Droid vs. iPhone- internal (processors, etc.)

[JhankG]

Aren't the iPhone, Droid, and Pre all running on the same processor?

Further research I did does show the iPhone and the Droid indeed have the same processor(and therefore GPU), but the iPhone CPU is clocked at the full 600mhz, so with that fact and a much lower rez screen, the iPhone should be faster (given identical OS/APP loading).

But now that it is so easy to bump the Droid's processor up to 600 mhz (I did this weekend), thing's are on a fairly even playing field. The new Pre Plus may just beat all of them once it's released!

 

[928Droid]

The iPhone's screen resolution is 320x480. The Droid is 480x854, so approximately 2.67 times the pixels to draw on the screen. That's one reason the iPhone (and the Eris, for that matter) seem to scroll so smoothly, fewer pixels to push.

But, with the Sense UI on top of Android (and only running 1.5) , trust me the Eris is a PIG.

Sometimes moving slowly can look "smoother"

 

[tu3218]

Aren't the iPhone, Droid, and Pre all running on the same processor?

Further research I did does show the iPhone and the Droid indeed have the same processor(and therefore GPU), but the iPhone CPU is clocked at the full 600mhz, so with that fact and a much lower rez screen, the iPhone should be faster (given identical OS/APP loading).

But now that it is so easy to bump the Droid's processor up to 600 mhz (I did this weekend), thing's are on a fairly even playing field. The new Pre Plus may just beat all of them once it's released!

how do you bump the droids processor to 600 mhz?

 

[JhankG]

Further research I did does show the iPhone and the Droid indeed have the same processor(and therefore GPU), but the iPhone CPU is clocked at the full 600mhz, so with that fact and a much lower rez screen, the iPhone should be faster (given identical OS/APP loading).

But now that it is so easy to bump the Droid's processor up to 600 mhz (I did this weekend), thing's are on a fairly even playing field. The new Pre Plus may just beat all of them once it's released!

how do you bump the droids processor to 600 mhz?

You have to root your phone and either flash a custome kernal or install the newest sholes ROM. There are quite a few tutorials in the hacks section of the forum.

 

[JhankG]

My Droid's processor runs at 600 mhz. :icon_ devil:

...and half the normal battery life :icon_ devil:


Just messing with ya, but according to info I have seen that last 50mhz of CPU speed does indeed have a dramatic result on battery life which is why it was underclocked to start with.

Here is an example of clockspeed vs battery life and it shows the more important spec is instructions per clock.

"The Droid uses an ARM Cortex A8 based processor which is roughly 1.5-2x as fast as the ARM11 cores of previous Android handsets. So a 550MHz OMAP3430 is roughly equivalent to a G1 running @ 775MHz+, only with the lower power draw of the lower clock speed. You can't directly compare the clockspeeds of the two processors without considering their IPC (instructions per clock) performance. In short, the Droid should be plenty fast."

With SetCPU's profiles turned on, I am only running at 600 mhz when I'm actually using the phone. When the phone is in sleep mode or charging, it is running at a much lower speed. Those who are running at the stock 550mhz are running at that speed full time. I haven't seen any change in battery life since I bumped the cpu speed up to 600 mhz and it has been around 4 days now.

 

[praeceps]

So, the moral of this story is we can have a obscenely fast phone, the iPhone, but we don't get the super high quality screen(so many pixels... another reason why the Droid has a worse batery life than the iPhone), or we can go just a bit slower(Android is DAMNED efficient anyway) and have all the beauty. It's, in my opinion, not a clear cut even spread. You loose less speed due to the Droid's efficient OS, and you get a significantly larger pieace of beauty AND it's more versatile regardless.

 

[praeceps]

Also, it not an Apples to Apples comparison, it's a Robots to Apples comparison... ehy, can't robots just eat apples if they want?

 

[moot]

I'm not sure if I am asking this question correctly, but than why does the iphone have games that looks so much better than the ones on droid. Is this a hardware limitation or a software limitation.

Thanks.

 

[JhankG]

I'm not sure if I am asking this question correctly, but than why does the iphone have games that looks so much better than the ones on droid. Is this a hardware limitation or a software limitation.

Thanks.

Neither really. Give it time, they're coming.

 

[praeceps]

Agreed. Before the Droid, there were only really just "cute" phones such as T-Mobile's G1. The Droid is definitely more capable than the iPhone. The screen has amazing quality and the chips are very powerful. There just hasn't been much anywhere near the Droid on Android up until now, so there just hasn't been anything that takes advantage yet. I do notice the difference on my emulators... I have them all. NES, SNES, Sega Master System, you name it, it does a great job and looks and sounds great and runs so smooth.

 

[jrl9851]

So, the moral of this story is we can have a obscenely fast phone, the iPhone, but we don't get the super high quality screen(so many pixels... another reason why the Droid has a worse batery life than the iPhone), or we can go just a bit slower(Android is DAMNED efficient anyway) and have all the beauty. It's, in my opinion, not a clear cut even spread. You loose less speed due to the Droid's efficient OS, and you get a significantly larger pieace of beauty AND it's more versatile regardless.

