[yeedub]

Thank you Roo for clearing this up for everybody, the processor used in the 9800 is VASTLY INFERIOR to anything that has been released in 2010 and most of 2009 by every other manufacturer. Apologize and make as many excuses as you can, but before you try and defend the CPU used, read his posts.

[md12]

Roo pwnage, well done.

[sookster54]

Linux on a 3.2GHz system will set the 3.2GHz to 1.6GHz or 800MHz until the application needs the extra muscles then it sets the clock to max 3GHz. Read up on SetCPU (overclocking) for Android phones and Linux distributions. Or even in Windows with AMD Overdrive, you'll see your CPU sitting at 800MHz idle then it kicks to 1.6GHz and 3.2GHz depending on load.

Like mine:

  hardware limits: 800 MHz - 3.20 GHz
  available frequency steps: 3.20 GHz, 2.50 GHz, 2.10 GHz, 800 MHz
  current CPU frequency is 800 MHz.

[Haze11368]

How many 3rd party apps were installed on the one you used? My guess is none so your test is not based on real world experience. When I got my 9700 it seemed fast but then I installed some productivity apps. The phone is not that fast any more. It's still better than say 8320 but not shockingly fast. A faster processor will enable smooth multi-tasking. Have you tried watching Youtube or any video while downloading a file in the background? Its slow as crazy and videos are choppy. This is on WIFI.

bull****, i had 32 apps on my 9700 and it was never slow

[sookster54]

bull****, i had 32 apps on my 9700 and it was never slow

You're lucky, I have 7 or 8 3rd party apps on my Pearl Flip and it takes forever to power on (not reboot), don't even ask me how long reboots are.

[avt123]

I am well aware that there are differences in the various processor's architectures. I'm not a newbie. But that's only part of the equation. It's not just about how the processor works, it's how much the processor eats up the battery, and it would be great of these new phones came with 2200 mAh batteries, but they don't. You're luck to get a 1500 mAh battery out of them due to cost, and the powerhouse DInc came with a measly 1300 mAh.

And my original point still stands. With my Bold (with a 1450 mAh battery and a 624 or so mhz processor) I get up to 3 days of batter. The Inedible (with a 1Ghz processor and the stock 1300 mAh battery does not last the day (with moderate use) and with an alternate 1500 mAh battery it barely lasts the day. Can you imagine how bad it would be if they phone came with a processor other than he Snapdragon which idles at a lower speed?

Argue all you want about tech and theoretical benchmarks but these are real world facts and a quick search over on Android Central will find them to be fairly typical.

I realize it has become cool to bash Blackberry lately, but where it counts to the user who needs the phone to just work, BB is still the king and the competition has a LOT of maturing to do before they will top them.

I took my DX off the charger at 8am yesterday and put it back on the charger at 2am this morning. I had 60% battery left after normal use (30-40 texts, 2 hours of streaming pandora, IM running all day and all my feeds set to update automatically after an hour). Processors now are more advanced and don't eat battery as much. If you notice over on AC or droidforums.net, it seems to be equal numbers of bad battery/good battery. I have a feeling some batteries are just not good. I even leave my DX on performance mode all day and the battery has not died on me once. The DInc eats battery like crazy, and is much worse battery life than the DX.

I get more battery life out of my DX than I did with my 9000. I get even better battery life with my DX than I did with my Droid, and it's half the clock speed.

[sookster54]

Droid X doesn't have AMOLED right? Seems phones with AMOLED has battery issues (like many of the Samsung AMOLED phones), Right now owners of the HTC Desire complains about the battery life but I want to find out how big of a difference when the batch of HTC Desire with SLCD comes out.

[Roo Zilla]

I should mention one more thing about CPUs. The Cortex-A8 is really something. There was actually a huge leap from A11 to Cortex-A8. The Cortex-A8 added superscalar ability to the CPU. Superscalar is basically true multi-tasking in a CPU. Superscalar allows CPUs to run multiple instructions in parallel. If you look at the performance difference between an iPhone 3G and an iPhone 3GS, almost all benchmarks show about a 70-100% increase in performance. Note that the iPhone 3G CPU is clocked at 400Mhz and the 3GS is clocked at 600Mhz. There is an additional performance boost from the new GPU in the 3GS, but the same performance boost is also noted in non-graphics intensive usage.

