You can also navigate to this hyperlink with Purch advertising link at the bottom of the website. I'm tired of the ads pushing the Pipeline further down the page everyday, ads taking over my screen (especially on mobile), header ad being larger than the Anandtech header, and etc. I understand that ads pay for the site and I am not against ads. Anand did a great job managing the site in this aspect when he owned it - it lent more credibility to the site. Today there's a notebook review ad for Tom's hardware.
I've been reading since 2007. This is the only site I have a login to comment with. I don't to see this site go to crap. I'm not leaving today, but I can see that be a possibility down the road if this management style continues.
Anandtech was probably the first website I whitelisted from Adblock when I started using it. I try to whitelist any website I get any content on at all really as long as their ads aren't ridiculously obtrusive.
Full page ads that can trigger when you accidentally click on white space of an ad that hasn't completely displayed can be really disruptive, though :/
I really wish vendors would take this 40% perf/power gains and stick with QHD at best. We really don't need 4K smartphone displays. The stupid spec wars is absolutely hurting consumers, and I really hope journalists can pressure them to not go for 4K in a *phone*
We certainly don't need 4K screens in phones, but being able to output 4K over MHL / USB-C is a nice feature to have.
I'd also be interested to see a 12-13" 4K tablet, particularly if it supported a pressure-sensitive stylus. Given how light 10" tablets are now (the Xperia Z4 tablet is under 400 grams) a 12 or even 13" tablet might only weigh as much as my old retina iPad.
4k is definitely used in VR. You have to remember with VR the display is split in two. So if you have a 1080p display, then each eye will have a resolution of 960x1080, which is very pixelated. Whereas a 4k display the resolution per eye is 1920x2160 per eye.
We don't even need 1440p in a smartphone, it pisses me off that I'm stuck wasting 20-40% more battery because of a marketing spec. I want a 5.3" phone with a 1080p screen and a huge battery and good camera.
I disabled ABP just to see what you are talking about, and holy cow! I would never tolerate these kind of ads no matter what kind of information was posted here. The respect I have for the site is getting lost among my other good memories of the Y2K era.
By not blocking these ads, you supporting the ads, not the writers. Anandtech needs to consider a subscription model or be prepared to lose their readership to a site that can deliver more pertinent information in an easier to navigate format with fewer distractions.
Yeah, on installing Windows 10 the other day I thought I would try out the Edge browser since I had heard some good things about it. Casually browsed to Anandtech and was greeted by some of the most absolutely ridiculous and disruptive ads I have seen. I have been coming to Anandtech since around 2001 but I would certainly not be visiting anymore if it was not for adblock.
I stopped reading Escapist Magazine's website when they started filling a large portion of the screen with ads, I might have to do the same here. All of these sponsored stories that are not labelled as such are distracting as well.
Sponsored stories are marked as such in the title of the post. Yes there was that one a couple of months back that wasn't immediately labelled as such but it was adjusted and our internal policy is stricter.
Content like this is as a result of our writing team and the editor, if s/he feels it is worth sharing and bringing the news to the readers as well as being relevant.
I think Anandtech did and still does a really good job with the sponsored stories overall. I do wish there was an alternative to the full page ads that cover every single bit of non-writing space that could be clicked though :(
Yup, I've recently blacklisted AnandTech ... the ads increased the data / page by 300-500%, and load times were commensurately longer as well. I'm happy to support a great site but AT is simply abusing its readers.
Might I suggest the browser extension uBlock Origin. Works on most modern desktop browsers and also on Mobile Firefox. The internet as a whole is starting to get out of hand with tracking cookies, targeted ads, retargeting, etc. This extension will allow you to browse like it's 2005 again
"Tom's hardware"... A site I used to visit every night for more than 10 years. They have the most obtrusive ads out of all the tech sites, the in-your-face kind of ads, but I put up with them (not that I had a choice on my mobile iDevices) UNTIL they wrote an article talking about using Adblock is stealing. Lmao... That was about 2 months ago. I immediately deleted their bookmarks on all of my devices and never came back. I hope AT understands that most of readers like myself want to support the sites we visit because we want these sites to stay alive but if we get more craps than materials that we like to see, we will defend ourselves. Because some ad can be very malicious, I'd rather pay for subscription than risk having malwares.
"I hope AT understands that most of readers like myself want to support the sites we visit because we want these sites to stay alive but if we get more craps than materials that we like to see, we will defend ourselves."
Forcing us to use 400% more data bandwidth for ads than actual information is STEALING FROM US. We're paying for the bandwidth. It also steals our time from us - forcing us to wait a much longer time before we can read the web page. That is why people resort to using ad blockers.
Would be nice if the power claim would be clearer. Most of the press and the avg Joe seems to assume peak total power is 40% lower but chances are they are talking power per perf so peak stays flatish. And the 40% claim is "up to" so we'll see. If you factor in for how long the 430 can sustain advertised clocks and that some phones are going 4k, it would be hard to claim that 40% perf gain is impressive, if anything, it's not sufficient at all. Not that others are likely to do better and that's a bit of a problem. Then again, almost nobody tests actual games so people are clueless about what they need from the GPU. Was more curious about the 510 since we assume it's on 28nm and it's a bit unclear how far they can push.
