 25, 2016 - link
With respect, I wanna ask.?- How will PAT will calculate internal DC/DC convertion efficiency of phone.
?- If phones power demand exceed chargers input power and system partially feeded over battery.
?- How will power losses on USB Cable/Connectors calculated.