I would consider one. I bet lots of people just text and almost never talk and want a data plan. To me, just a data plan never made sense when the functionality was already there, even if you rarely use it.
Honestly, with the cost of baseband right now... why couldn't we reverse the thinking....
Give all tablets / computers the comms required for a phone, create a lightweight bloototh earpiece that contains the SIM card and carrier info for connection, add comms chip in all car radios and you have a winner...
You thus carry around a very small piece of equipment that has enough memory for your digital content, but use the client's SoC for any apps. There's a few things to figure out, but still, no need for data share plans between phones and tablets, everything would simply be a 'voice+data enabled device' which requires an actual external blue-tooth SIM device for activation.
From home, I'd be talking through my ipad, then my car, then my computer through voip at work if that would be an option... this would require the earpiece to have a 4 year old SoC which could be made new with low battery requirements on new processes... So, why not a 5" phone 'extention'...
Half clamshell. Clams have two shells, like a flip phone.
I hate that when hipsters hipster out with some snappy name and the base concept is ensconced in a brainfart.
Apple had half clamshell pieces of crap. The whole industry had half clamshells. No people, it's not the hot date aphrodesiac slide it in and slurp it down just the bottom half of the clam that is the clamshell.
Get out to any river and stick your hands in the underwater mud till you learn something about nature you hipster gasbags. Learning (incorrectly) about it at the gay clam bistro doesn't cut it.
What? The 'vintage' WinXP tablets were a clamshell, with a top half clamshell and a bottom half clamshell. Top was screen, bottom was keyboard and other stuff.
Easy jokes, all around. The price is amazing though. $250 for an unlocked phone! Selling these will not be difficult, despite the form factor oddity. I might buy one, after measuring my pockets (maybe buying new baggy jeans), and seeing what skin Asus has served up.
Does the top just pop off to access the SIM and SD card slots? Rather weird looking, in that picture.
It looks like the top does just come off; I've used a handful of HTC phones that have essentially the same mechanism (the One S kind of snaps into place, while the Desire HD/Inspire actually slides in and out).
I don't get why this is revolutionary; Samsung's last round of international tablets--the Galaxy Tab 7+ and 7.7 with 3G radios (P6200 and P6800)--worked this way too. Lots of people mocked them because they had phone functionality, as if people don't already look ridiculous talking on a 5.5" Galaxy Note. Just because they have phone speakers doesn't mean you need to use them; that's what headsets are for. Makes me think they need to offer an accessory like HTC packages with the Butterfly. While a 7" tablet does usually fit in cargo pockets, it's much more useful for purse/murse carriers. If I carried around a bag or briefcase all the time, I'd definitely consider this--consider the battery life you get out of a tablet compared to a phone. It's a great selling point especially for a relatively small tablet, even if it is somewhat niche.
The problem remains US wireless operator support. Getting a Tab 7.7 to be recognized on AT&T as a phone was a pain, and of course neither those tabs nor this one will be offered as-is by US operators (see T-Mo Galaxy Tab 7+, VZW 7.7, both with phone support stripped out). Plus, the quad-band UMTS radio means no T-Mobile in most areas, leaving AT&T as the only option, which is frustrating when this is a device that cries out for magenta's $30 100 minute/5GB prepaid plan.
It already looks stupid with your tiny flip dip mobile with your pinky sticking out holding the minute thing and it not making it to your ear and your mouth at the same time.
Who knows what you fashion models would do without your pinkies sticking up in the air while you cup your ear like an old fashioned reporter with your tiny idiot "cellphone".
I mean you people look really stupid, and you're yakking into the air, because your big fat piehole doesn't have any part of the tiny near invisible phone by it. (unless of course you all suffer from small man syndrome)
while im not going to purchase this device personally because of its lackluster specs i can see this as a further game changer for the industry as it further blurs the line between phones and tablets.
companies such as apple, microsoft, and the telecom industry desperately wants to keep the line between phones and tablets distinct,
so apple can sell you both an iphone AND an ipad so microsoft can sell you both windows RT AND windows phone 8 (and windows 8) so your telecom company can sell you both a voice+data plan AND a data only plan
this device and future phablet devices are a godsend to the price conscious consumer who doesn't want to spend $1300 for 2 devices and $100 per month to have them connected.
Why, in a nutshell? The Atom still has pretty stupendous performance, in the CPU space. Weak GPU, but clocked high enough not to matter.
I'm the opposite, I guess. I'm glad to have some available Atom chips since they seemed to have good performance (RAZR-i, XOLO/San Diego) but were not widely available.
It isn't clocked high enough not to matter... The GS4 has that same chip, same clockspeed, but 3x the modules. The iPad 2 (1.5 years old) has 2x modules and a slightly lower clockspeed. And lower screen res.
The Dell Streak was the first device called a phablet because many sites couldnt decide on calling it a phone or tablet.
Logic and common sense has already left the building...lol. I dont totally knock it tho. I thought the Galaxy Note 8 tablet that has the phone features is a better buy for tablets just for the added functionality.
I think this is a better buy too just for the added functionality.
So, it's a product that occupies a niche you're uninterested in. They have no business shipping it! Seriously, though, I would imagine people who typically carry a bag/purse and don't do a lot of talking might find this product compelling (especially because it's cheaper than your iPod Touch).
Also, bluetooth headsets and speakerphone make holding it up to your ear completely unnecessary if you actually do want to use it as a phone.
You really never would need to walk around with this thing to your ear. Most people don't even do that with their current phones. How many have you seen holding the phone and using "Speaker Phone"? While I think it's rude and low class of them, I do think a BT ear bud would do fine.
There are uses for this and for 250.00 unlocked, I'd strongly consider it. I already carry a phone and xoom tablet during my work day.
Not for everyone, but it doesn't make it a bad idea IMO.
On the contrary it is rude for the losers to be blabbing out just their end of the conversation in public, as if no one else existed, except all those around them they certainly believe are dying to hear what they have to say, presumably to someone at the other end of the signal.
If they go speakerphone, at least one has the chance to hear the entire conversation, and with that, the added advantage of invading their privacy too.
I definitely would consider it and have it replace both of my N7 and SGS3. I already carry both devices almost all the time already, why not cut down the expense(only $250) and the hassle of carrying 2 devices. I make on average about 1 call a week, so carrying a phone and a tablet makes less sense to me. On the other hand, my Nexus 7 is great for movies, games and readings. I text and email with my friends. If I can teach my parents to text and/or email then I'll get rid of the phone and live on wifi only to save the monthly bill.
Just curious, why do you think 7" phone is too big? Did you come up with that all by yourself or did Apple helped you? No way I'm letting some company or Lord Steve J tell me how to use my devices. Ha ha ha...
ps: I have my eyes set on the rumor 6.3" Samsung Galaxy Note 3.
Sorry if I sounded pissed at the OP. My point being, everyone is different. What you saw unnecessary might strike gold for someone else. Don't let your limited mindset limits your options. I never like the idea of one solution fits all, major reason why I'm not touching iphone & ipad anymore, don't feel like using the same device that everyone else and their grand parents uses.
"Don't ever let anyone tell you what you can and can't do in life, this is America!"
I know man, totally agree with you Zak. Lord Steve J forbids huge phones and tiny tablets. Therefore we should all stick with 3.5 iTiny and ~10 iHuge. 1 perfect size to rule them all, well maybe more perfect sizes now with Lord Tim Crook.
On the other hand, in the USA, you know where the land is free, crazy loonies are defying our lords. How dare they use 7" phones, how dare they make 5" tablet. This is absurd, this is the end of the world. At least not in the apple land ;)
/s chill man, I don't need to make fun of your iTiny so you can give me the freedom to use whatever size phone/tablet I like ;)
This is the form factor I have been wanting for 3 years now. Finally!!! Samsung too. Too bad they probably won't be released in the US with Phone capability. That means Verizon customers are totally out.
I knew ASUS couldn't make a product that good with no weird downsides.
Why is the tablet dock's front-facing camera worse than the built-in one? Wouldn't videoconferencing make more sense with the bigger tablet screen? But then you have to use a much worse camera? Makes no sense to me. Especially since the tablet dock probably has significantly more space for a good camera module.
1mp should be fine for video conferencing. Considering most the time, when video streaming, considering no one is usually streaming resolutions higher than what a 1MP camera can put out.
It is nice they released the padfone infinity that fixed the short comings of the padfone 2 with Super IPS and high resolution screen on the phone and the pad.