That's what some people said about 720p ,then 1080p and 1440p and they'll keep saying it.More is almost always better ,the debatable part is how much better. It also means lower res would become cheaper- that's a huge plus. Today 1080p screens are well bellow 20$, soon enough 1440p will get there if high end goes 4k. In glasses we need higher density so that's another huge plus of the res race in phones. Later on stretchable screens would also benefit from very high pixel density when at min size. So let them race. It's much better than in laptops and tabs where they just stopped, because someone came up with the idea that it's "not needed".
Oh come on. I can, sort of, understand the "economical" aspect of your argument; that lower res panels get cheaper, but there's definitely a point of diminishing returns on screens that "small". 720p to 1080p does NOT have the same visual difference as 1080p to 1440p (or above).
Those who swear by 1440p AMOLED on the GS6 simply say so because Sammy's been using a Pentile matrix for their panels. If their 1080p AMOLED panels had been RGB matrix with similar panel qualities in brightness and color accuracy, then I'd challenge you to tell the difference. No one has seen a GOOD ~5" S-AMOLED 1080p panel with an RGB matrix before, so there's no point of reference for comparison with the current 1440p panel on the GS6.
It's becoming close to impossible to build the perfectly balanced device with all the market demand for "features", specs and other unneeded BS. OEMs are left trying to build their devices to withstand all that pressure instead of focusing on what truly matters. This Snapdragon, as impressive as it sounds, would absolutely SHINE on a device running a GREAT ~5" 1080p panel, top-of-the-line camera sensor, HiFi DAC, UFS, Type-C, and a 3000mah battery. But sadly, these chips are pushed to the extreme limits for no apparent virtue, leaving companies like Qualcomm and Samsung LSI innovating and trying to solve problems that shouldn't even occur in the first place.
Sounds like you just want a 150$ device with a fast SoC and that might be doable next year if anyone makes a compact 20$ SoC with dual A72 + some A53s on 16ff. Others might want higher res screen, LTE cat 145_millions_nobody_cares, 18.52GB of RAM, 26MP front cam , fingeprint sensor, hiccup counter and an imaginary integrated jetpack plus a GPU that can push 240FPS on a screen that can't go above 60. When it comes to it lots of things can be considered over-the-top. But you also need to keep some kind of balance when you oppose better specs. Sometimes maybe the problem is you and being a bit more open minded is preferable. I will insist that people don't need good audio hardware for stupid 320kbps or less streams, if the source is poor, decent hardware is more than enough. If you listen to flac then it makes sense but for mp3 it's just pointless. On the GPU side folks would need to push anyway no matter the res. Photo realism is not even close so there is no good enough in sight. I don't consider Pentile to be the advertise res. A pixel should be RggB (2 small green ones) not just faked out of 2 subpixels and that would mean the screen is actually half the advertised pixels and bellow 1080p real res while the faked pixels do help a bit to simulate a higher res.
PS: wish Anandtech would look at the Meizu M2 Note, seems like the screen is pretty good especially for budget - under 130$ with a 5.5 inch 1080p Sharp IZGO that appears to have decent calibration. Next year if we had a cheap and fast SoC such phones could be awesome.
"Photo realism is not even close so there is no good enough in sight."
The point is not that no-one wants photo-realism, or video-realism, it's that there are sensible tradeoffs and there are stupid tradeoffs. Ine the space of video, right now what's needed to improve video (on anything smaller than 30" or so) is a higher frame rate for the source content, not a higher number of pixels. In the space of photos, what's needed is a wider color gamut (perhaps achieved through the addition of one, and perhaps as many three, extra "base phosphors") and an increase to either 12 bit nonlinear pixel values (tricky to manipulate) or 16 bit linear pixel values.
Essentially you're like a guy listening to audio at 8b/sample, sampled at 96kSamples/sec, and you're urging that to improve the sound what is needed is to sample at 128kSamples/sec,. Uh, no; what is needed is more accurate samples, not lousy samples acquired at an even higher rate.
"In the space of video, right now what's needed to improve video is a higher frame rate for the source content, not a higher number of pixels. In the space of photos, what's needed is a wider color gamut"
+1 That would be a good start. Most OEMs and content providers nowadays are offloading all their work to engineers that design cheap, generic and profitable parts, and are building their products around them (yet ironically mostly aren't profitable overall). This is a huge problem in today's electronics industry where only "market leaders", part manufacturers, and Chinese OEMs can get away with a profit. There's little to no interest in genuine, affordable, and mainstream quality simply for the lack of "demand". Consumers have no clue what they actually *need*.
Consumers got a clue when when Apple said that thinner, nicer phones are needed. They also got a clue when Samsung said that larger screens are needed. Those were genuine, non-artificial features that consumers now demand and can't live without. Everyone can live without a 5" 4K display, and everyone can live without VR.
What's even more saddening is the lost opportunity for other companies like Microsoft in the time gap between now and the next big feature to be introduced by either Apple or Samsung's Android (sorry Google). They are so late to the party it's sickening. Windows 10 Mobile could very well be what truly enables devices to strike the "perfect balance", featuring the best of what Android and iOS provides... I just hope they arrive there before it's too late.
