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What's Inside a Smart Phone that Makes it Fast or Slow?
  • goannagoanna

    I was interested in the Huawei Honor because I hoped its 1.4GHz processor might help me watch videos on its big screen while I travel light. The Honor was on special last week at DSE for $AUD229.00. But when I asked the staff about speed and responsiveness they looked at me blankly. My web searches have been as blank as those pubescent staff's stares.

    It turns out the Honor can take a full second for a single app to load.

    When I talk to anybody about phones they want to convince me to buy a brand or an OS. I don't want to know which phone or OS has the fastest graphic, but how a phone can be fast. I want to talk CPUs, multi-threading and especially GPUs.

  • 23 Replies sorted by
  • goannagoanna

    image

    from http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410034,00.asp

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    About video. You need any phone with good screen and video hardware acceleration (H.264). Plus good battery.

    Check http://www.pandawill.com/ for 1280x800 MT6577 phones, but check how MT6577 chip is working with videos.

  • goannagoanna

    @Vitaliy_Kiselev

    Thanks, that MTK6577 chip seems to make more of a difference to the phone's speed than would higher clock speed alone.

    On that CUBOT A8809 Phone the specs seem OK but I'm taking it that video will be very good.

    CPU MTK6577, Cortex A9 dual core, 1.0GHz ROM 4GB RAM 512MB Display Size 4.7 Inch Type IPS, capacitive touch screen Resolution 960 x 540 pixels

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @goanna

    They have huge similar phones, get ones with biggest RAM and ROM, and best screen (IPS and high res).

    After this check your selection on google (search for forums about it).

  • goannagoanna

    OK this one looks good - but very few real forum reviews from real buyers.

    Next best thing to a forum is http://www.etotalk.com/thl-w3-3g-wcdma-dual-sim-45hd1280x720-android40-mt6577-10ghz-in-stock_p3071.html

    Available at Ali express or PandaWIll.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @goanna

    Look only on the models widely discussed on forums from companies that provide support (firmware, etc). Also look for big battery, as videos are hungry.

    Plus look at the ebay market for used brands, as if you know that certain model will do that you want you can save good.

  • goannagoanna

    I don't see many references to standard phones with hardware acceleration out of the box - unless they're not saying. It's tempting to use Pimp My ROM on one of the high-spec phones.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @goanna

    I do not understand that you mean under "hardware acceleration out of the box" .

    You just install MX Video Player (it is free) on Android device. It supports anything.

    But you need to check if chip is capable (most have some acceleration, but it is different).

  • goannagoanna

    "hardware acceleration out of the box"

    Meaning, for a phone you buy in its retail form, the manufacturers don't mention hardware video acceleration, so I am guessing either the standard ROM doesn't support it or else that it supports it but needs to be enabled, e.g. via rooting and configuring acceleration via a 3rd party app.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @goanna

    No, but as I unerstand 6577 is not really best idea, if you intend to play 1080p videos.

    This whole thing need some research.

    RK3066 tablets play things good, as I remember cheaper and much slower A10 based tablets are also ok video players.

  • goannagoanna

    @Vitaliy_Kiselev

    OK, I'll look into better phone chips than the 6577. Playing 1080P would be pretty good on a phone.

  • karlkarl

    I recently uploaded a 1080p24 video that I had recorded with the GH2 and encoded at 18MBit/s to a microSDHC card that a friend then replayed in his Samsung Galaxy S3. It replayed smoothly, so it seems this phone does have a capable hardware h.264 decoder.

    But one thing we noticed was that it does not have a hardware AC3 decoder, it could decode the audio channel only via software (high CPU usage and power consumption). In contrast, sound encoded as AAC was decoded in hardware.

  • goannagoanna

    @karl

    The author of the Android Pimp My ROM mod instructions at http://techotv.com/android-os-mods-for-phones/ says,

    I have personally tested it on my rooted ICS Samsung Galaxy S2 and the result is impressive. My phone has become faster, the responsiveness and smoothness has increased significantly.

    The only specificlly graphic improvements cited on that site which I see are, force gpu rendering, ...video sstreaming [sic]

    At a guess I'd say the Galaxy S2-3 range are a good place to start, although I can't help thinking there are possibly cheaper and maybe even better China models which will do good video and audio.

  • goannagoanna

    -And I'll have to add that I fully intend to void any warranty coming with a phone, so it looks like no Galaxy SIII for me ..

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    You can also check http://www.computeruniverse.net
    They have some good prices on brand phones, especially if you are outside EU (as VAT is deducted in this case)

  • goannagoanna

    Thanks.

    Unfortunately another requirement for me in regional Australia is Telstra's Next G 850 Mhz UTMS/WCDMA network. Otherwise fast processor phones like the HTC One X would be a choice for me.

    I got this from PhoneArena.com's Which smartphone/tablet owns the fastest processor?

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @goanna

    Again, you need to define your goals clearly.

    If you want just look at 1080p full hd high bitrate videos you need proper hardware acceleration in phone, not just CPU.

  • goannagoanna

    I'm trying to compile a short-list.

    It's still a trial-and-error process, looking at a phone's attributes one at a time, until they fail the test. Had the HTC One X passed the Next G network requirement, it would have gone on to fail the graphics test.

  • goannagoanna

    Bought myself a Galaxy SIII anyway. Still slow as hell compared to 600 MHz Palm T3. Now looking at ROMs which will cut out all the cutesy animated screen effects, water droplet sounds and a score of apps running without any one of them asking me first.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Now looking at ROMs

    Why you need them?

    just get MX Player.

  • goannagoanna

    I want a responsive device in general, besides video playback.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @goanna

    In this case stay with stock firmware.

    No reason to change it for very good phone you got.

  • goannagoanna

    Well, I've kept the original ROM, rooted it and used the Pimp My Rom app to close down everything my phone doesn't need to do. Like dithering, screen effects and will keep applying one tweak at a time. It already sings & dances. Noticeably more responsive in every way. That app does includes some video tweaks which I may never even need.

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