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[Entroyp]

I’ve always liked apple’s approach of creating their own SoC. It has payed off big time in the past few iterations to the point that the competition is 12-18 months behind. For a specs geek like me this is truly remarkable.

Although, I feel like they should also focus some of their efforts on battery efficiency, I’ve never had an android phone for more than a few weeks but I’m sure there are some models with great battery life.

 

[eyeball_kid]

I've always liked apple's approach of creating their own SoC. It has payed off big time in the past few iterations to the point that the competition is 12-18 months behind. For a specs geek like me this is truly remarkable.

Although, I feel like they should also focus some of their efforts on battery efficiency, I've never had an android phone for more than a few weeks but I'm sure there are some models with great battery life.

They do focus on power efficiency, which is how they can maintain the same battery life while offering significant performance increases.

Managing the core use on the now 10-nanometer CPU is one of the reasons the A11 Bionic, according to Apple, is 70 percent more energy efficient (even while being 25 percent faster than the A10).

Apple's approach to their hardware is definitely paying off, but it's not a new approach. Legendary computer scientist Alan Kay famously said, "People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware." It's just that Apple seem to be about the only ones in the modern generation of big software companies that listened to him.

 

[The Faceless Master]

How can it be the fastest when they handicap the modem?

 

[Glass Shark]

How can it be the fastest when they handicap the modem?

This thread is very obviously talking about the processing power of the device, not the cell radios.

 

[Two Words]

It may be the fastest phone but is that the most important thing? No.

It doesn't have:

-fingerprint scanner
-headphone jack
-the brigthest/best display
-best camera(s)
-best battery life
...

Some of these just aren't true. And why exactly is a brighter display more important than a faster phone?

This just comes across as a desperate, inaccurate list.

 

[Hattori]

How can it be the fastest when they handicap the modem?

How can it be the fastest if it can’t run?

 

[The Faceless Master]

This thread is very obviously talking about the processing power of the device, not the cell radios.

I see all sorts of talk.

Like cameras after DXO changed their scoring system to better accommodate zooming dual camera setups.

 

[Glass Shark]

I see all sorts of talk.

Like cameras after DXO changed their scoring system to better accommodate zooming dual camera setups.

DXO is bullshit, this has been established.

 

[Jeffrey]

Yeah watching more speed test comparisons. Sure they aren't really scientific but OS animations and app loads seems generally the same as the 7. At some point it's memory speeds that will determine the next jump in day to day performance.

Just wish they'd stop shrinking the battery. We are smaller battery than pre headphone jack removal.

Sure optimized chipsets = comparable battery life... But the current standard is too low anyhow.

No matter the flagship phone I still have to top off in the afternoon at work to get enough juice to last me until bed time.

But I'm a power user. An actual full day battery for me would be like 2-3 days for other folks so everyone should benefit.

 

[Skel1ingt0n]

Yeah watching more speed test comparisons. Sure they aren't really scientific but OS animations and app loads seems generally the same as the 7. At some point it's memory speeds that will determine the next jump in day to day performance.

Just wish they'd stop shrinking the battery. We are smaller battery than pre headphone jack removal.

Sure optimized chipsets = comparable battery life... But the current standard is too low anyhow.

No matter the flagship phone I still have to top off in the afternoon at work to get enough juice to last me until bed time.

But I'm a power user. An actual full day battery for me would be like 2-3 days for other folks so everyone should benefit.

Probably one of the most ignorant thoughts I have in tech - but in the back of my head, I just keep thinking Apple is intentionally reducing battery size year after year so that, they can - in a few years - bring it back up to an appropriate size. With years of enhancements in efficiency, this could easily result in a 1.5x boost in stamina.

When they're all out of cool, break-through tech to differentiate; they'll be able to play that card trick that they've intentionally been working toward for years.

... ... probably not... but I really don't understand how they keep justifying reducing the total MAH.

 

[VeeP]

I see all sorts of talk.

The reason you see all sorts of talks is mainly because of fanboys. Starting with the first page of this thread and onwards:

As long as I continue to hate using iOS, I couldn't care less how fast these things are.

Doesn't care about how fast a phone is, yet he enters this thread to comment about it.

It may be the fastest phone but is that the most important thing? No.

It doesn't have:

-fingerprint scanner
-headphone jack
-the brigthest/best display
-best camera(s)
-best battery life
...