Only two items that I can see missing: The US release wither it is only sold as an unlocked phone on all carriers or just as a developer device for all carriers. VZW, Sprint, AT&T and T-mobile being the top 4 carriers to start with. They do not have a keyboard dock or attachment and no add-on memory chip (maybe just in the keyboard dock) to make it a truly mobile office setup.
And just for some wishful thinking if they could work with Ubuntu to release the new version of Ubuntu on this device I could see it being a full mobile office experience on you hip with a couple accessories the size of a large thin day planner.
Price is what I was expecting to see, unfortunately it is a little high. $650 phone + $350 for pad + $150 for keyboard would have been more like it though instead of the ~$1200 MSRP.
Seriously, in a day when people use their smart phones mostly for everything other than phone calls (texting, web surfing), a Fonepad makes great sense. Why carry a phone and a tablet? I'd love to have on of these. When it becomes available, if the performance with the silicon they chose is acceptable, I probably will. Great concept.
It's hard to understand that one. That's seriously underpowered in 2012, and so far behind in 2013 that's not even funny.... An 1.2GHz Atom is equivalent to one A7 core in the Exynos octa core, or half of a 2.3GHz Tegra 4i core.
I have no idea what you're basing that on... As far as CPU cores go, a single Medfield core with hyper-threading like you see in the fonepad, the RAZR i, and a few other international phones is very competitive with the quad-core A9's in the Exynos 4 and Tegra 3, as competitive with 2 Krait cores in the Snapdragon MSM 8960. Half of a 2.3GHz A9r4 core... That single atom is at least competitive with that, if not beats it outright.
Now, yes, that is a bit under-powered still for a new device, but it's not nearly as bad as you make it out to be. It'll be interesting to see exactly where this lands given its cock speed. Most people who have had hands-on time with the tablet indicate that it feels smooth and perfectly usable.
References: See any chart with a single core Atom in it (every Atom in a phone is a single core so far).
Oh, sorry: For your A7 comparison: an A7 is supposed to deliver A9 performance at lower power, so yeah. There's no way a single Atom is slower than an A7. If you had said A15, you might've had some sort of argument, but even then, I doubt that the A15 is outright faster in every respect.
What makes you think that Atom is faster than an A7? Both are 2-way in-order CPUs, which means they are in the same class and will have similar performance.
As for A15 vs Atom, check out how the A15 at A1.7GHz beats Atom at 1.66GHz on every single benchmark:
See my comment below; you're right in regards to single core computational performance.
That Atom in that benchmark is a 2.5 year old CPU, so of course it's perfectly natural to compare it to a top-of-the-line current gen SoC. /s
I admit, yes, the Exynos 5250 beats the crap out of that Atom. I'm more interested in the newer revisions of Atom like the Saltwell cores in the Mefield and Clover Trail (+) platforms. I don't doubt that the Exynos 5250 beats Medfield, but Clover Trail should give it a run for its money. Note the use of the word *should* there. We shall see.
Remember all Atoms are effectively 5 years old as they all use the exact same micro architecture... But for the sake of the argument, let's look at the top of the range Clovertrail Z2760 at 1.8GHz and compare with the same Exynos 5250 at 1.7GHz (both dual cores):
With 4 threads it can almost keep up on integer, but loses badly on floating point and memory performance. So there is no chance that CloverTrail(+) can keep up with quad A15 at 2GHz...
I'm wary of comparing cross-platform benchmarks like that. I don't doubt the Exynos 5250 is faster for a host of different reasons not least of which is the dual-channel DDR3-1600 memory hooked up the only versions of the SoC we've seen so far.
My point is this: Intel has been doing this a long time. However, their mobile execution thus far has been distinctly un-Intel. If Valleyview contains some of the same architectural enhancements that the Core i-series did, then I think Valleyview could end up being quite competitive. We'll have to wait and see though.
Also, if the A15 cores have an inferior prefetcher or scheduler to Clover Trail, would that show up in the Geekbanch results for FP and integer performance? Or would it only affect the Stream performance?
I don't see your issue with cross platform benchmarking, how can you compare systems otherwise?
Prefetching issues should show up in stream and other memory intensive apps which do not fit in L2, so unlikely for integer/FP benchmarks. NVidia claims a 15% speedup on average for Tegra 4i, but that includes a better branch predictor and larger TLBs. No idea how much it will help JavaScript.
Could Valleyview be competitive with A15 in performance? Yes that is possible. However Intel won't have an alternative to big.LITTLE or Tegra's 5th core, and fast OoO cores use more power (Bobcat vs Atom). So we'll see how well it does on a 22nm process.
The A7 is less powerful than A9 but use less area.
So, you are right, the Lexington is little bit slower than tegra 4i, but the Lexington is targeting the phone less than 200$. I don't doubt that if the tegra 4i phone will be a good sell if they are below 200$, how much chance do you think that can happen?
As for A15, the only available A15, Samsung E5250, is fast, great, fantasy and power hungry. With 4+w power budget, it no doubt can beat the 2+w ATOM. If Samsung scale it up to 200W, and cooling it with Liquid nitrogen, it could probably beat 17w i7 as well :)
Again your link doesn't prove at all than a Z2420 is any faster than any A9. I showed how you were wrong about Vellamo already.
At 2.3GHz a Tegra 4i is obviously much faster than a Z2420, even single threaded, so it will be used in high-end phones as it is the fastest A9 based SoC. As for cost, Tegra 3 was estimated at $22. Intel typically charges far more for Atom, so the reason Atom ends up in low-end devices is not because they are cheap...
It's true the Exynos 5250 uses a lot of power, but it is several times faster than an Atom so completes tasks quicker. Note the new Octa core reduces power consumption to ~1.25W per core at 1.8GHz according to Anand. We'll find out soon how it does in the Galaxy S4.
If it is a bit of CPU powerhouse, do you bet on it powering the Galaxy S4? Or any other high-end phone/tablet for that matter? My feeling is that chance is close to zero.
The hard fact is that Atom is an old slow in-order microarchitecture that has been lagging in performance since out-of-order A9 and Krait came out. It'll be another year before a new Atom generation will end up in products...
Yeah, no. That single core Atom wasn't ever destined to power something like the GS4 for a variety of reasons.
Clover Trail+ on the other hand, mates 2 Atom cores at 2.0GHz to an SGX544MP2 that I'm sure has been clocked at over 500MHz becahse that's what Intel does. That could power a flagship-level device, and it does: see the Lenovo K900. It won't be a popular flagship, but it's still an important design win for Intel.
Valleyview will be far better though. I'm personally waiting for that since that'll be Intel's first core purpose-designed for phones. The current Medfield parts are adapted from their netbook effort, which was adapted from the Pentium 4 core, and is a bit ridiculous in this day and age.
You're talking design wins, which I'd argue has more to do with Intel lacking a single chip LTE solution than the performance of its CPU. Notice this device lacks LTE, which would be unacceptable in a top of the line phone (except the Nexus 4, which is sorta midrange-ish).
Still though, not all devices need to be top of the line, so I'd argue a $250 tablet (with low-ish resolution) is a fine place for the Atom chip.
Medfield is only competitive with a single A9 core at a low frequency. And even then it really only looks alright on SunSpider (which is not a CPU benchmark).
If you want an idea how far Atom was behind a year ago, check out the Geekbench score of the 1.6GHz Z2460 in the Xolo vs the 1.4GHz Exynos 4 in Galaxy S3:
Note only does it achieve less than half the overall score, it loses every single threaded integer and floating benchmark except for one - despite its higher clockspeed. So we can safely conclude that an A9 is much faster than Atom, agreed?
Tegra 4 has a Geekbench score of 4285, so at 1.2GHz the Z2420 will be 6.5 times as slow. Using a single in-order core at 1.2GHz in 2013 is just insanity.
Alright, first of all, please never say something is "6.5 times slower" than something else. There's no good way to interpret what you mean there.
Now, I will admit that I was unaware of those benchmark figures. Those benchmarks indicate that a single Atom core is slower than the A9, I admit. The only area where I see a possible disagreement with that assertion is in the Stream benchmarks, which measure Floating point math and sustained memory bandwidth.
In those, a single core Atom CPU with hyper-threading beats the Exynos 4412. Now, the Floating Point benchmarks indicate that a single A9 is slower than an Atom core. So, how do we explain why the Atom is faster, having only 1 hyper-threaded core to the 4412's 4 cores? Simple: sustained memory bandwidth.
Extrapolating from that, I imagine that the browser-based benchmarks that I had most recently looked at are heavily memory-performance bound, which is why the RAZR i does so well in Kraken and Octane. Not having played with a device running an Atom chip, I can't speak to how much that extra memory performance helps the device's "feel" so to speak, but I've not ever seen a reviewer call a device with an Atom chip in it slow.