"Sounds like you just want a 150$ device with a fast SoC"
No. I want a smartphones that pushes the limits in what matters in daily use and a bit of crazy fun. Again, I believe this is the route OEMs should focus more on:
- 5.x", 120hz, 1080p AMOLED screen with perfect color calibration and great brightness. - Capacitive touch with <= 1ms delay. - Better audio. I believe there are more people interested in FLAC than there are in VR, yet they still need to buy a separate device for their audio needs. - Better imaging sensors, processors and software. - Better battery tech, or better device layout engineering to fit a larger battery. - A powerful SoC that can SUSTAIN all of that as EFFICIENTLY as possible. One that doesn't have to throttle in a minute pushing a gazillion pixels and running unoptimized software plagued with tons of lazy programmer overhead.
These parts, and the software running all that is NOT cheap. If you're going to sell me a $700 smartphone, then you need to do the work to make it worth every $$$. I'm not saying that off-the-shelve parts are bad by any means, but an OEM needs to choose the "right" parts to put together if they're no going to design their own.
Samsung had a vision in vertical integration in the past, but they seem to be more of a follower now, and more interested in producing parts that can be sold to other OEMs as well. Apple is the only company left doing things in a relatively more balanced and vertically integrated manner, but even their trade-offs aren't optimal (too thin too soon, and unnecessarily black boxed).
Good luck with that. Apple has the tightest tuned stack in the industry. Prior to iOS9 they were four 60Hz frames from touch to visual. In iOS9 they have cleaned this up a lot and they're at 2 frames from touch to visual. The iPad Air 2 (and presumably the forthcoming 2015 iOS devices) have a hardware first to double-rate touch sampling, ie touch-sampling at 120fps, and that allows the Air2 on iOS9 to get from touch to visual in 1.5 60 Hz frames.
My point is: it is a reasonable idea to say "I want more responsive touch". But to insist on certain technical parameters when you actually have no idea what realistic values are makes you look like a crazy person and diminishes the strength of your request.
You're saying the best value for touch delay we have is with iOS9 at 33.33 ms? That's not a lot. I don't think it's even noticeable. I've never owned budget phones, so I've no clue how bad it is on cheap Android devices.
Lumia phones have more delay? What about the Surface pen input? I heard Microsoft is all about improving that touch delay on their hardware
33ms on older devices, 24ms on Air2 and higher. It sounds like a lot, but the fundamental processing cycle in your brain is of order 40ms (very vaguely speaking, obviously there are subsystems that can twitch quite a bit faster, but that's the order of magnitude). Vast amounts of what you think are happening at a faster rate than that are being interpolated by your brain. So it's an illusion that works, just like video is an illusion that works.
I can't say I've ever felt there was too much lag hardware-wise on a device with a capacitive touchscreen, going right back to my original iPhone, in 2007, which must have been the first device I owned with a capacitive touch panel. Other issues (phantom touches, missing touches, poor response dependent upon humidity and temperature, etc) are very common so there are definite (and I would argue more important) improvements to be made to the technology. Of course, there can be inconsistencies if the CPU/GPUs can't action the necessary screen redraws quickly enough, but I think that's a separate issue - I can't imagine changing to a touch panel that reads out at 120Hz alone, for example, is going to benefit most users in any notable fashion?
"That's what some people said about 720p ,then 1080p and 1440p and they'll keep saying it."
And I, along with many other people, would argue that since 1080p they've been right. There's really no need for anything greater than 1080p on ~5" smartphone. That's already over 450 ppi, which is well above the visual acuity of most people. I totally agree that resolutions and pixel density still need to advance for other purposes such as VR, but as far as smart phones go the race is over. I think the sooner certain Android smartphone makers (Samsung) realize this, the better.
And errr, the resolution race hasn't stopped in laptops. In fact outside smartphones laptops were the first devices, along with tablets, to have higher ppi displays. Desktop displays are what have really lagged behind the rest of the industry, but even that is beginning to catch up.
It's called "Kryo" for a reason. And the reason is this: it's a desperate appeal to superstition, because engineering couldn't deliver. Thing's gonna go up like a bonfire. :-)
What I would love to see are hard performance per watt figures and estimated power consumption at a given clockspeed.
I'm doubtful we'll see that. Right now this is mostly marketing, although the specs are interesting. I wonder if the Kryo cores will do well vs the A72.
One of my worries is that Joel Hruska's article on "Qualcomm will lay off 15% of its workforce, succumbs to cult of ‘shareholder value’ "is indeed correct. Brandon, do you have any comments here?
Very disappointed if the SD820 really won't release until 2016. Just what will the 2015 Nexus 6 have? There just isn't a good SoC available. SD810 sucks, SD808 is merely a compromise. Tegra X-1 is too power hungry. Exynos probably won't sell to non Samsung devices TI is dead Intel is, well Intel. Mediatek doesn't have anything super high end (they have Helio X20, but it uses DDR3) Rockchip is lower end. Maybe SD620? But that's rumoured for the 2015 N5.... While the SD620 has a good CPU, it doesn't have the GPU for 2560*1440 :(
"Exynos probably won't sell to non Samsung devices" Actually, they are. Meizu is not a customer.