Normally, a 50% increase in processor speed yields something like a 20-30% increase in performance. Keeping a CPU fed is not an easy task and you constantly need to improve memory controllers to do that job. Very rarely an increase in CPU clock speed translates to an equal increase in performance. The huge increase in performance of the Cortex-A8 over its predecessor is because of the introduction of superscalar processing. That and some additional cache, better cache instructions, and some additional SIMD instructions I believe.

[Roo Zilla]

Droid X doesn't have AMOLED right? Seems phones with AMOLED has battery issues (like many of the Samsung AMOLED phones), Right now owners of the HTC Desire complains about the battery life but I want to find out how big of a difference when the batch of HTC Desire with SLCD comes out.

AMOLED is awesome. Super AMOLED is awesomer. They even have a song about it.

[dfairlite]

Knowing a little bit about how processors work and not understanding the fundamentals and talking about it really doesn't help your cause.

CPUs DO NOT THROTTLE BACK unless there is a thermal crisis. Good Lord, there is not a CPU in the world that will throttle back unless it has to. Odds are, you've never even seen a CPU throttle back. The only situation I've seen it happen is when the heatsink/fan has fallen off somehow.

What modern CPUs do is two fold. First, they step up. Since the introduction of the Pentium 2, engineers figured out how to make CPUs run at lower speeds until the OS calls for more speed. Basically, a CPU will run at it's lower speed until it needs to. Intel CPUs will typically clock up in either 100Mhz or 133Mhz increments. A typical computer rarely runs at it's maximum speed. Normal use will probably have the CPU run it's maximum speed less than 1% of the time. If you want to see it run full bore all the time, install something like Folding@Home or Prime95 or Seti@Home. Those programs will run the CPU at 100% until you close them. Listen as the fans in your PC all turn up and watch your electric bills go sky high.

The second part is the idle thread that all modern OSes utilize, even mobile ones. The idle thread basically stops internal CPU operations until a request comes along. To see it, look at the task manager on your Windows PC under "Processes." There you'll see something called "System Idle Process" which will be taking up the bulk of your CPU cycles. What it does is send halt commands to internal CPU components to save power. The original intent of this wasn't to actually save electricity. It was to keep CPUs from overheating, which they were prone to do before the use of large heatsinks and fans.

BTW, they don't throttle back the CPU on a laptop. I don't know where you got that idea. If you get a notebook with a 3.0Ghz CPU and a desktop with the same model 3.0Ghz CPU, they will perform the same, and use the same amount of power, as long as you have the same power settings for both in the OS.

I'm not sure what kind of rock you have been living under but yes, they do throttle down a laptop processor. within the bios and on XP and newer you can do it from the OS.

Take a look: Laptop CPU Control - Managing Your Computer Power Settings & Performance
and here: http://www.orthogonalthought.com/blo...ower-profiles/

[shacknews]

RIM is going very fast to the back end of the newspaper nobody reads. Its all Android on the front page everywhere now.

RIM cant innovate, or make any new products. They just keep coming out
with these "refresh" updates, even as the CB staff call them. haha.

[dfairlite]

RIM is going very fast to the back end of the newspaper nobody reads. Its all Android on the front page everywhere now.

RIM cant innovate, or make any new products. They just keep coming out
with these "refresh" updates, even as the CB staff call them. haha.

I see what you are saying but "innovate" wouldn't be the proper term being that upgraded hardware is not innovation.

[avt123]

Droid X doesn't have AMOLED right? Seems phones with AMOLED has battery issues (like many of the Samsung AMOLED phones), Right now owners of the HTC Desire complains about the battery life but I want to find out how big of a difference when the batch of HTC Desire with SLCD comes out.