I mean, he literally enters this thread without even knowing what phone is being talked about, and starts going on an iPhone rant.

what? if anything its honestly the other way around and I am not a fanboy if either. I just like a good device.

IPhone has a better CPU since iPhone 6s. what is new here ? as a mobile user I care about :

- screen , how good is it because it is the most thing I use on any mobile phone
- performance
- camera
-connectivity
-battery life.


The screen in the iPhone 8 ( and X for that matter) sucks compared to others. I mean honestly. the Xperia xz premium ( the one I use now) is a fucking 4k HDR ( you don't even to download anything, you just go to youtube and watch 4k). and if not for that the Note 8 and S8 has a better screen

in terms of performance, I care about how fast the application opens. and if there is any lag down the road. few years back IOS was killing it in terms of performance. Android was a laggy shit after 3 months of use. but that has been changed for 2 years now. if you watch videos. they all are about the same speed ( sometimes IOS win sometimes Android wins) difference is usually a second or so. so that to me is a tie . do not give me unrealistic usage of a CPU that I will never use.

Camera. I think the IPhone has a good camera so does LG V3 , note, S8 and Sony XZ premium.

Battery life IPhone wins hands down. they are the best when it comes to battery optimization. but all phones roughly last for 1 day usage . all phones u have to charge before u go to bed.

so I do not see iPhone winning here, I don't see android either. but since I care about the phone screen the most. iPhone is out of the question.. like seriously who the fuck charge a 600$ or whatever its price for a fucking 720p phone ? get the fuck out with this shit

Yea, "all sorts of talk" that really goes far beyond what the original topic was about. We literally went from "iPhone 8 is the fastest phone out there" to saying "that doesn't fucking matter, these things matter to me!"

 

[Draper]

I have the 7 Plus, but I still feel the Pixel looks better in the majority of those comparison pics. That's pretty remarkable.

 

[CosmicGroinPull]

Good news. I'm glad the hundreds of billions are going somewhere. It's great that they keep up this trend of making each new iphone significantly more powerful than the previous one. Means you can keep using them for many years (as long as you don't update the firmware past the 2+ year mark).

 

[ArtHands]

This whole 4K on a phone thing is like the megapixel wars of years ago.

I use my iPhone 6 every day, and I've seen higher DPI phones, but I can't say I feel I'm missing out. The only thing I am missing is HDR, really.

It's like, dude, my laptop's screen is 1280x800, and I have a similar resolution squeezed down into something much, much smaller.

Cant say i understand why there's a desperate need for 4k pixels on a 4.8 inches phone either. I mean yah its a nice thing to have, but that sounds rather hollow what's with the screensize.

 

[Replicant]

Goddamn. I'm generally an Android guy, but Snapdragons are weaksauce compared to Apple's SoCs.

Tell me about it. Playing Pokemon Go is a nightmare on Xperia Z5. Not sure if it's Snapdragon's fault or Niantic's shitty Android optimisation.

 

[DonMigs85]

It's amazing really, this SoC benchmarks close to a desktop Kaby Lake i5. Their future GPUs should be killer as well. If they do this to their laptops though, then it's bye-bye Bootcamp.

 

[Henrar]

Tell me about it. Playing Pokemon Go is a nightmare on Xperia Z5. Not sure if it's Snapdragon's fault or Niantic's shitty Android optimisation.

Z5 has Snapdragon 810, which is probably the worst high-end ARM SoC of all time.

 

[Supervlieg]

They both hit the pavement at about the same speed.

Anyway, I like my note8. If iPhone ever chooses to include a Stylus I'll happily switch back. I'm not particularly keen to stick to a brand just for the brand.

 

[Winterblink]

Android fans in this thread:

Android fan here. I love the competition between the two platforms -- helps spur innovation on both sides. Bring it on, and enjoy your new devices.

 

[……forgetit]

I have the 7 Plus, but I still feel the Pixel looks better in the majority of those comparison pics. That's pretty remarkable.

I had a pixel for the last year, nothing but issues with the phone, tons of features just breaking, apps crashing all the time, the phone got a boot loop and I ended up losing tons of data I hadn’t backed up. I still suggest other android phones, but anytime someone asks me about a pixel the answer is absolutely not.

 

[borghe]

Android fan here. I love the competition between the two platforms -- helps spur innovation on both sides. Bring it on, and enjoy your new devices.

You are a rare individual. Kudos sir. And agree.