"Tegra X-1 is too power hungry" Don't give up on them just yet. They're still at 28nm... They might be featured in lots of Windows 10 Mobile tablets (and probably smartphones) in the future with 14/16nm SoCs with great GPUs. They have a very good advantage in Windows because of DX12. We should see the fruits of this in a couple of years.
The Tegra-X1 is 20nm. I know Nvidia has never done well in phones. They try to make the GPU too beefy, so they can boast in benchmarks, when in reality, the SoCs aren't in the same power envelope.
As much as I like Nvidia, they're do some stupid things. Literally every year they compare against a 6 month old Apple Ax chip that is designed for phones/tablets. Yes Nvidia, your device is faster than an old chip that consumes half the power. Well done.....
I really wish Nvidia would try to get in to the phone/tablet market again.... It's telling that despite how awful Qualcomm has been this year, they're still shipping in a lot of phones..... A few years ago, a mistake like this would have meant lots of OEMs shipping with alternatives like TI/Nvidia
Have nV given up on Denver? That web page http://www.nvidia.com/page/products.html is quite something. A perfect example of how to destroy your company by trying to do a hundred things badly rather than concentrating on doing one thing well. And in all the hype (every processor page, whether it's X1, K1 or Tegra 4 is the greatest, most advanced, bestest smartest prettiest SoC in the history of humanity) nothing that I can see about Denver.
Way to go in supporting your own core, nV! How can you be surprised that no-one else is interested in using it when you apparently have no interest in promoting it?
What I am interested in, is what Intel does in mobile with its new 3D Xpoint memory. There have been some rumours that they will produce an SOC with eDRAM and 3D Xpoint, which will allow significant power savings when the device is sleeping due to the non-volatile nature of the 3D Xpoint.
"The performance figures released by Qualcomm describe Adreno 530 as being 40% faster than Adreno 420 on average, while also consuming 40% less power. This result is described as an average of "the top graphics benchmarks", and while it's still generally a good idea to take vendor provided numbers with a grain of salt, if the power and performance gains over Adreno 420 are anywhere in the ballpark of Qualcomm's 40% figure then Adreno 530 should end up being quite impressive."
I don't understand why someone would suggest that this is sponsored content...it clearly isn't. I found the article to be useful and informative. It's a preview of things to come with the Snapdragon 820 GPU. On a side note: too bad we'll never see something like this in the raspberry pi ;)
They fail to mention that when this processor is in an actual device you get the numbers they claim for a few seconds at best before it hits a thermal ceiling and throttles to nothing. They need to work on the heat output of these SoCs, or, horrors of horrors they make phones a couple millimetres thicker and strap a hunk of copper to the SoC...
I don't understand why someone would suggest that this is sponsored content...it clearly isn't. I found the article to be useful and informative. It's a preview of things to come with the Snapdragon 820 GPU http://howtorootandroid.net/how-to-root-gionee-m2-...
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lilmoe - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Are those architectural performance and efficiency gains or simply from moving to the 14nm process node.....?eanazag - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
I'm tired of the advertising taking over Anandtech.Please let Purch advertising know. I just did with the contact Purch advertising below.
http://purch.com/advertise/#contact-advertising
You can also navigate to this hyperlink with Purch advertising link at the bottom of the website. I'm tired of the ads pushing the Pipeline further down the page everyday, ads taking over my screen (especially on mobile), header ad being larger than the Anandtech header, and etc. I understand that ads pay for the site and I am not against ads. Anand did a great job managing the site in this aspect when he owned it - it lent more credibility to the site. Today there's a notebook review ad for Tom's hardware.
I've been reading since 2007. This is the only site I have a login to comment with. I don't to see this site go to crap. I'm not leaving today, but I can see that be a possibility down the road if this management style continues.
CCrunnernb - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
The ads are getting ridiculous.Drumsticks - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Anandtech was probably the first website I whitelisted from Adblock when I started using it. I try to whitelist any website I get any content on at all really as long as their ads aren't ridiculously obtrusive.Full page ads that can trigger when you accidentally click on white space of an ad that hasn't completely displayed can be really disruptive, though :/
I really wish vendors would take this 40% perf/power gains and stick with QHD at best. We really don't need 4K smartphone displays. The stupid spec wars is absolutely hurting consumers, and I really hope journalists can pressure them to not go for 4K in a *phone*
PixyMisa - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
We certainly don't need 4K screens in phones, but being able to output 4K over MHL / USB-C is a nice feature to have.I'd also be interested to see a 12-13" 4K tablet, particularly if it supported a pressure-sensitive stylus. Given how light 10" tablets are now (the Xperia Z4 tablet is under 400 grams) a 12 or even 13" tablet might only weigh as much as my old retina iPad.
htcfan - Wednesday, December 30, 2015 - link
4k is definitely used in VR. You have to remember with VR the display is split in two. So if you have a 1080p display, then each eye will have a resolution of 960x1080, which is very pixelated. Whereas a 4k display the resolution per eye is 1920x2160 per eye.shadarlo - Monday, August 17, 2015 - link
We don't even need 1440p in a smartphone, it pisses me off that I'm stuck wasting 20-40% more battery because of a marketing spec. I want a 5.3" phone with a 1080p screen and a huge battery and good camera.alyarb - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
I disabled ABP just to see what you are talking about, and holy cow! I would never tolerate these kind of ads no matter what kind of information was posted here. The respect I have for the site is getting lost among my other good memories of the Y2K era.By not blocking these ads, you supporting the ads, not the writers. Anandtech needs to consider a subscription model or be prepared to lose their readership to a site that can deliver more pertinent information in an easier to navigate format with fewer distractions.