Yea Droid X is not AMOLED. Funny thing is, AMOLED/SAMOLED screens are suppose to be less battery intensive.

[dfairlite]

Ok, i'm sorry i got the terminology wrong for the engineering career field. but the point still stands that by scaling back the CPU to a slower speed saves power. that's what this thread is about.

[YourMobileGuru]

Wouldn't a larger processor cause the bb to have less of a battery life? Maybe that is why they stuck with the smaller one that runs efficiently? Would anyone agree?

As I've said in general yes it will. There are other factors that come intoplay (architecture of the processor, battery, screen, etc.).

Ok the people on here saying that battery life and processor speed are not directly correlated are almost correct. when the phone is sitting idle it makes very little difference. but when you "wake up" the phone and start using, yes it will make for poorer battery life unless the processor is throttled back. (and if it's throttled back then whats the point of the faster processor your so obsessed with?) there is a reason they throttle the speed of a processor in a laptop and that is .... drum roll .... BATTERY LIFE!

It's not a direct coloration no, but in general a faster processor will reduce battery life. This is the main reason they under-clocked the Moto Droid.

First of all, how are the 2 (which I've bolded) "how"s not related?

You are too quick to defend RIM as well.

And you are too quick to attack them.

I agree that the Incredible eats up battery life. I also agree that there are plenty of real world facts that prove it. But why? 480 x 800 pixels AMOLED. Touch screen. On top of that, power hungry Android OS.

Have you ever used an Android device? If you have access to one install an app that shows all of the various processes that run in the background. The Android OS has more in common with a netbook than another phone. But to answer your question, according to apps that show what is taking the battery life yes it is almost always the screen, followed by whatever is using the phones radio, generally the syncing service.

The Torch does not have all these. Just keep everything the same, and change to a more power efficient CPU and keep the clock speed at 600mhz.

More power efficient CPU? You do realize the ones used by RIM are among the most efficient in the industry right?

You have yet to use a 9800. As of now, it's the same CPU as the Bold 9700, but larger screen (and a touch screen at that) and a smaller battery. Sorry, but logically, the battery life will not be fantastic.

It has no need of a faster processor for what it has to do. The BB OS uses push services for most apps so that dramatically reduces the need for the device to invoke the radio which as I have said is one of the largest battery drains.

I'd rather have my battery life be chewed up than wait for my apps and browser to react. Time is life and can't be recharged....The battery can be.

Pinch to zoom on the 9800 from my hands on experience was quite painful. It screams lag and quite frankly when it wasn't lagging, it wasn't smooth.

Were you using a production device or was it a tester? Even if it is a production device, RIM, unlike other manufacturer never really stops developing the OS and new releases and new leaked builds will improve things.

I don't get some of you BB fanboys. RIM throws crap (the Torch 9800) at you and you smile and take it straight in the face. I say throw this garbage back at RIM and demand better. We grew to love RIM for a reason and it is not b/c of lackluster devices. All other platforms aside, I believe RIM can do much better than what they are showing at the present.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Other than the Storm1 RIM has never released "crap" in all the years I have used them. If you don't like BB you don't have to use it.

CPUs DO NOT THROTTLE BACK unless there is a thermal crisis. Good Lord, there is not a CPU in the world that will throttle back unless it has to. Odds are, you've never even seen a CPU throttle back. The only situation I've seen it happen is when the heatsink/fan has fallen off somehow. .

Oh man you're about to be flame bait! The 1ghz snapdragon processor in the DInc actually idles at about 200Mhz.

[YourMobileGuru]

RIM is going very fast to the back end of the newspaper nobody reads. Its all Android on the front page everywhere now.

RIM cant innovate, or make any new products. They just keep coming out
with these "refresh" updates, even as the CB staff call them. haha.

I took my DX off the charger at 8am yesterday and put it back on the charger at 2am this morning. I had 60% battery left after normal use (30-40 texts, 2 hours of streaming pandora, IM running all day and all my feeds set to update automatically after an hour). Processors now are more advanced and don't eat battery as much. If you notice over on AC or droidforums.net, it seems to be equal numbers of bad battery/good battery. I have a feeling some batteries are just not good. I even leave my DX on performance mode all day and the battery has not died on me once. The DInc eats battery like crazy, and is much worse battery life than the DX.