They both hit the pavement at about the same speed.

Anyway, I like my note8. If iPhone ever chooses to include a Stylus I'll happily switch back. I'm not particularly keen to stick to a brand just for the brand.

Really shocked they haven’t announced Pencil support for the Plus or the X. The Pencil is absolutely amazing. Maybe 11.1

DXO is bullshit, this has been established.

Bullshit, nah. Their actual text reviews are aweomse. That they put a score on them? Yeah, meaningless.

But the review does clearly show for example that Portrait mode is slightly improved over the 7 Plus and that the Pixel bokeh looks (imho) awful.

 

[Garou]

Android fan here. I love the competition between the two platforms -- helps spur innovation on both sides. Bring it on, and enjoy your new devices.

Are there any alternatives to Qualcomm ARM-Chips? I’m not sure if it’s really competition if Android vendors don’t really have any choice.

 

[borghe]

Are there any alternatives to Qualcomm ARM-Chips? I’m not sure if it’s really competition if Android vendors don’t really have any choice.

Samsung is the only one in a phone. Nvidia and Samsung in tablets. However Samsung and Qualcomm are both mostly just reference ARMvX designs. Apple (and Nvidia?) is the only mobile doing fully customized ARM layouts.

 

[Winterblink]

Are there any alternatives to Qualcomm ARM-Chips? I’m not sure if it’s really competition if Android vendors don’t really have any choice.

I think a lot of it comes down to implementation of those chips. I'm waiting on the Pixel 2 to replace my aging Nexus 6P (coming up on 2 years old now) and I find that Google's approach for the Nexus/Pixel lines are very Apple-like -- pure OS married to tightly controlled hardware implementations.

For sure there's a LOT of shitty Android devices out there, but usually in each of the major price brackets there are standouts that eclipse almost everything else. That being said, I personally prefer the pure OS to modified ones like in Samsung devices.

 

[blu]

Are there any alternatives to Qualcomm ARM-Chips? I'm not sure if it's really competition if Android vendors don't really have any choice.

Samsung, Huawei, Mediatek -- entirely stock ARMv8 designs
Qualcomm -- used to do fully-custom, now just customisations over stock designs
nvidia -- both custom and stock (but they don't make phone SoCs lately)
Apple -- fully-custom designs

 

[LordOfChaos]

Samsung, Huawei, Mediatek -- entirely stock ARMv8 designs
Qualcomm -- used to do fully-custom, now just customisations over stock designs
nvidia -- both custom and stock (but they don't make phone SoCs lately)
Apple -- fully-custom designs

Denver 2 is probably still the most interesting core outside of Apple in the ARM space, but I don't know if Nvidia just up and gave up on putting them in phones or how seriously they're developing it anymore? Denver 1 definitely had problems on hard to predict code with its binary translator, but when it did work it was one of the few to get near Apple IPC at the time.

There's the server specific ARM cores, but, funny enough they're not even as wide as Apple went now four years ago

Doesn't Samsung still make a few custom ones?

https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/...tures-custom-cpu-cores-first-10nm-chip-market

 

[Ric Flair]

Honestly it doesn't matter which phone you go with these days, they all are pretty much comparable across the board for real-life application. No one is going to make a powerpoint or do anything really work-intensive on their smart phone, although I guess if you really wanted to you should hopefully have an iPhone 8, haha. I don't really get the fanboy war with smart phones, they're all exactly the same. The only huge difference imo between an iPhone and a Samsung phone is the app icon layout and the ecosystem (apple vs. google) you can subscribe to if you're into using cloud data and linking everything together.

 

[killroy87]

But the review does clearly show for example that Portrait mode is slightly improved over the 7 Plus and that the Pixel bokeh looks (imho) awful.

I used to own a pixel, and I thought the blur effect was just the hottest shit. Then I used my friends 7 Plus, and saw how good the portrait mode looked in comparison. I rarely used the pixel blur again after that, it just annoyed me haha

 

[low-G]

Man I dunno what’s gonna happen when Apple eclipses consumer desktop PC CPU performance.

 

[blu]

Doesn't Samsung still make a few custom ones?

https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/...tures-custom-cpu-cores-first-10nm-chip-market

They do, I had completely forgotten the Mongoose series, my bad.

 

[ZOONAMI]

They do, I had completely forgotten the Mongoose series, my bad.

Also, what is a Kirin 970 then? Seems somewhat custom with the AI stuff?