In essence: I apologize for immediately writing you off without having done my homework. However, the Atom SoC's memory subsystem keeps it on par in some respects with the best-of-the-best Android SoC's. In any case, I had no intention of besmirching your honor, but Atom's poor computational performance is hidden by what I can only imagine is its memory subsystem. I now really want an Atom-based device to see if the individual core's computational performance impacts the performance of my phone in my use case.
And yes, using an in-order core in 2013 is a bit absurd, but that's hidden by the hyper-threading to an extent. Not fully, but it helps. Clover Trail+ gives excellent results from AnTuTu (~27k from what I've heard, which is faster than the S4 Pro based phones). That's not Tegra 4 level, but then again, nothing that's been benchmarked gives anywhere close the T4 levels of performance. Anyway, I'll be interested in two things this year: Intel's Valleyview, which will be OoO and (hopefully) 22nm, and should release for the holiday refresh, and T4's memory performance. The Tegra 3 was hamstrung by its memory controller; I'll be interested to see what NVIDIA did to fix that.
Anyway, sorry for the misunderstanding. Hope the discussion has been as enlightening for you as it has been for me haha.
Sorry, what I meant was that the Z2420's score will be about 1/6.5 that of Tegra 4, ie. Tegra 4 is 6.5 times faster in Geekbench.
Exynos 4 is indeed slower than the Atom on Stream. This is not a memory bandwidth issue (as it is 20% faster in the memory test), but actually an issue with memory prefetching on current A9's. It is fixed in A9 R4 (Tegra 4i) and in Cortex-A15. For example Exynos 5250 now has twice the stream performance of the fastest available CloverTrail Atom:
No need to apologize, you're right that Atom has good memory performance. However while having good memory performance is important, that alone isn't enough. A lot of tasks require significant CPU and GPU performance as well. So how it translates to your device depends on how you use it. If you do a lot of browsing I'd say that BrowserMark is more appropriate than SunSpider (read my other post on SunSpider and other JS benchmarks).
Valleyview will be interesting as the claims are up to 2.7GHz quad core (but no HT) on 22nm. However release date now seems Q1 2014 according to leaked slides, so it is a year away. I don't expect Samsung, Qualcomm and NVidia to stand still in the meantime!
I'm the first to admit that more CPU and GPU performance is a good thing (especially GPU). I was just completely unaware that the reason Atom benchmarks so well is due to the prefetcher. I knew A9's had some pretty bad memory issues in certain respects, but I had forgotten where they fell down.
I'll be interested to see what tech Valleyview actually contains. If we see Core-i series branch recovery and schedulers, this holiday season (which I believe is still being targeted for the very first products) and next Q1 could get interesting. But you're right; NVIDIA and Qualcomm won't stand still, that's for certain.
I would really love to see a 10W Core i-series chip (any of them) be benchmarked in the same system with the same OS as a Tegra 4, Exynos 5250, or Snapdragon 800. That's what I'm waiting for. But I doubt I'll ever get to see such a report. I still have doubts about comparing Geekbench scores across platforms. I'm not really sure that it's fair to do that given the different OS-level optimizations, etc.
It's not just prefetching, Tegra 3 for example suffers due to its single channel memory. Exynos 4 beats it in pretty much every benchmark. Memory controllers are an area where Intel has more expertise, but hopefully NVidia has learnt how to get it right with Tegra 4(i).
Note you can already find some benchmarks between the Samsung Chromebook and Ivy-Bridge based Chromebooks.
I'm not sure how you can see cross platform benchmarking as being unfair. Yes there is always a small OS component in each benchmark - even SPEC makes OS calls. It does affect the scores somewhat, but not by a huge percentage. Besides being hard to avoid in general, it's actually a realistic reprentation of the OS overhead. If a particular OS has a higher overhead, then any software will run slower on it, including benchmarks.
Note this is quite different from how JavaScript benchmarks differ even on the same device. If you have doubts about cross platform benchmarking then you understand the issue with JavaScript benchmarking!
The Tegra 4 and 4i aren't even out yet! I don't really know much about Geekbench. Does it correlate well with actual performance, or is it purely theoretical? The tests on Anandtech show the Atom in positive light, to this day (except the GPU).
Maybe you're right. Maybe it is severely outclassed by top of the line processors, but stick to ones that are at least in devices today. And let's wait for this implementation in this tablet (and the tests when it is released). The
And then, let's remember at the last that this thing is CHEAP!
Geekbench, when compared on devices with the same OS, gives isolated measures of performance similar to theoretical maximums of throughput. As such, the Atom is on par with an A9, technically speaking, unless you're talking FP performance.
The thing is, the memory interface is really that much better. Sunspider has been characterized by AnandTech as being more of a cache test than anything else, so that's why the Atom does so well: it's way faster than most things in the memory access department.
Geekbench is not the best benchmark around, but it is much better than SunSpider. SunSpider is worse than Dhrystone, it consists of several tiny functions of about 10 lines of code. As such it is easy to add optimizations which give a huge speedup on SunSpider but don't improve general JS performance.
And because it is JavaScript, what you actually benchmark is not the CPU but the JIT compiler in a particular browser. Different browsers (even versions) show major differences in JS performance. That is particularly true on ARM, where JIT compilers are still improving with each new version (on x86 good JITs are available).
The problem is that Anand appears to report non-optimal JS results, if you Google for it you can usually find much faster results than what he reports - because others use a different browser or download the latest version. So either he should report the fastest result or just stop showing JS benchmarks at all as they are too browser dependent.
Yes, I've noticed this when comparing my phone to Anand's (or Brian's) results. I'm using CM10, so my results tend to be a lot different. But the same is true on Geekbench, or just about any benchmark, which shows significant variability with different software builds on the same phone.
But it's not quite fair to say that you don't test the CPU with JS benchmarks, because how else to explain the differences. It just doesn't correlate as well as the tests suggest. Comparison- My cappy scores about ~2400 ms. Way better than the fascinate he used in the test, but also nowhere near the top of the lists, and I doubt any optimizations will make it faster than the iPhone 5, RAZR i, or Nexus 10.
Do you think all browser benchmarks should be thrown out? Anandtech prefers them because they are better cross platform, but the are always browser dependent to some extent. The RAZR-i does pretty well in browser based benchmarks too (for whatever that is worth).
No the same is not true for real CPU benchmarks. These are by definition native code, so you only rely on the compiler used. Typically you standardize to the same GCC version across platforms. If you run Geekbench on multiple Android devices then you actually run the exact same binary, so the only differences are due to CPU performance.
Contrast that with JavaScript benchmarks where each device may use different browsers and JIT compilers. Even on the same hardware you can get wildly different results with various browsers. That means JS benchmarks are not CPU benchmarks. A faster CPU should give a better score of course, but only if you use the exact same browser and OS. That means it is very hard to compare JS results cross platform.
For example the Cortex-A15 SunSpider scores reported by Anand are 1384 for Nexus 10 and 690 for the Samsung Chromebook. They both use Exynos 5250 at 1.7GHz and the same browser (Chrome). Even Anand seemed surprised there. Some Googling reveals much faster Nexus 10 scores however:
So there you have it, a factor 2 difference. And Anand only reports the slowest score of them all. The same is true for most other Android phones and tablets - I call that misleading, and I expect better from him.
I'd certainly say get rid of SunSpider as it is worse than Dhrystone. If you must have JS benchmarks use the newer larger ones like Octane and Kraken - just don't expect actual browsing performance to relate to the scores.
To conclude JavaScript benchmarks are NOT CPU benchmarks. My 2.7GHz i5-2500S reports 868ms for SunSpider with IE9 on Win7, does that mean a Nexus 10 will outperform my PC? Or even browse faster?
The different score is basically because the operational system and the CPU throttle.
Running the chrome browser on a ATOM netbook with windows xp is much faster than on the same netbook with windows vista. Although they are both chrome, and both on a netbook, the operational system are different.
The Nexus 10 is a tablet, and the Chrome book is a notebook. The E5250 is throttled to different watts, the 1.7ghz is just the maximum frequency it can reach. That's like the the i7 ulv and normal i7, they both have the same tubo speed (2.7ghz), but different throttle/base frequency (1.7ghz vs. 2.3ghz) for different TDP (17w vs 35w)
Do you really think a benchmark can show the different between windows vista and windows xp or the difference between i7 ulv and i7 normal is worse than the one cannot?
No the Nexus 10 is definitely not being throttled. Did you even read my post? How could another browser achieve the same 690ms score as the Chromebook if it was being throttled???