I get more battery life out of my DX than I did with my 9000. I get even better battery life with my DX than I did with my Droid, and it's half the clock speed.

And the DX is using a different (TI) processor than the DInc which is more efficient.

There's a couple of things you're not really grasping. How a processor works is intimately tied to it's power consumption, but technology is ever moving forward and nowadays, you get more for less. There are options out there that can accomplish both, increase CPU power AND increase battery life. It's just disappointing that RIM decided to not avail themselves of these other options. For a PC analogy, the Atom CPU available in netbooks is usually clocked at 1.6Ghz. If you compare that to a 1.6Ghz Pentium 4, it will do more per clock cycle and use like a tenth of the power. The XScale CPU used in the 9800 is about 4 years old now. 4 years in the microprocessor world is the difference between i7 and Pentium 4. The i7 is vastly more powerful at the same clock speed while using a lot less power, like half or something. Imagine what people would say if Dell came out with a new notebook and stuck a Pentium 4 in it. They would be raked over the coals and rightly so. I stated before and I believe it. RIM took the road they did so they can save about $5 per SoC.

They did it to save on cost, certainly. But the bottom line is that for what the vast majority of people do in their Blackberries they don't NEED anything faster.

[QUOTE]
They tell everybody it's a 624Mhz processor, but neglect to tell anybody they're using tech from 2 generations ago. They want you to say and think, "it's ok, it's just as fast as the original Droid or the iPhone 3GS" Nothing could be further from the truth. The Droid/3GS CPU is probably somewhere in the range of 70%-100% more powerful, but RIM doesn't want you to know that. They'll say 624Mhz, but they won't say 624Mhz XScale processor from 4 years back which is a little better than the one found in a Nintendo DS and a generation behind the one in the ORIGINAL iPhone. The CPU performance of an XScale 624Mhz is probably comparable to the 400Mhz A11 core found in the ORIGINAL iPhone.

Also, the argument that a 1500mAh battery is a cost constraint is really ridiculous. The difference in cost between a 1500mAh battery and a 1300mAh one is literally pennies, if you're buying them in the millions. The most likely reason is a physical constraint limited by the form factor they chose.

Another possible reason is they had a huge stock of them left over from before and didn't want them to go to waste. Li-Ion has a seriously short shelf life compared to other battery formulas. You'll automatically lose about 20% of capacity in a year, no matter what you do. If they did choose the smaller battery save on cost, it's a bit disappointing.

Of course all these factors add up if you're hoping to sell millions of units. A increase in $5 is $5 million per million. For the same reason they included a 4GB card and not a larger one, save a couple of bucks on cost, which can add up to easily be $50-100 million in a year.

It's more than pennies but yes all of these costs add up.

Your though that they had extra stock is actually kinda funny though...

BTW, the battery life claims on the 9800 are significantly less than what is claimed by the iPhone 4. Although the processor is slow, it's also made on an older manufacturing process which requires higher voltage. I suspect the new OS and it's feature set has a higher power requirement. I wouldn't expect the same kind of battery life you are used to in previous Blackberries.

Oh good lord, don't bring the ImDevective into this....

[anon3396357]

Sorry VZWRocka, I hope we're not getting riled up because of the trolls. Some of us do have legitimate concerns.

Well like I said I'm not here to win arguments. I'm just not convinced that RIM is using the best hardware for their top of the line flagship device.

Can consumers ask for better quality devices? If yes, please read on.

I would also like to mention that neither Roo or myself are asking for faster CPUs. We are not asking RIM to put in faster CPUs. It seems that you tend to gloss over us stating efficient CPUs, and putting words into our mouths saying we want fast CPUs. Please read our posts again if you're doubtful.