 

[Theonik]

Man I dunno what’s gonna happen when Apple eclipses consumer desktop PC CPU performance.

Not going to happen unless Apple moves to making these cores with higher TDPs but ARM is much faster than x86 watt for watt.

 

[FyreWulff]

Man I dunno what's gonna happen when Apple eclipses consumer desktop PC CPU performance.

Without Intel's fab capability, approximately never.

Well.

As long as Intel keeps investing in R&D and doesn't become a hedge fund masqueraded as a company.

But as it is, the only two companies with foundries of note are Intel and Samsung. ARM and AMD are fabless and Apple is not willing to spend the money to become their own entirely.

 

[LordOfChaos]

Also, what is a Kirin 970 then? Seems somewhat custom with the AI stuff?

That's 4x Cortex-A73 @ 2.4GHz, 4x Cortex A53 @ 1.8GHz. We were talking about custom CPU cores, not the total SoC. The deep learning part might be home spun (they're essentially 8-16 bit optimized GPUs in structure afaik, wide with low precision for that kind of math)

 

[Theonik]

Without Intel's fab capability, approximately never.

Well.

As long as Intel keeps investing in R&D and doesn't become a hedge fund masqueraded as a company.

ARM cores are smaller than x86 cores by virtue of having a much simpler instruction set, die-shrink progress has also slowed down which is allowing TSMC to catch up. Intel might be in the situation where it can't really justify having their own fabs anymore.

 

[FyreWulff]

ARM cores are smaller than x86 cores by virtue of having a much simpler instruction set, die-shrink progress has also slowed down which is allowing TSMC to catch up. Intel might be in the situation where it can't really justify having their own fabs anymore.

This is true, but software also matters. It's pretty telling when Windows has tried to switch to ARM twice now, and not even the lower device cost prevented the switches from being failures.

Now Microsoft is just going to emulate X86 on ARM to try and break the chicken and egg scenario, and Intel has made an empty threat about that, but most people will just prefer to run real X86 instead of emulating it on ARM.

 

[Theonik]

This is true, but software also matters. It's pretty telling when Windows has tried to switch to ARM twice now, and not even the lower device cost prevented the switches from being failures.

Now Microsoft is just going to emulate X86 on ARM to try and break the chicken and egg scenario, and Intel has made an empty threat about that, but most people will just prefer to run real X86 instead of emulating it on ARM.

Doesn't matter on the Mac because they don't worry about BC like Windows does as they don't really have a business customer base. They've switched architectures twice before from Motorola to PPC to x86. Realistically they will eventually be able to ship an ARM Mac in a few years, with some kind of BC layer until they cut that off like they did when they went x86. After that nobody cares because apps will be updated for that and Apple will be running their stuff natively on ARM from day 0. Also they could potentially go with universal apps for iDevices and MacOS.

 

[QuantumZebra]

Goddamn. I'm generally an Android guy, but Snapdragons are weaksauce compared to Apple's SoCs.

Yea if it weren't for literally everything else about my S8+ being superior I might think of switching next gen.

Android fans in this thread:

Did you just post this without reading anything in the thread?

Android users have the one-up on literally everything but processor power.

This will hopefully spur Samsung and Google to beef up their designs.

Soo... it's a good thing?

 

[QuantumZebra]

Without Intel's fab capability, approximately never.

Well.

As long as Intel keeps investing in R&D and doesn't become a hedge fund masqueraded as a company.

But as it is, the only two companies with foundries of note are Intel and Samsung. ARM and AMD are fabless and Apple is not willing to spend the money to become their own entirely.

Wait... they aren't... ???

 

[FyreWulff]

Doesn't matter on the Mac because they don't worry about BC like Windows does as they don't really have a business customer base. They've switched architectures twice before from Motorola to PPC to x86. Realistically they will eventually be able to ship an ARM Mac in a few years, with some kind of BC layer until they cut that off like they did when they went x86. After that nobody cares because apps will be updated for that and Apple will be running their stuff natively on ARM from day 0. Also they could potentially go with universal apps for iDevices and MacOS.

Well yeah, software compatiblity hasn't really been a thing on Mac. But Mac desktop being relevant has also not been a thing for a while, even amongst the workstation market they once dominated.

Which is why for the first time in basically ever they straight up told people they were just bumping the specs on the Trashcan Pro and saying a real Pro was around the corner. They fucked up hard on that segment.