ERJ - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Yeah, on installing Windows 10 the other day I thought I would try out the Edge browser since I had heard some good things about it. Casually browsed to Anandtech and was greeted by some of the most absolutely ridiculous and disruptive ads I have seen. I have been coming to Anandtech since around 2001 but I would certainly not be visiting anymore if it was not for adblock.ddriver - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
What ads? I see no ads. FF + uBlock here...ddriver - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
OMFG just saw the site without adblocker... this is criminal...Flunk - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
I stopped reading Escapist Magazine's website when they started filling a large portion of the screen with ads, I might have to do the same here. All of these sponsored stories that are not labelled as such are distracting as well.Ian Cutress - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Sponsored stories are marked as such in the title of the post. Yes there was that one a couple of months back that wasn't immediately labelled as such but it was adjusted and our internal policy is stricter.Content like this is as a result of our writing team and the editor, if s/he feels it is worth sharing and bringing the news to the readers as well as being relevant.
dali71 - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
We understand the sponsored stories, but do you have anything to say about the intrusive ads?Drumsticks - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
I think Anandtech did and still does a really good job with the sponsored stories overall. I do wish there was an alternative to the full page ads that cover every single bit of non-writing space that could be clicked though :(Gunbuster - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Wow, "demand snapdragon", underwear, and a driver updater app. Way to stay classy AT.johnnycanadian - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Yup, I've recently blacklisted AnandTech ... the ads increased the data / page by 300-500%, and load times were commensurately longer as well. I'm happy to support a great site but AT is simply abusing its readers.Cellar Door - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
Sadly they sold out, Anand made his money and sold the site. Now guys like Ryan don't have a say - he is just an employee at Purch.caleblloyd - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Might I suggest the browser extension uBlock Origin. Works on most modern desktop browsers and also on Mobile Firefox. The internet as a whole is starting to get out of hand with tracking cookies, targeted ads, retargeting, etc. This extension will allow you to browse like it's 2005 againRaistlinZ - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
2005? I'd rather browse like it was 1998 again. Totally unregulated. =)Maxpower2727 - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Your comment makes me glad that I exclusively use the mobile site. I have no such issues whatsoever.sonny73n - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
"Tom's hardware"... A site I used to visit every night for more than 10 years. They have the most obtrusive ads out of all the tech sites, the in-your-face kind of ads, but I put up with them (not that I had a choice on my mobile iDevices) UNTIL they wrote an article talking about using Adblock is stealing. Lmao... That was about 2 months ago. I immediately deleted their bookmarks on all of my devices and never came back.I hope AT understands that most of readers like myself want to support the sites we visit because we want these sites to stay alive but if we get more craps than materials that we like to see, we will defend ourselves. Because some ad can be very malicious, I'd rather pay for subscription than risk having malwares.
Ryan Smith - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
"I hope AT understands that most of readers like myself want to support the sites we visit because we want these sites to stay alive but if we get more craps than materials that we like to see, we will defend ourselves."Indeed we do.
jameskatt - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
Forcing us to use 400% more data bandwidth for ads than actual information is STEALING FROM US. We're paying for the bandwidth. It also steals our time from us - forcing us to wait a much longer time before we can read the web page. That is why people resort to using ad blockers.Brandon Chester - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Most likely a combination of both. It's really hard to say based on the amount of info provided.SpartyOn - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
I'd gladly pay $5 a month for an Anandtech subscription without ads. Just my $0.02.$5 is the max I would pay though, since this is an online site and I wouldn't be receiving a physical copy of anything.
jjj - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Would be nice if the power claim would be clearer. Most of the press and the avg Joe seems to assume peak total power is 40% lower but chances are they are talking power per perf so peak stays flatish. And the 40% claim is "up to" so we'll see.If you factor in for how long the 430 can sustain advertised clocks and that some phones are going 4k, it would be hard to claim that 40% perf gain is impressive, if anything, it's not sufficient at all. Not that others are likely to do better and that's a bit of a problem. Then again, almost nobody tests actual games so people are clueless about what they need from the GPU.