Roo said this:

There are options out there that can accomplish both, increase CPU power AND increase battery life

I agree on all counts that people do not need a faster CPU. You don't have to convince me on this.

But do people need increased battery life? Of course! If so, why not?

I also noticed that you mentioned that the PXA910 is one of the most efficient CPUs on the market. I agree. Only if that was stated 2-3 years ago. The PXA910 is a pretty remarkable chip, I must say.

If you can post some sources of how the PXA910 is more power efficient than the Cortex-A8, I'll concede.

[YourMobileGuru]

Sorry VZWRocka, I hope we're not getting riled up because of the trolls. Some of us do have legitimate concerns..

Maybe we all are to a degree. I hardly even visit crackberry anymore or read the comments on BB related stories on BGR and other tech sites because I am so sick of the BB hate. It's become "cool" to rag on BB and say crap like "I'm jumping ship for the Droid (or iPhone)" or complaining the the BB is outdated.

I like BB for what it is, an efficient messaging device. Sure it would be nice to be able to run more/better apps than it does but not at the cost of usability and battery life. I really only see one serious deficiency in the BB platform and that's the browser, and RIM is rectifying that.

[avt123]

And the DX is using a different (TI) processor than the DInc which is more efficient.

Ok, so this processor could have been used.

[YourMobileGuru]

Ok, so this processor could have been used.

Maybe they could have, who knows. HTC and Moto have different preferences, and there are probably some advantages to the Snapdragon processor that the Inc uses.

[anon3396357]

Maybe we all are to a degree. I hardly even visit crackberry anymore or read the comments on BB related stories on BGR and other tech sites because I am so sick of the BB hate. It's become "cool" to rag on BB and say crap like "I'm jumping ship for the Droid (or iPhone)" or complaining the the BB is outdated.

I like BB for what it is, an efficient messaging device. Sure it would be nice to be able to run more/better apps than it does but not at the cost of usability and battery life. I really only see one serious deficiency in the BB platform and that's the browser, and RIM is rectifying that.

And some of us inevitably gets dragged into the crossfire.. But it's all well and good once we identify the trolls and ignore them.

Yes, BB is good for what it does. The reason why people downplay Blackberry phones is because they never understood how productive a Blackberry can be. Because of that, there's simply no reason to convince/convert them since they had never needed a BB to begin with, and will be unlikely to need one for their use anytime soon.

In saying that we are blind to RIM's faults they fail to realise that they themselves are blind to a Blackberry's strengths.

[dfairlite]

According to PCWorld magazine, august 2010 issue pg.93, the processor used is a Marvel PXA930 capable of up to 800MHz, so it is just scaled back to conserve battery power. so it's not running full bore, The phone only needs the 624 mhz.

[YourMobileGuru]

In saying that we are blind to RIM's faults they fail to realise that they themselves are blind to a Blackberry's strengths.

Exactly. Every time I see someone say something to the effect of Blackberry better WOW me or I am jumping ship to Android or iOS I want to salp them across the face and offer to shove them overboard. The sooner they leave the platform the better off the rest of us will be.

RIM is not now nor have they ever been about revolutionary... they prefer the EVOLUTIONARY method of development, which has suited them well and will continue to do so despite the nay Sayers.

[belfastdispatcher]

According to PCWorld magazine, august 2010 issue pg.93, the processor used is a Marvel PXA930 capable of up to 800MHz, so it is just scaled back to conserve battery power. so it's not running full bore, The phone only needs the 624 mhz.

Exactly, and if the 9800 doesn't do 3D games, does it even need anymore?
Lol, I wouldn't be surprised if the corporate world had a say in the lack of games support.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[avt123]

Maybe they could have, who knows. HTC and Moto have different preferences, and there are probably some advantages to the Snapdragon processor that the Inc uses.

I don't think so. The Snapdragon processor is a battery hog and it is not efficient. Also, it does not perform as well in benchmarks compared to the standard TI OMAP3630 processor and Samsung's Hummingbird (which is just tweaked more). I believe RIM chose the cheaper option. But oh well, the specs are set in stone now so whatever.