Uh...whoa...now hold on just a minute there.

I owned an iphone for 2.5 years before the droid (3g and 3gs), and the droid does NOT have worse battery life than the iphone. That is the craziest thing I have ever heard. If your droid truly has a worse battery than the iphone, then there is something wrong with your droid.

By 3PM every single day, with my iphone, it would be dead. With the same amount of usage with the Droid, I have 50% left at 3pm.

 

[cpjr]

Yup, you gotta remember that the iphone is over 2 1/2 years old now....and the appstore is almost 1 1/2 years old....its just had much more time.

 

[natty_lite]

So, the moral of this story is we can have a obscenely fast phone, the iPhone, but we don't get the super high quality screen(so many pixels... another reason why the Droid has a worse batery life than the iPhone), or we can go just a bit slower(Android is DAMNED efficient anyway) and have all the beauty. It's, in my opinion, not a clear cut even spread. You loose less speed due to the Droid's efficient OS, and you get a significantly larger pieace of beauty AND it's more versatile regardless.

Uh...whoa...now hold on just a minute there.

I owned an iphone for 2.5 years before the droid (3g and 3gs), and the droid does NOT have worse battery life than the iphone. That is the craziest thing I have ever heard. If your droid truly has a worse battery than the iphone, then there is something wrong with your droid.

By 3PM every single day, with my iphone, it would be dead. With the same amount of usage with the Droid, I have 50% left at 3pm.

My 3GS didn't have better battery life than my Droid either. As far as all the fancy 3D gaming, I'm guessing that's up to Google. They're going to have to communicate with game makers to bring their games to the Android platform, that's what Palm is doing now with the Pre.

Android's modest internal storage numbers may also hinder development. Game makers might not feel comfortable with installing the bulk of their games on the SD cards, since that may increase the chance of piracy. Gaming is a pretty big part of the marketing strategy behind the iPhone, that's probably why their A8 is clocked to 600 instead of 550 like the Droid, and why their version of the PowerVR chip pushes more polygons than the Droid.

The Pre has the same graphics chip as the Droid btw, and there are some videos floating around of a Need for Speed demo, and it looks great. So yeah, I would say the Droid is more than capable. IMO, it will be a matter of whether or not Google wants tap into that particular market.

 

[praeceps]

So, the moral of this story is we can have a obscenely fast phone, the iPhone, but we don't get the super high quality screen(so many pixels... another reason why the Droid has a worse batery life than the iPhone), or we can go just a bit slower(Android is DAMNED efficient anyway) and have all the beauty. It's, in my opinion, not a clear cut even spread. You loose less speed due to the Droid's efficient OS, and you get a significantly larger pieace of beauty AND it's more versatile regardless.

Uh...whoa...now hold on just a minute there.

I owned an iphone for 2.5 years before the droid (3g and 3gs), and the droid does NOT have worse battery life than the iphone. That is the craziest thing I have ever heard. If your droid truly has a worse battery than the iphone, then there is something wrong with your droid.

By 3PM every single day, with my iphone, it would be dead. With the same amount of usage with the Droid, I have 50% left at 3pm.

There is a word in human dialect for making such an error, as I have: woops.

 

[praeceps]

So, the moral of this story is we can have a obscenely fast phone, the iPhone, but we don't get the super high quality screen(so many pixels... another reason why the Droid has a worse batery life than the iPhone), or we can go just a bit slower(Android is DAMNED efficient anyway) and have all the beauty. It's, in my opinion, not a clear cut even spread. You loose less speed due to the Droid's efficient OS, and you get a significantly larger pieace of beauty AND it's more versatile regardless.

Uh...whoa...now hold on just a minute there.

I owned an iphone for 2.5 years before the droid (3g and 3gs), and the droid does NOT have worse battery life than the iphone. That is the craziest thing I have ever heard. If your droid truly has a worse battery than the iphone, then there is something wrong with your droid.

By 3PM every single day, with my iphone, it would be dead. With the same amount of usage with the Droid, I have 50% left at 3pm.

My 3GS didn't have better battery life than my Droid either. As far as all the fancy 3D gaming, I'm guessing that's up to Google. They're going to have to communicate with game makers to bring their games to the Android platform, that's what Palm is doing now with the Pre.

Android's modest internal storage numbers may also hinder development. Game makers might not feel comfortable with installing the bulk of their games on the SD cards, since that may increase the chance of piracy. Gaming is a pretty big part of the marketing strategy behind the iPhone, that's probably why their A8 is clocked to 600 instead of 550 like the Droid, and why their version of the PowerVR chip pushes more polygons than the Droid.

The Pre has the same graphics chip as the Droid btw, and there are some videos floating around of a Need for Speed demo, and it looks great. So yeah, I would say the Droid is more than capable. IMO, it will be a matter of whether or not Google wants tap into that particular market.

I wouldn't think it would be Google. I think it'd be the devs... amiright?