And no the OS has little to do with it either. It's the browser and the WebKit version which most browsers use (this does the actual JIT compilation). Just like different devices come with different Android versions, they come with different browser versions as well.
I don't understand your question. My point is that an updated Chrome on the Nexus 10 will be able to achieve the same 690ms score as Chromebook. If you disagree, please explain how other browsers (which use the same WebKit) could possibly achieve the 690 score on Nexus 10.
Sunspider is FAR more dependent on the javascript engine being used than the CPU or anything else. Check any of the newer phones, pull libwebcore.so and see what version of libv8.so is being used. The newer version of v8 wins sunspider almost everytime. If it doesn't then there are further software customizations put in place by the manufacturer to overcome the libv8 deltas. Sunspider has absolutely nothing to do with CPU performance unless both devices are using the same v8 engine. I have seen Sunspider score vary by over 800 msecs on the same phone just by using a different version of the Android browser with an older v8 engine.
This is one of the reasons why Mobile Chrome for Android was not good until R25. It had an older version of v8 than the stock Android browser.
Each CPU has it's strong and weakness, especially when you compare CPU from two different architecture. With selective benchmark, you can of course declare whatever you want. How interesting is it?
Base on Vellamo benchmark, I could also declare the Z2420 is faster than 1.4GHz Exynos 4 in Galaxy S3.
Almost on all benchmarks, the z2420 beats the dual-core ARM a9, which is the ARMy chip target the same market segment. And in some benchmark it faster than Quad core A9 or krait.
Selective benchmarking is exactly my issue with Anand's reviews, he doesn't show any CPU benchmarks, and in the JavaScript benchmarks he doesn't show the best scores.
You'd be completely wrong if you believe that a Z2420 beats S3 on Vellamo. Anand's benchmark pages show the S3 scoring 2086 which is much higher.
So in which benchmarks does the Z2420 beat any A9? Vellamo is certainly not one of them. And claiming it beats a quad core is totally ridiculous. Hint: most of the benchmarks are single threaded.
It's funny how you talk about selective benchmarking and then make claims like that.
Read the link again, the website who tested Z2420 did show the Z2420 faster than S3 Exynos 4 on Vellamo, and Tegra 3 in some other benchmarks. And they should be more professional than both of us.
Anyway, the comparison between the Z2420 and quad core ARMy (include the declaration that Z2420 faster than Exynos 4 quad) is only to make the selective comparison look funny, absurd and vivid. you did find it funny too, didn't you?
My point is the Z2420 beat dual core A9 on almost any benchmark (single or multi-thread) except the benchmark (Geekbench) you select. And they are the chip for same market segment (quad core arm should be comparing to Z2480/Z2580).
Why don't you read that webpage you linked again and point out where exactly does it compare Galaxy S3 with the X500? It doesn't even appear at all, so it must be in your imagination. And no, I don't rate fonearena very professional at all, certainly not compared with Anand.
Yes, comparing a Z2420 with a modern ARM core is funny as it is so slow indeed. I guess that is exactly why fonearena avoided comparing it with Galaxy S3 and similar high-end phones.
Geekbench shows the same results as other benchmarks. A Galaxy S3 beats a Z2420 on any of the benchmarks in your link. Just search for the S3 scores and you'll see for yourself. I already posted the S3 Vellamo score.
There are very few real "CPU benchmarks" for Android. Most of them are Dalvik benchmarks. If the benchmark is not compiled for native execution using the NDK then it is only testing the efficiency of the Dalvik VM, not the CPU, this is a huge difference. Not very many do, a couple benchmarks I know of that use native code are AnTuTu and AndEBench.
At $249 for a 3G-enabled 7" tablet with a 1280x800 IPS screen and a SD slot this thing will sell well enough. The fact that you also can use it as a phone if you want is just something like a free option thrown in.
What I'm missing here is a solid well-integrated kickstand (like the MS Surface has), loud and clear front-facing speakers, and an array of good noise-cancelling mics. In fact I'm wondering how Asus could miss this. The bezels are huge enough to offer room for good speakers and a kickstand in the back cover isn't magic anyway. If you could easily use this thing as a hands-free phone propped up at a desk this would go a long way to avoid the "you look like a moron with a tablet pressed to your face" comments.
People use Skype and similar apps/services quite a lot on tablets and laptops and nobody offers comments about how silly it looks to press a laptop to your head. Ironically one of the weakest points of the Nexus 7 in this regard is its extremely poor speaker on the bottom and I guess the Fonepad won't be any better.
I would really like someone to come up with such a pad that actually has some thought and development applied to it and not just features thrown in. A pen-like BT headset that you can slot into the device for charging and that has a clip for wearing it in a shirt pocket or so would also go a long way to make such a pad actually usable as a phone.
I agree that a pen-like BT headset would be the way to go. I vaguely remember that someone already developed an accessory like this, and it might have been ASUS...
I am very happy with my last purchase and mean the fonepad. Is terrific device and all the applications that I was using are working without problems. I think that Intel atom runs smoother that arm chips. Maybe is the hyper threading that makes it. In general I have that feeling. The only problem that I encountered is with the Skype. It is working for making video chat and all other operations but It blocks the phone dialer after Skype installation.
its a fantastic machine and the only problem is with Skype that blocks the dialer When I am dialing to the dialer the number that I want to call and hit the "green phone" button to call the number a pop up comes on and I can choose my cellular line and I can make the call. have a look to that image (before installing skype): http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/716/5kgx.png/
After installing skype that option disappears and I can not make a cellular call. It pop up a window to choose skype or android voip service. have a look to that image (after installing skype): http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/812/b9hm.png/
That renders the capability to call thought my mobile number useless. Before installing skype everything works as it should be. It reacts as is a tablet and not a mobile phone with a real sim card. And I think this is the problem. Installs the tablet version and not the phone version. I am waiting from a reply ROM Skype but they always are so late at their reply.
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Zak - Monday, February 25, 2013 - link
A 7" phone? We now need a 5" tablet and say goodbye to logic and common sense. Off to play a game on my 4" Apple tablet... a.k.a. the iPod Touch.MonkeyPaw - Monday, February 25, 2013 - link
I would consider one. I bet lots of people just text and almost never talk and want a data plan. To me, just a data plan never made sense when the functionality was already there, even if you rarely use it.gseguin - Thursday, February 28, 2013 - link
Honestly, with the cost of baseband right now... why couldn't we reverse the thinking....Give all tablets / computers the comms required for a phone, create a lightweight bloototh earpiece that contains the SIM card and carrier info for connection, add comms chip in all car radios and you have a winner...
You thus carry around a very small piece of equipment that has enough memory for your digital content, but use the client's SoC for any apps. There's a few things to figure out, but still, no need for data share plans between phones and tablets, everything would simply be a 'voice+data enabled device' which requires an actual external blue-tooth SIM device for activation.
From home, I'd be talking through my ipad, then my car, then my computer through voip at work if that would be an option... this would require the earpiece to have a 4 year old SoC which could be made new with low battery requirements on new processes... So, why not a 5" phone 'extention'...
sumwand - Saturday, March 9, 2013 - link
it is not an earpiece but I think someday can be made to earpiece size :http://en.socblue.com/_d275434802.htm
amdwilliam1985 - Monday, March 11, 2013 - link
I agree, I rarely call anyone any more, I text/email everyone except my parents. gotta teach them how to do it.Flunk - Monday, February 25, 2013 - link
And I'll go make a call on my 14" phone.themossie - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
"Vintage" Windows XP tablets are the new clamshell phones.Extra hipster 'cred' if you add an iOS theme :-)
CeriseCogburn - Monday, March 4, 2013 - link
Half clamshell. Clams have two shells, like a flip phone.I hate that when hipsters hipster out with some snappy name and the base concept is ensconced in a brainfart.
Apple had half clamshell pieces of crap. The whole industry had half clamshells.
No people, it's not the hot date aphrodesiac slide it in and slurp it down just the bottom half of the clam that is the clamshell.