Was more curious about the 510 since we assume it's on 28nm and it's a bit unclear how far they can push.
lilmoe - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
"some phones are going 4k"Totally not needed. I get agitated every time it's mentioned.
jjj - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
That's what some people said about 720p ,then 1080p and 1440p and they'll keep saying it.More is almost always better ,the debatable part is how much better. It also means lower res would become cheaper- that's a huge plus. Today 1080p screens are well bellow 20$, soon enough 1440p will get there if high end goes 4k. In glasses we need higher density so that's another huge plus of the res race in phones. Later on stretchable screens would also benefit from very high pixel density when at min size. So let them race. It's much better than in laptops and tabs where they just stopped, because someone came up with the idea that it's "not needed".lilmoe - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
"More is almost always better"Oh come on. I can, sort of, understand the "economical" aspect of your argument; that lower res panels get cheaper, but there's definitely a point of diminishing returns on screens that "small". 720p to 1080p does NOT have the same visual difference as 1080p to 1440p (or above).
Those who swear by 1440p AMOLED on the GS6 simply say so because Sammy's been using a Pentile matrix for their panels. If their 1080p AMOLED panels had been RGB matrix with similar panel qualities in brightness and color accuracy, then I'd challenge you to tell the difference. No one has seen a GOOD ~5" S-AMOLED 1080p panel with an RGB matrix before, so there's no point of reference for comparison with the current 1440p panel on the GS6.
It's becoming close to impossible to build the perfectly balanced device with all the market demand for "features", specs and other unneeded BS. OEMs are left trying to build their devices to withstand all that pressure instead of focusing on what truly matters. This Snapdragon, as impressive as it sounds, would absolutely SHINE on a device running a GREAT ~5" 1080p panel, top-of-the-line camera sensor, HiFi DAC, UFS, Type-C, and a 3000mah battery. But sadly, these chips are pushed to the extreme limits for no apparent virtue, leaving companies like Qualcomm and Samsung LSI innovating and trying to solve problems that shouldn't even occur in the first place.
jjj - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Sounds like you just want a 150$ device with a fast SoC and that might be doable next year if anyone makes a compact 20$ SoC with dual A72 + some A53s on 16ff. Others might want higher res screen, LTE cat 145_millions_nobody_cares, 18.52GB of RAM, 26MP front cam , fingeprint sensor, hiccup counter and an imaginary integrated jetpack plus a GPU that can push 240FPS on a screen that can't go above 60. When it comes to it lots of things can be considered over-the-top. But you also need to keep some kind of balance when you oppose better specs. Sometimes maybe the problem is you and being a bit more open minded is preferable.I will insist that people don't need good audio hardware for stupid 320kbps or less streams, if the source is poor, decent hardware is more than enough. If you listen to flac then it makes sense but for mp3 it's just pointless.
On the GPU side folks would need to push anyway no matter the res. Photo realism is not even close so there is no good enough in sight.
I don't consider Pentile to be the advertise res. A pixel should be RggB (2 small green ones) not just faked out of 2 subpixels and that would mean the screen is actually half the advertised pixels and bellow 1080p real res while the faked pixels do help a bit to simulate a higher res.
PS: wish Anandtech would look at the Meizu M2 Note, seems like the screen is pretty good especially for budget - under 130$ with a 5.5 inch 1080p Sharp IZGO that appears to have decent calibration. Next year if we had a cheap and fast SoC such phones could be awesome.
name99 - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
"Photo realism is not even close so there is no good enough in sight."The point is not that no-one wants photo-realism, or video-realism, it's that there are sensible tradeoffs and there are stupid tradeoffs.
Ine the space of video, right now what's needed to improve video (on anything smaller than 30" or so) is a higher frame rate for the source content, not a higher number of pixels.
In the space of photos, what's needed is a wider color gamut (perhaps achieved through the addition of one, and perhaps as many three, extra "base phosphors") and an increase to either 12 bit nonlinear pixel values (tricky to manipulate) or 16 bit linear pixel values.
Essentially you're like a guy listening to audio at 8b/sample, sampled at 96kSamples/sec, and you're urging that to improve the sound what is needed is to sample at 128kSamples/sec,. Uh, no; what is needed is more accurate samples, not lousy samples acquired at an even higher rate.
lilmoe - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
"In the space of video, right now what's needed to improve video is a higher frame rate for the source content, not a higher number of pixels. In the space of photos, what's needed is a wider color gamut"+1
That would be a good start. Most OEMs and content providers nowadays are offloading all their work to engineers that design cheap, generic and profitable parts, and are building their products around them (yet ironically mostly aren't profitable overall). This is a huge problem in today's electronics industry where only "market leaders", part manufacturers, and Chinese OEMs can get away with a profit. There's little to no interest in genuine, affordable, and mainstream quality simply for the lack of "demand". Consumers have no clue what they actually *need*.
Consumers got a clue when when Apple said that thinner, nicer phones are needed. They also got a clue when Samsung said that larger screens are needed. Those were genuine, non-artificial features that consumers now demand and can't live without. Everyone can live without a 5" 4K display, and everyone can live without VR.
What's even more saddening is the lost opportunity for other companies like Microsoft in the time gap between now and the next big feature to be introduced by either Apple or Samsung's Android (sorry Google). They are so late to the party it's sickening. Windows 10 Mobile could very well be what truly enables devices to strike the "perfect balance", featuring the best of what Android and iOS provides... I just hope they arrive there before it's too late.
lilmoe - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
"Sounds like you just want a 150$ device with a fast SoC"No. I want a smartphones that pushes the limits in what matters in daily use and a bit of crazy fun. Again, I believe this is the route OEMs should focus more on:
- 5.x", 120hz, 1080p AMOLED screen with perfect color calibration and great brightness.