 

[borghe]

ARM cores are smaller than x86 cores by virtue of having a much simpler instruction set, die-shrink progress has also slowed down which is allowing TSMC to catch up. Intel might be in the situation where it can't really justify having their own fabs anymore.

likely even smaller now once we see the chipworks breakdown of A11. If Apple removed all 32-bit instructions for the A11 core.

Yea if it weren't for literally everything else about my S8+ being superior I might think of switching next gen.

I do not think that means what you think it means.. it's fine to appreciate things that matter more enough to sway you one way as opposed to the other. but "literally everything" is simply bullshit. There is plenty on iPhone that is objectively better (flash memory speeds, 1080p240 and 4K60 video recording, HEIF/HEVC, same software/games performing better in general, etc)

 

[HawksWinStanley]

I do not think that means what you think it means.. it's fine to appreciate things that matter more enough to sway you one way as opposed to the other. but "literally everything" is simply bullshit. There is plenty on iPhone that is objectively better (flash memory speeds, 1080p240 and 4K60 video recording, HEIF/HEVC, same software/games performing better in general, etc)

Well yeah but the iPhone can't change where the clock is positioned on the screen so none of that other stuff matters.

 

[LordOfChaos]

likely even smaller now once we see the chipworks breakdown of A11. If Apple removed all 32-bit instructions for the A11 core.

ARM used the opportunity in ARMv8 to clean house already, unlike x86 which keeps mashing things together. If Apple did remove 32 bit at the ISA level, I should think it would be a very very minimal change, fractions of a percent on the total core.

They could though, and it would be nice from a not wasting a nanometer perspective.

 

[Theonik]

Well yeah, software compatiblity hasn't really been a thing on Mac. But Mac desktop being relevant has also not been a thing for a while, even amongst the workstation market they once dominated.

Which is why for the first time in basically ever they straight up told people they were just bumping the specs on the Trashcan Pro and saying a real Pro was around the corner. They fucked up hard on that segment.

Desktops are also largely irrelevant. The Pro is doing well enough and is getting a major refresh soon. Macbooks are selling pretty well.

likely even smaller now once we see the chipworks breakdown of A11. If Apple removed all 32-bit instructions for the A11 core.

That would have basically 0 impact on the size of the core. It was more of an asinine move on Apple's part.

 

[valkyre]

Yea if it weren't for literally everything else about my S8+ being superior I might think of switching next gen.

True objectivity right there.

 

[Futureman]

Doesn't matter on the Mac because they don't worry about BC like Windows does as they don't really have a business customer base. They've switched architectures twice before from Motorola to PPC to x86. Realistically they will eventually be able to ship an ARM Mac in a few years, with some kind of BC layer until they cut that off like they did when they went x86. After that nobody cares because apps will be updated for that and Apple will be running their stuff natively on ARM from day 0. Also they could potentially go with universal apps for iDevices and MacOS.

Whenever Apple switched to Intel, weren't the new Intel chips significantly better than the PPC chips they were using? That made Rosetta viable.

I'm guessing if they do switch to ARM on the laptops/desktops that the ARM chips will probably just about be equal.

could this complicate a switch from Intel to ARM? or am I wrong here?

 

[Michael F. Assbender]

MercuryLS3: Damn, some of the Android fans in here sure have been salty.

QuantumZebra: Hold my beer. And gimme that salt shaker.

 

[maximum360]

Well it does have the best cameras and it has a finger print scanner, I have no idea on screen brightness but it loses on pixel density. You got me on the other two.

The LG V30 seems to have so far the most impressive camera of the bunch.

 

[blu]

Whenever Apple switched to Intel, weren't the new Intel chips significantly better than the PPC chips they were using? That made Rosetta viable.

PPC G5 was competitive to Core Duos for quite some time.

I'm guessing if they do switch to ARM on the laptops/desktops that the ARM chips will probably just about be equal.

could this complicate a switch from Intel to ARM? or am I wrong here?

You might be thinking the wrong kind of emulations. Rosetta, just as Microsoft's Win10 x86 emu, is binary translation - the code there undergoes non-native->native translation once at runtime, and stays that way. It does not take _that_ much more powerful host core to get parity there.

 

[borghe]

That would have basically 0 impact on the size of the core. It was more of an asinine move on Apple's part.

why asinine? Is this simply related to frustration of them deprecating 32-bit apps?