Get out to any river and stick your hands in the underwater mud till you learn something about nature you hipster gasbags. Learning (incorrectly) about it at the gay clam bistro doesn't cut it.
seamonkey79 - Tuesday, March 5, 2013 - link
What? The 'vintage' WinXP tablets were a clamshell, with a top half clamshell and a bottom half clamshell. Top was screen, bottom was keyboard and other stuff.On top of that, I repeat 'What?'
evonitzer - Monday, February 25, 2013 - link
Easy jokes, all around. The price is amazing though. $250 for an unlocked phone! Selling these will not be difficult, despite the form factor oddity. I might buy one, after measuring my pockets (maybe buying new baggy jeans), and seeing what skin Asus has served up.Does the top just pop off to access the SIM and SD card slots? Rather weird looking, in that picture.
teiglin - Monday, February 25, 2013 - link
It looks like the top does just come off; I've used a handful of HTC phones that have essentially the same mechanism (the One S kind of snaps into place, while the Desire HD/Inspire actually slides in and out).I don't get why this is revolutionary; Samsung's last round of international tablets--the Galaxy Tab 7+ and 7.7 with 3G radios (P6200 and P6800)--worked this way too. Lots of people mocked them because they had phone functionality, as if people don't already look ridiculous talking on a 5.5" Galaxy Note. Just because they have phone speakers doesn't mean you need to use them; that's what headsets are for. Makes me think they need to offer an accessory like HTC packages with the Butterfly. While a 7" tablet does usually fit in cargo pockets, it's much more useful for purse/murse carriers. If I carried around a bag or briefcase all the time, I'd definitely consider this--consider the battery life you get out of a tablet compared to a phone. It's a great selling point especially for a relatively small tablet, even if it is somewhat niche.
The problem remains US wireless operator support. Getting a Tab 7.7 to be recognized on AT&T as a phone was a pain, and of course neither those tabs nor this one will be offered as-is by US operators (see T-Mo Galaxy Tab 7+, VZW 7.7, both with phone support stripped out). Plus, the quad-band UMTS radio means no T-Mobile in most areas, leaving AT&T as the only option, which is frustrating when this is a device that cries out for magenta's $30 100 minute/5GB prepaid plan.
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, March 3, 2013 - link
It already looks stupid with your tiny flip dip mobile with your pinky sticking out holding the minute thing and it not making it to your ear and your mouth at the same time.Who knows what you fashion models would do without your pinkies sticking up in the air while you cup your ear like an old fashioned reporter with your tiny idiot "cellphone".
I mean you people look really stupid, and you're yakking into the air, because your big fat piehole doesn't have any part of the tiny near invisible phone by it.
(unless of course you all suffer from small man syndrome)
phillyry - Saturday, May 4, 2013 - link
^^Troll^^gxH - Sunday, March 10, 2013 - link
while im not going to purchase this device personally because of its lackluster specs i can see this as a further game changer for the industry as it further blurs the line between phones and tablets.companies such as apple, microsoft, and the telecom industry desperately wants to keep the line between phones and tablets distinct,
so apple can sell you both an iphone AND an ipad
so microsoft can sell you both windows RT AND windows phone 8 (and windows 8)
so your telecom company can sell you both a voice+data plan AND a data only plan
this device and future phablet devices are a godsend to the price conscious consumer who doesn't want to spend $1300 for 2 devices and $100 per month to have them connected.
GotThumbs - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
Only downside to this is the Intel chip IMO.I would have preferred snapdragon or Tegra.
evonitzer - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
Why, in a nutshell? The Atom still has pretty stupendous performance, in the CPU space. Weak GPU, but clocked high enough not to matter.I'm the opposite, I guess. I'm glad to have some available Atom chips since they seemed to have good performance (RAZR-i, XOLO/San Diego) but were not widely available.
lmcd - Saturday, March 16, 2013 - link
It isn't clocked high enough not to matter... The GS4 has that same chip, same clockspeed, but 3x the modules. The iPad 2 (1.5 years old) has 2x modules and a slightly lower clockspeed. And lower screen res.jmcb - Monday, February 25, 2013 - link
Archos already did a 5" tablet a few years ago.The Dell Streak was the first device called a phablet because many sites couldnt decide on calling it a phone or tablet.
Logic and common sense has already left the building...lol. I dont totally knock it tho. I thought the Galaxy Note 8 tablet that has the phone features is a better buy for tablets just for the added functionality.
I think this is a better buy too just for the added functionality.
nafhan - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
So, it's a product that occupies a niche you're uninterested in. They have no business shipping it! Seriously, though, I would imagine people who typically carry a bag/purse and don't do a lot of talking might find this product compelling (especially because it's cheaper than your iPod Touch).Also, bluetooth headsets and speakerphone make holding it up to your ear completely unnecessary if you actually do want to use it as a phone.
GotThumbs - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
Don't forget BT functionality in today's cars.You really never would need to walk around with this thing to your ear. Most people don't even do that with their current phones. How many have you seen holding the phone and using "Speaker Phone"? While I think it's rude and low class of them, I do think a BT ear bud would do fine.
There are uses for this and for 250.00 unlocked, I'd strongly consider it. I already carry a phone and xoom tablet during my work day.
Not for everyone, but it doesn't make it a bad idea IMO.
Best wishes,
CeriseCogburn - Monday, March 4, 2013 - link
On the contrary it is rude for the losers to be blabbing out just their end of the conversation in public, as if no one else existed, except all those around them they certainly believe are dying to hear what they have to say, presumably to someone at the other end of the signal.If they go speakerphone, at least one has the chance to hear the entire conversation, and with that, the added advantage of invading their privacy too.
amdwilliam1985 - Wednesday, February 27, 2013 - link
I definitely would consider it and have it replace both of my N7 and SGS3. I already carry both devices almost all the time already, why not cut down the expense(only $250) and the hassle of carrying 2 devices.I make on average about 1 call a week, so carrying a phone and a tablet makes less sense to me. On the other hand, my Nexus 7 is great for movies, games and readings. I text and email with my friends. If I can teach my parents to text and/or email then I'll get rid of the phone and live on wifi only to save the monthly bill.
Just curious, why do you think 7" phone is too big? Did you come up with that all by yourself or did Apple helped you? No way I'm letting some company or Lord Steve J tell me how to use my devices.
Ha ha ha...
ps: I have my eyes set on the rumor 6.3" Samsung Galaxy Note 3.
amdwilliam1985 - Wednesday, February 27, 2013 - link
Sorry if I sounded pissed at the OP.My point being, everyone is different. What you saw unnecessary might strike gold for someone else. Don't let your limited mindset limits your options.
I never like the idea of one solution fits all, major reason why I'm not touching iphone & ipad anymore, don't feel like using the same device that everyone else and their grand parents uses.
"Don't ever let anyone tell you what you can and can't do in life, this is America!"
amdwilliam1985 - Monday, March 11, 2013 - link
I know man, totally agree with you Zak.Lord Steve J forbids huge phones and tiny tablets. Therefore we should all stick with 3.5 iTiny and ~10 iHuge. 1 perfect size to rule them all, well maybe more perfect sizes now with Lord Tim Crook.
On the other hand, in the USA, you know where the land is free, crazy loonies are defying our lords. How dare they use 7" phones, how dare they make 5" tablet. This is absurd, this is the end of the world. At least not in the apple land ;)
/s chill man, I don't need to make fun of your iTiny so you can give me the freedom to use whatever size phone/tablet I like ;)
Kidster3001 - Thursday, March 14, 2013 - link
This is the form factor I have been wanting for 3 years now. Finally!!! Samsung too. Too bad they probably won't be released in the US with Phone capability. That means Verizon customers are totally out.Araemo - Monday, February 25, 2013 - link
I knew ASUS couldn't make a product that good with no weird downsides.Why is the tablet dock's front-facing camera worse than the built-in one? Wouldn't videoconferencing make more sense with the bigger tablet screen? But then you have to use a much worse camera? Makes no sense to me. Especially since the tablet dock probably has significantly more space for a good camera module.
SilthDraeth - Monday, February 25, 2013 - link
1mp should be fine for video conferencing. Considering most the time, when video streaming, considering no one is usually streaming resolutions higher than what a 1MP camera can put out.MrSpadge - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
1 or 2 MP doesn't matter for front facing cameras as long as they're super cheap.HOSH - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
It is nice they released the padfone infinity that fixed the short comings of the padfone 2 with Super IPS and high resolution screen on the phone and the pad.Only two items that I can see missing:
The US release wither it is only sold as an unlocked phone on all carriers or just as a developer device for all carriers. VZW, Sprint, AT&T and T-mobile being the top 4 carriers to start with.
They do not have a keyboard dock or attachment and no add-on memory chip (maybe just in the keyboard dock) to make it a truly mobile office setup.
And just for some wishful thinking if they could work with Ubuntu to release the new version of Ubuntu on this device I could see it being a full mobile office experience on you hip with a couple accessories the size of a large thin day planner.