- Capacitive touch with <= 1ms delay.
- Better audio. I believe there are more people interested in FLAC than there are in VR, yet they still need to buy a separate device for their audio needs.
- Better imaging sensors, processors and software.
- Better battery tech, or better device layout engineering to fit a larger battery.
- A powerful SoC that can SUSTAIN all of that as EFFICIENTLY as possible. One that doesn't have to throttle in a minute pushing a gazillion pixels and running unoptimized software plagued with tons of lazy programmer overhead.
These parts, and the software running all that is NOT cheap. If you're going to sell me a $700 smartphone, then you need to do the work to make it worth every $$$. I'm not saying that off-the-shelve parts are bad by any means, but an OEM needs to choose the "right" parts to put together if they're no going to design their own.
Samsung had a vision in vertical integration in the past, but they seem to be more of a follower now, and more interested in producing parts that can be sold to other OEMs as well. Apple is the only company left doing things in a relatively more balanced and vertically integrated manner, but even their trade-offs aren't optimal (too thin too soon, and unnecessarily black boxed).
name99 - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
"Capacitive touch with <= 1ms delay"Good luck with that.
Apple has the tightest tuned stack in the industry. Prior to iOS9 they were four 60Hz frames from touch to visual. In iOS9 they have cleaned this up a lot and they're at 2 frames from touch to visual. The iPad Air 2 (and presumably the forthcoming 2015 iOS devices) have a hardware first to double-rate touch sampling, ie touch-sampling at 120fps, and that allows the Air2 on iOS9 to get from touch to visual in 1.5 60 Hz frames.
My point is: it is a reasonable idea to say "I want more responsive touch". But to insist on certain technical parameters when you actually have no idea what realistic values are makes you look like a crazy person and diminishes the strength of your request.
lilmoe - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
"But to insist on certain technical parameters".I wasn't. It was an exaggeration. Sorry if I had offended you.
kspirit - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
You're saying the best value for touch delay we have is with iOS9 at 33.33 ms? That's not a lot. I don't think it's even noticeable. I've never owned budget phones, so I've no clue how bad it is on cheap Android devices.Lumia phones have more delay? What about the Surface pen input? I heard Microsoft is all about improving that touch delay on their hardware
name99 - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
33ms on older devices, 24ms on Air2 and higher.It sounds like a lot, but the fundamental processing cycle in your brain is of order 40ms (very vaguely speaking, obviously there are subsystems that can twitch quite a bit faster, but that's the order of magnitude). Vast amounts of what you think are happening at a faster rate than that are being interpolated by your brain. So it's an illusion that works, just like video is an illusion that works.
Azurael - Wednesday, August 19, 2015 - link
I can't say I've ever felt there was too much lag hardware-wise on a device with a capacitive touchscreen, going right back to my original iPhone, in 2007, which must have been the first device I owned with a capacitive touch panel. Other issues (phantom touches, missing touches, poor response dependent upon humidity and temperature, etc) are very common so there are definite (and I would argue more important) improvements to be made to the technology. Of course, there can be inconsistencies if the CPU/GPUs can't action the necessary screen redraws quickly enough, but I think that's a separate issue - I can't imagine changing to a touch panel that reads out at 120Hz alone, for example, is going to benefit most users in any notable fashion?dragonsqrrl - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
"That's what some people said about 720p ,then 1080p and 1440p and they'll keep saying it."And I, along with many other people, would argue that since 1080p they've been right. There's really no need for anything greater than 1080p on ~5" smartphone. That's already over 450 ppi, which is well above the visual acuity of most people. I totally agree that resolutions and pixel density still need to advance for other purposes such as VR, but as far as smart phones go the race is over. I think the sooner certain Android smartphone makers (Samsung) realize this, the better.
And errr, the resolution race hasn't stopped in laptops. In fact outside smartphones laptops were the first devices, along with tablets, to have higher ppi displays. Desktop displays are what have really lagged behind the rest of the industry, but even that is beginning to catch up.
mkozakewich - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
We need to be at the point where a 1px line is practically invisible. Older screens effectively had no concept of hairlines.Maxpower2727 - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
What phones are "going 4k," exactly? Certainly nothing that's been announced or even rumoured at this point.madwolfa - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
But is it going to overheat?londedoganet - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
It's called "Kryo" for a reason. And the reason is this: it's a desperate appeal to superstition, because engineering couldn't deliver. Thing's gonna go up like a bonfire. :-)lilmoe - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
I hear it could get pretty damn hot in Cairo :PK_Space - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
K...r...y...o, not Kyro :Dlilmoe - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
I could swear I saw it written 'Kyro' all along........ silly me.CrazyElf - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
What I would love to see are hard performance per watt figures and estimated power consumption at a given clockspeed.I'm doubtful we'll see that. Right now this is mostly marketing, although the specs are interesting. I wonder if the Kryo cores will do well vs the A72.