Price is what I was expecting to see, unfortunately it is a little high. $650 phone + $350 for pad + $150 for keyboard would have been more like it though instead of the ~$1200 MSRP.
flyingpants - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
$350 for an accessory that can be used with ONE phone is outrageous. $400 buys a Nexus 10 tablet, higher resolution..Romberry - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
Seriously, in a day when people use their smart phones mostly for everything other than phone calls (texting, web surfing), a Fonepad makes great sense. Why carry a phone and a tablet? I'd love to have on of these. When it becomes available, if the performance with the silicon they chose is acceptable, I probably will. Great concept.liffey - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
The P1000 Galaxy Tab was released WAY back in 2010 and was very popular. Yes, people do use it for phone callsWilco1 - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
It's hard to understand that one. That's seriously underpowered in 2012, and so far behind in 2013 that's not even funny.... An 1.2GHz Atom is equivalent to one A7 core in the Exynos octa core, or half of a 2.3GHz Tegra 4i core.smartypnt4 - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
I have no idea what you're basing that on... As far as CPU cores go, a single Medfield core with hyper-threading like you see in the fonepad, the RAZR i, and a few other international phones is very competitive with the quad-core A9's in the Exynos 4 and Tegra 3, as competitive with 2 Krait cores in the Snapdragon MSM 8960. Half of a 2.3GHz A9r4 core... That single atom is at least competitive with that, if not beats it outright.Now, yes, that is a bit under-powered still for a new device, but it's not nearly as bad as you make it out to be. It'll be interesting to see exactly where this lands given its cock speed. Most people who have had hands-on time with the tablet indicate that it feels smooth and perfectly usable.
References: See any chart with a single core Atom in it (every Atom in a phone is a single core so far).
smartypnt4 - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
Oh, sorry: For your A7 comparison: an A7 is supposed to deliver A9 performance at lower power, so yeah. There's no way a single Atom is slower than an A7. If you had said A15, you might've had some sort of argument, but even then, I doubt that the A15 is outright faster in every respect.Wilco1 - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
What makes you think that Atom is faster than an A7? Both are 2-way in-order CPUs, which means they are in the same class and will have similar performance.As for A15 vs Atom, check out how the A15 at A1.7GHz beats Atom at 1.66GHz on every single benchmark:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6422/samsung-chromeb...
So yes, A15 is outright faster in every respect. At 1.9GHz it'll be close to 3 times as fast compared to a 1.2GHz Atom...
smartypnt4 - Wednesday, February 27, 2013 - link
See my comment below; you're right in regards to single core computational performance.That Atom in that benchmark is a 2.5 year old CPU, so of course it's perfectly natural to compare it to a top-of-the-line current gen SoC. /s
I admit, yes, the Exynos 5250 beats the crap out of that Atom. I'm more interested in the newer revisions of Atom like the Saltwell cores in the Mefield and Clover Trail (+) platforms. I don't doubt that the Exynos 5250 beats Medfield, but Clover Trail should give it a run for its money. Note the use of the word *should* there. We shall see.
Wilco1 - Thursday, February 28, 2013 - link
Remember all Atoms are effectively 5 years old as they all use the exact same micro architecture... But for the sake of the argument, let's look at the top of the range Clovertrail Z2760 at 1.8GHz and compare with the same Exynos 5250 at 1.7GHz (both dual cores):http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/compare/...
With 4 threads it can almost keep up on integer, but loses badly on floating point and memory performance. So there is no chance that CloverTrail(+) can keep up with quad A15 at 2GHz...
smartypnt4 - Thursday, February 28, 2013 - link
I'm wary of comparing cross-platform benchmarks like that. I don't doubt the Exynos 5250 is faster for a host of different reasons not least of which is the dual-channel DDR3-1600 memory hooked up the only versions of the SoC we've seen so far.My point is this: Intel has been doing this a long time. However, their mobile execution thus far has been distinctly un-Intel. If Valleyview contains some of the same architectural enhancements that the Core i-series did, then I think Valleyview could end up being quite competitive. We'll have to wait and see though.
Also, if the A15 cores have an inferior prefetcher or scheduler to Clover Trail, would that show up in the Geekbanch results for FP and integer performance? Or would it only affect the Stream performance?
Wilco1 - Thursday, February 28, 2013 - link
I don't see your issue with cross platform benchmarking, how can you compare systems otherwise?Prefetching issues should show up in stream and other memory intensive apps which do not fit in L2, so unlikely for integer/FP benchmarks. NVidia claims a 15% speedup on average for Tegra 4i, but that includes a better branch predictor and larger TLBs. No idea how much it will help JavaScript.
Could Valleyview be competitive with A15 in performance? Yes that is possible. However Intel won't have an alternative to big.LITTLE or Tegra's 5th core, and fast OoO cores use more power (Bobcat vs Atom). So we'll see how well it does on a 22nm process.
wsw1982 - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
The Atom is fast than any duo-core A9, and maybe little bit slower to the quad-core A9.http://www.fonearena.com/blog/61522/xolo-x500-benc...
The A7 is less powerful than A9 but use less area.
So, you are right, the Lexington is little bit slower than tegra 4i, but the Lexington is targeting the phone less than 200$. I don't doubt that if the tegra 4i phone will be a good sell if they are below 200$, how much chance do you think that can happen?
As for A15, the only available A15, Samsung E5250, is fast, great, fantasy and power hungry. With 4+w power budget, it no doubt can beat the 2+w ATOM. If Samsung scale it up to 200W, and cooling it with Liquid nitrogen, it could probably beat 17w i7 as well :)
Wilco1 - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
Again your link doesn't prove at all than a Z2420 is any faster than any A9. I showed how you were wrong about Vellamo already.At 2.3GHz a Tegra 4i is obviously much faster than a Z2420, even single threaded, so it will be used in high-end phones as it is the fastest A9 based SoC. As for cost, Tegra 3 was estimated at $22. Intel typically charges far more for Atom, so the reason Atom ends up in low-end devices is not because they are cheap...
It's true the Exynos 5250 uses a lot of power, but it is several times faster than an Atom so completes tasks quicker. Note the new Octa core reduces power consumption to ~1.25W per core at 1.8GHz according to Anand. We'll find out soon how it does in the Galaxy S4.
evonitzer - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
Agreed. This reflexive Atom hate is perplexing. It's a bit of a CPU powerhouse, and glance at the Nexus 4 review charts again if anyone has forgotten.Wilco1 - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
If it is a bit of CPU powerhouse, do you bet on it powering the Galaxy S4? Or any other high-end phone/tablet for that matter? My feeling is that chance is close to zero.The hard fact is that Atom is an old slow in-order microarchitecture that has been lagging in performance since out-of-order A9 and Krait came out. It'll be another year before a new Atom generation will end up in products...
smartypnt4 - Wednesday, February 27, 2013 - link
Yeah, no. That single core Atom wasn't ever destined to power something like the GS4 for a variety of reasons.Clover Trail+ on the other hand, mates 2 Atom cores at 2.0GHz to an SGX544MP2 that I'm sure has been clocked at over 500MHz becahse that's what Intel does. That could power a flagship-level device, and it does: see the Lenovo K900. It won't be a popular flagship, but it's still an important design win for Intel.
Valleyview will be far better though. I'm personally waiting for that since that'll be Intel's first core purpose-designed for phones. The current Medfield parts are adapted from their netbook effort, which was adapted from the Pentium 4 core, and is a bit ridiculous in this day and age.
evonitzer - Wednesday, February 27, 2013 - link
You're talking design wins, which I'd argue has more to do with Intel lacking a single chip LTE solution than the performance of its CPU. Notice this device lacks LTE, which would be unacceptable in a top of the line phone (except the Nexus 4, which is sorta midrange-ish).Still though, not all devices need to be top of the line, so I'd argue a $250 tablet (with low-ish resolution) is a fine place for the Atom chip.
Wilco1 - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
Medfield is only competitive with a single A9 core at a low frequency. And even then it really only looks alright on SunSpider (which is not a CPU benchmark).If you want an idea how far Atom was behind a year ago, check out the Geekbench score of the 1.6GHz Z2460 in the Xolo vs the 1.4GHz Exynos 4 in Galaxy S3:
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/compare/...
Note only does it achieve less than half the overall score, it loses every single threaded integer and floating benchmark except for one - despite its higher clockspeed. So we can safely conclude that an A9 is much faster than Atom, agreed?
Tegra 4 has a Geekbench score of 4285, so at 1.2GHz the Z2420 will be 6.5 times as slow. Using a single in-order core at 1.2GHz in 2013 is just insanity.
smartypnt4 - Wednesday, February 27, 2013 - link
Alright, first of all, please never say something is "6.5 times slower" than something else. There's no good way to interpret what you mean there.Now, I will admit that I was unaware of those benchmark figures. Those benchmarks indicate that a single Atom core is slower than the A9, I admit. The only area where I see a possible disagreement with that assertion is in the Stream benchmarks, which measure Floating point math and sustained memory bandwidth.
In those, a single core Atom CPU with hyper-threading beats the Exynos 4412. Now, the Floating Point benchmarks indicate that a single A9 is slower than an Atom core. So, how do we explain why the Atom is faster, having only 1 hyper-threaded core to the 4412's 4 cores? Simple: sustained memory bandwidth.
Extrapolating from that, I imagine that the browser-based benchmarks that I had most recently looked at are heavily memory-performance bound, which is why the RAZR i does so well in Kraken and Octane. Not having played with a device running an Atom chip, I can't speak to how much that extra memory performance helps the device's "feel" so to speak, but I've not ever seen a reviewer call a device with an Atom chip in it slow.
In essence: I apologize for immediately writing you off without having done my homework. However, the Atom SoC's memory subsystem keeps it on par in some respects with the best-of-the-best Android SoC's. In any case, I had no intention of besmirching your honor, but Atom's poor computational performance is hidden by what I can only imagine is its memory subsystem. I now really want an Atom-based device to see if the individual core's computational performance impacts the performance of my phone in my use case.
And yes, using an in-order core in 2013 is a bit absurd, but that's hidden by the hyper-threading to an extent. Not fully, but it helps. Clover Trail+ gives excellent results from AnTuTu (~27k from what I've heard, which is faster than the S4 Pro based phones). That's not Tegra 4 level, but then again, nothing that's been benchmarked gives anywhere close the T4 levels of performance. Anyway, I'll be interested in two things this year: Intel's Valleyview, which will be OoO and (hopefully) 22nm, and should release for the holiday refresh, and T4's memory performance. The Tegra 3 was hamstrung by its memory controller; I'll be interested to see what NVIDIA did to fix that.
Anyway, sorry for the misunderstanding. Hope the discussion has been as enlightening for you as it has been for me haha.
Wilco1 - Thursday, February 28, 2013 - link
Sorry, what I meant was that the Z2420's score will be about 1/6.5 that of Tegra 4, ie. Tegra 4 is 6.5 times faster in Geekbench.Exynos 4 is indeed slower than the Atom on Stream. This is not a memory bandwidth issue (as it is 20% faster in the memory test), but actually an issue with memory prefetching on current A9's. It is fixed in A9 R4 (Tegra 4i) and in Cortex-A15. For example Exynos 5250 now has twice the stream performance of the fastest available CloverTrail Atom:
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/compare/...
No need to apologize, you're right that Atom has good memory performance. However while having good memory performance is important, that alone isn't enough. A lot of tasks require significant CPU and GPU performance as well. So how it translates to your device depends on how you use it. If you do a lot of browsing I'd say that BrowserMark is more appropriate than SunSpider (read my other post on SunSpider and other JS benchmarks).
Valleyview will be interesting as the claims are up to 2.7GHz quad core (but no HT) on 22nm. However release date now seems Q1 2014 according to leaked slides, so it is a year away. I don't expect Samsung, Qualcomm and NVidia to stand still in the meantime!
smartypnt4 - Thursday, February 28, 2013 - link
I'm the first to admit that more CPU and GPU performance is a good thing (especially GPU). I was just completely unaware that the reason Atom benchmarks so well is due to the prefetcher. I knew A9's had some pretty bad memory issues in certain respects, but I had forgotten where they fell down.I'll be interested to see what tech Valleyview actually contains. If we see Core-i series branch recovery and schedulers, this holiday season (which I believe is still being targeted for the very first products) and next Q1 could get interesting. But you're right; NVIDIA and Qualcomm won't stand still, that's for certain.
I would really love to see a 10W Core i-series chip (any of them) be benchmarked in the same system with the same OS as a Tegra 4, Exynos 5250, or Snapdragon 800. That's what I'm waiting for. But I doubt I'll ever get to see such a report. I still have doubts about comparing Geekbench scores across platforms. I'm not really sure that it's fair to do that given the different OS-level optimizations, etc.
Wilco1 - Thursday, February 28, 2013 - link
It's not just prefetching, Tegra 3 for example suffers due to its single channel memory. Exynos 4 beats it in pretty much every benchmark. Memory controllers are an area where Intel has more expertise, but hopefully NVidia has learnt how to get it right with Tegra 4(i).Note you can already find some benchmarks between the Samsung Chromebook and Ivy-Bridge based Chromebooks.
I'm not sure how you can see cross platform benchmarking as being unfair. Yes there is always a small OS component in each benchmark - even SPEC makes OS calls. It does affect the scores somewhat, but not by a huge percentage. Besides being hard to avoid in general, it's actually a realistic reprentation of the OS overhead. If a particular OS has a higher overhead, then any software will run slower on it, including benchmarks.
Note this is quite different from how JavaScript benchmarks differ even on the same device. If you have doubts about cross platform benchmarking then you understand the issue with JavaScript benchmarking!
evonitzer - Wednesday, February 27, 2013 - link
The Tegra 4 and 4i aren't even out yet! I don't really know much about Geekbench. Does it correlate well with actual performance, or is it purely theoretical? The tests on Anandtech show the Atom in positive light, to this day (except the GPU).Maybe you're right. Maybe it is severely outclassed by top of the line processors, but stick to ones that are at least in devices today. And let's wait for this implementation in this tablet (and the tests when it is released). The
And then, let's remember at the last that this thing is CHEAP!
smartypnt4 - Wednesday, February 27, 2013 - link
Geekbench, when compared on devices with the same OS, gives isolated measures of performance similar to theoretical maximums of throughput. As such, the Atom is on par with an A9, technically speaking, unless you're talking FP performance.The thing is, the memory interface is really that much better. Sunspider has been characterized by AnandTech as being more of a cache test than anything else, so that's why the Atom does so well: it's way faster than most things in the memory access department.
In this tablet, it should do fine.
Wilco1 - Thursday, February 28, 2013 - link
Geekbench is not the best benchmark around, but it is much better than SunSpider. SunSpider is worse than Dhrystone, it consists of several tiny functions of about 10 lines of code. As such it is easy to add optimizations which give a huge speedup on SunSpider but don't improve general JS performance.And because it is JavaScript, what you actually benchmark is not the CPU but the JIT compiler in a particular browser. Different browsers (even versions) show major differences in JS performance. That is particularly true on ARM, where JIT compilers are still improving with each new version (on x86 good JITs are available).
The problem is that Anand appears to report non-optimal JS results, if you Google for it you can usually find much faster results than what he reports - because others use a different browser or download the latest version. So either he should report the fastest result or just stop showing JS benchmarks at all as they are too browser dependent.
evonitzer - Thursday, February 28, 2013 - link
Yes, I've noticed this when comparing my phone to Anand's (or Brian's) results. I'm using CM10, so my results tend to be a lot different. But the same is true on Geekbench, or just about any benchmark, which shows significant variability with different software builds on the same phone.But it's not quite fair to say that you don't test the CPU with JS benchmarks, because how else to explain the differences. It just doesn't correlate as well as the tests suggest. Comparison- My cappy scores about ~2400 ms. Way better than the fascinate he used in the test, but also nowhere near the top of the lists, and I doubt any optimizations will make it faster than the iPhone 5, RAZR i, or Nexus 10.
Do you think all browser benchmarks should be thrown out? Anandtech prefers them because they are better cross platform, but the are always browser dependent to some extent. The RAZR-i does pretty well in browser based benchmarks too (for whatever that is worth).
Wilco1 - Thursday, February 28, 2013 - link
No the same is not true for real CPU benchmarks. These are by definition native code, so you only rely on the compiler used. Typically you standardize to the same GCC version across platforms. If you run Geekbench on multiple Android devices then you actually run the exact same binary, so the only differences are due to CPU performance.Contrast that with JavaScript benchmarks where each device may use different browsers and JIT compilers. Even on the same hardware you can get wildly different results with various browsers. That means JS benchmarks are not CPU benchmarks. A faster CPU should give a better score of course, but only if you use the exact same browser and OS. That means it is very hard to compare JS results cross platform.