One of my worries is that Joel Hruska's article on "Qualcomm will lay off 15% of its workforce, succumbs to cult of ‘shareholder value’ "is indeed correct. Brandon, do you have any comments here?
AnandTechUser99 - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
"Qualcomm describe Adreno 530 as being 40% faster than Adreno 420""if the power and performance gains over Adreno 420"
*Adreno 430
Brandon Chester - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Sorry about that, I fixed it originally but then accidentally reverted it in another edit in a different tab. Thank you for pointing it out.syxbit - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Very disappointed if the SD820 really won't release until 2016.Just what will the 2015 Nexus 6 have? There just isn't a good SoC available.
SD810 sucks, SD808 is merely a compromise.
Tegra X-1 is too power hungry.
Exynos probably won't sell to non Samsung devices
TI is dead
Intel is, well Intel.
Mediatek doesn't have anything super high end (they have Helio X20, but it uses DDR3)
Rockchip is lower end.
Maybe SD620? But that's rumoured for the 2015 N5.... While the SD620 has a good CPU, it doesn't have the GPU for 2560*1440 :(
lilmoe - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
"Exynos probably won't sell to non Samsung devices"Actually, they are. Meizu is not a customer.
"Tegra X-1 is too power hungry"
Don't give up on them just yet. They're still at 28nm... They might be featured in lots of Windows 10 Mobile tablets (and probably smartphones) in the future with 14/16nm SoCs with great GPUs. They have a very good advantage in Windows because of DX12. We should see the fruits of this in a couple of years.
lilmoe - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Meizu is *now a customer.syxbit - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
The Tegra-X1 is 20nm. I know Nvidia has never done well in phones. They try to make the GPU too beefy, so they can boast in benchmarks, when in reality, the SoCs aren't in the same power envelope.As much as I like Nvidia, they're do some stupid things. Literally every year they compare against a 6 month old Apple Ax chip that is designed for phones/tablets. Yes Nvidia, your device is faster than an old chip that consumes half the power. Well done.....
I really wish Nvidia would try to get in to the phone/tablet market again.... It's telling that despite how awful Qualcomm has been this year, they're still shipping in a lot of phones..... A few years ago, a mistake like this would have meant lots of OEMs shipping with alternatives like TI/Nvidia
lilmoe - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
The K1, which is actually used in mobile devices is on 28nm. The X1's TDP is at ~10W and isn't even sensible for tablets I believe.name99 - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Have nV given up on Denver?That web page
http://www.nvidia.com/page/products.html
is quite something. A perfect example of how to destroy your company by trying to do a hundred things badly rather than concentrating on doing one thing well.
And in all the hype (every processor page, whether it's X1, K1 or Tegra 4 is the greatest, most advanced, bestest smartest prettiest SoC in the history of humanity) nothing that I can see about Denver.
Way to go in supporting your own core, nV! How can you be surprised that no-one else is interested in using it when you apparently have no interest in promoting it?
Speedfriend - Thursday, August 13, 2015 - link
@syxbit'Intel is, well Intel'
What I am interested in, is what Intel does in mobile with its new 3D Xpoint memory. There have been some rumours that they will produce an SOC with eDRAM and 3D Xpoint, which will allow significant power savings when the device is sleeping due to the non-volatile nature of the 3D Xpoint.
Dobson123 - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
There's a mistake in the article:"The performance figures released by Qualcomm describe Adreno 530 as being 40% faster than Adreno 420 on average, while also consuming 40% less power. This result is described as an average of "the top graphics benchmarks", and while it's still generally a good idea to take vendor provided numbers with a grain of salt, if the power and performance gains over Adreno 420 are anywhere in the ballpark of Qualcomm's 40% figure then Adreno 530 should end up being quite impressive."
They compare with Adreno 430, not 420.
allanmac - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
Details? There are no details here.Rabbit_ear - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
adreno 530 GPU can save 40% power compare to previous adreno 430 GPU but still deliver 40% more performance. http://androidmarvel.com/index.php/2015/08/12/snap...eek2121 - Wednesday, August 12, 2015 - link
I don't understand why someone would suggest that this is sponsored content...it clearly isn't. I found the article to be useful and informative. It's a preview of things to come with the Snapdragon 820 GPU. On a side note: too bad we'll never see something like this in the raspberry pi ;)Pessimism - Monday, August 17, 2015 - link
They fail to mention that when this processor is in an actual device you get the numbers they claim for a few seconds at best before it hits a thermal ceiling and throttles to nothing. They need to work on the heat output of these SoCs, or, horrors of horrors they make phones a couple millimetres thicker and strap a hunk of copper to the SoC...AG820 - Saturday, August 22, 2015 - link
I think the A9 will be able to keep up with this or even outdo it.Ziich - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Speaking of unnecessary specs, when will we see a departure from this 8 core madnessvinay123401 - Wednesday, November 11, 2015 - link
nice post http://howtorootandroid.net/how-to-root-lenovo-a60...vinay123012 - Monday, November 30, 2015 - link
I don't understand why someone would suggest that this is sponsored content...it clearly isn't. I found the article to be useful and informative. It's a preview of things to come with the Snapdragon 820 GPU http://howtorootandroid.net/how-to-root-gionee-m2-...