For example the Cortex-A15 SunSpider scores reported by Anand are 1384 for Nexus 10 and 690 for the Samsung Chromebook. They both use Exynos 5250 at 1.7GHz and the same browser (Chrome). Even Anand seemed surprised there. Some Googling reveals much faster Nexus 10 scores however:
Dolphin Beta: 693.2ms
AOSP: 794.6ms
Ocean: 835.7ms
Boat: 837.3ms
Firefox: 972.2ms
Firefox Beta: 993.4ms
Dolphin: 1132.7ms
Chrome: 1354.0ms
So there you have it, a factor 2 difference. And Anand only reports the slowest score of them all. The same is true for most other Android phones and tablets - I call that misleading, and I expect better from him.
I'd certainly say get rid of SunSpider as it is worse than Dhrystone. If you must have JS benchmarks use the newer larger ones like Octane and Kraken - just don't expect actual browsing performance to relate to the scores.
To conclude JavaScript benchmarks are NOT CPU benchmarks. My 2.7GHz i5-2500S reports 868ms for SunSpider with IE9 on Win7, does that mean a Nexus 10 will outperform my PC? Or even browse faster?
wsw1982 - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
The different score is basically because the operational system and the CPU throttle.Running the chrome browser on a ATOM netbook with windows xp is much faster than on the same netbook with windows vista. Although they are both chrome, and both on a netbook, the operational system are different.
The Nexus 10 is a tablet, and the Chrome book is a notebook. The E5250 is throttled to different watts, the 1.7ghz is just the maximum frequency it can reach. That's like the the i7 ulv and normal i7, they both have the same tubo speed (2.7ghz), but different throttle/base frequency (1.7ghz vs. 2.3ghz) for different TDP (17w vs 35w)
Do you really think a benchmark can show the different between windows vista and windows xp or the difference between i7 ulv and i7 normal is worse than the one cannot?
Wilco1 - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
No the Nexus 10 is definitely not being throttled. Did you even read my post? How could another browser achieve the same 690ms score as the Chromebook if it was being throttled???And no the OS has little to do with it either. It's the browser and the WebKit version which most browsers use (this does the actual JIT compilation). Just like different devices come with different Android versions, they come with different browser versions as well.
I don't understand your question. My point is that an updated Chrome on the Nexus 10 will be able to achieve the same 690ms score as Chromebook. If you disagree, please explain how other browsers (which use the same WebKit) could possibly achieve the 690 score on Nexus 10.
Kidster3001 - Thursday, March 14, 2013 - link
Sunspider is FAR more dependent on the javascript engine being used than the CPU or anything else. Check any of the newer phones, pull libwebcore.so and see what version of libv8.so is being used. The newer version of v8 wins sunspider almost everytime. If it doesn't then there are further software customizations put in place by the manufacturer to overcome the libv8 deltas. Sunspider has absolutely nothing to do with CPU performance unless both devices are using the same v8 engine. I have seen Sunspider score vary by over 800 msecs on the same phone just by using a different version of the Android browser with an older v8 engine.This is one of the reasons why Mobile Chrome for Android was not good until R25. It had an older version of v8 than the stock Android browser.
wsw1982 - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
Each CPU has it's strong and weakness, especially when you compare CPU from two different architecture. With selective benchmark, you can of course declare whatever you want. How interesting is it?Base on Vellamo benchmark, I could also declare the Z2420 is faster than 1.4GHz Exynos 4 in Galaxy S3.
http://www.fonearena.com/blog/61522/xolo-x500-benc...
Almost on all benchmarks, the z2420 beats the dual-core ARM a9, which is the ARMy chip target the same market segment. And in some benchmark it faster than Quad core A9 or krait.
Wilco1 - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
Selective benchmarking is exactly my issue with Anand's reviews, he doesn't show any CPU benchmarks, and in the JavaScript benchmarks he doesn't show the best scores.You'd be completely wrong if you believe that a Z2420 beats S3 on Vellamo. Anand's benchmark pages show the S3 scoring 2086 which is much higher.
So in which benchmarks does the Z2420 beat any A9? Vellamo is certainly not one of them. And claiming it beats a quad core is totally ridiculous. Hint: most of the benchmarks are single threaded.
It's funny how you talk about selective benchmarking and then make claims like that.
wsw1982 - Monday, March 4, 2013 - link
Read the link again, the website who tested Z2420 did show the Z2420 faster than S3 Exynos 4 on Vellamo, and Tegra 3 in some other benchmarks. And they should be more professional than both of us.Anyway, the comparison between the Z2420 and quad core ARMy (include the declaration that Z2420 faster than Exynos 4 quad) is only to make the selective comparison look funny, absurd and vivid. you did find it funny too, didn't you?
My point is the Z2420 beat dual core A9 on almost any benchmark (single or multi-thread) except the benchmark (Geekbench) you select. And they are the chip for same market segment (quad core arm should be comparing to Z2480/Z2580).
Wilco1 - Monday, March 4, 2013 - link
Why don't you read that webpage you linked again and point out where exactly does it compare Galaxy S3 with the X500? It doesn't even appear at all, so it must be in your imagination. And no, I don't rate fonearena very professional at all, certainly not compared with Anand.Yes, comparing a Z2420 with a modern ARM core is funny as it is so slow indeed. I guess that is exactly why fonearena avoided comparing it with Galaxy S3 and similar high-end phones.
Geekbench shows the same results as other benchmarks. A Galaxy S3 beats a Z2420 on any of the benchmarks in your link. Just search for the S3 scores and you'll see for yourself. I already posted the S3 Vellamo score.
Kidster3001 - Thursday, March 14, 2013 - link
There are very few real "CPU benchmarks" for Android. Most of them are Dalvik benchmarks. If the benchmark is not compiled for native execution using the NDK then it is only testing the efficiency of the Dalvik VM, not the CPU, this is a huge difference. Not very many do, a couple benchmarks I know of that use native code are AnTuTu and AndEBench.Kidster3001 - Thursday, March 14, 2013 - link
Vellamo HTML5 tests are just testing the browser and javascript engines. The v8 engine in the Razr i is very good.p.s. The metal tests in Vellamo are poorly compiled. They must be using generic flags.
RU482 - Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - link
I'd buy one in a heartbeat if it was a Windows 8 (or blue for that matter) phone instead of android.In fact, i'd really dig it if the phone was a 3.7" screen like my Samsung Focus Flash, with the ability to dock to say an 8.9-9.7" screen dock/tablet.
uhuznaa - Wednesday, February 27, 2013 - link
At $249 for a 3G-enabled 7" tablet with a 1280x800 IPS screen and a SD slot this thing will sell well enough. The fact that you also can use it as a phone if you want is just something like a free option thrown in.What I'm missing here is a solid well-integrated kickstand (like the MS Surface has), loud and clear front-facing speakers, and an array of good noise-cancelling mics. In fact I'm wondering how Asus could miss this. The bezels are huge enough to offer room for good speakers and a kickstand in the back cover isn't magic anyway. If you could easily use this thing as a hands-free phone propped up at a desk this would go a long way to avoid the "you look like a moron with a tablet pressed to your face" comments.
People use Skype and similar apps/services quite a lot on tablets and laptops and nobody offers comments about how silly it looks to press a laptop to your head. Ironically one of the weakest points of the Nexus 7 in this regard is its extremely poor speaker on the bottom and I guess the Fonepad won't be any better.
I would really like someone to come up with such a pad that actually has some thought and development applied to it and not just features thrown in. A pen-like BT headset that you can slot into the device for charging and that has a clip for wearing it in a shirt pocket or so would also go a long way to make such a pad actually usable as a phone.
RoninX - Saturday, March 2, 2013 - link
I agree that a pen-like BT headset would be the way to go. I vaguely remember that someone already developed an accessory like this, and it might have been ASUS...babis - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
I am very happy with my last purchase and mean the fonepad. Is terrific device and all the applications that I was using are working without problems.I think that Intel atom runs smoother that arm chips. Maybe is the hyper threading that makes it. In general I have that feeling.
The only problem that I encountered is with the Skype. It is working for making video chat and all other operations but It blocks the phone dialer after Skype installation.
its a fantastic machine and the only problem is with Skype that blocks the dialer
When I am dialing to the dialer the number that I want to call and hit the "green phone" button to call the number a pop up comes on and I can choose my cellular line and I can make the call.
have a look to that image (before installing skype):
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/716/5kgx.png/
After installing skype that option disappears and I can not make a cellular call.
It pop up a window to choose skype or android voip service.
have a look to that image (after installing skype):
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/812/b9hm.png/
That renders the capability to call thought my mobile number useless.
Before installing skype everything works as it should be. It reacts as is a tablet and not a mobile phone with a real sim card. And I think this is the problem. Installs the tablet version and not the phone version.
I am waiting from a reply ROM Skype but they always are so late at their reply.