Is it even worth buying if we're on the verge of quad-core?

[dsignori]

Quad-core phones are literally months away. I expect that one or so will more than likely be unveiled in January or February and the trend will continue from spring until the end of the year. This is basically what happened with dual-core last year. The first Tegra 3 quad core tablet has already been announced by Asus, so I'm sure that it will be added to phones in a matter of time.

So is it even worth getting the Galaxy Nexus when something TWICE as good will be out in three, maybe four months? Not to mention the fact that people that aren't purchasing the phone unlocked will probably have to wait until the beginning of the year for it to reach their carrier anyway. And the fact that new quad core phones will almost definitely ship with ICS, HD screens, great cameras, and have everything that the Nexus lacks is making me consider waiting.

Had the specs on the Nexus blew me away, I would have probably went for it. But it merely matched other Android phones and upped the software (by a lot, I must add; ICS is simply amazing, but I don't buy phones for software). And don't get me wrong. I am NOT bashing. There will just more than likely be something much better VERY soon.

What specifically would anyone want to do on a quad core phone, that they wont be able to do with the Nexus, or other modern phones?

The current phones can do everything I need them to with no waiting, no lag. The Razr, Nexus and Razound are gonna be wicked fast. Right now, I have absolutely no need for a quad core chip in my phone.

That said, I am sure there will be edge cases where folks will say they need it to do <a,b,c,>, and maybe it could be worth waiting. I don't see it. Phones are at a hardware point now that - for me - the high end phones can do everything I need as fast as I need. I would not wait ..

 

[Poopai]

I'm still amazed how many people still love their Nexus One. And when the Nexus S was announced everyone said how disappointed they were with the specs yet most people who own one really like the phone. There is nothing quite like a pure vanilla android phone. It's always smooth.

The Nexus S was a joke: year old specs with a glossy plastic build. The Nexus One however had good new specs and it looked awesome. Now the Galaxy Nexus does have good specs (It's just thrown off by them stupidly underclocking the processor, but that can be fixed), but it doesn't look that good.

 

[Stein357]

The Nexus S was a joke: year old specs with a glossy plastic build. The Nexus One however had good new specs and it looked awesome. Now the Galaxy Nexus does have good specs (It's just thrown off by them stupidly underclocking the processor, but that can be fixed), but it doesn't look that good.

I'm fine with them under clocking the processor considering LTE is a battery hog.

As far as waiting goes? Tomorrow isn't promised.

 

[Poopai]

One should also note that waiting won't just get you quad-core, but probably a GPU that's actually competitive.

 

[TuxDotKing]

One should also note that waiting won't just get you quad-core, but probably a GPU that's actually competitive.

Hence giving you the extra efficiency for brute-forcing RSA encryptions, or mining Bitcoins, or other tasks which obviously require you to have the most cutting edge phone hardware.

Christ, I remember having this argument when the Nexus S came out. The Nexus S still runs everything I throw at it smoothly and efficiently. I think the Galaxy Nexus's hardware will be perfectly fine.

It should support a lot more than 4 cores, it should be inheriting the multi core support baked into the linux kernel

Yes, it will. ICS is fully optimized for multi-core processors. A lot of you here need to read up on the actual benefits of multi-core processors and how Linux/Android/Dalvik handle them respectively. By ICS each part of that holy trinity has been optimized with multi-threading support; but more cores != more power. It simply means more efficiency.

 

[kharrigan]

Yeah, now that ICS is out, it's old news. We need to hype the next version of Android: Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookie! It's going to support virtualization, 2TB RAM, 7 3DHD screens and the Flex Capacitor! You'll be able to run iOS, Android, Windows 9, and MacOS Meercat! The fun stuff happens when your car goes over 88mph!

 

[anon(512898)]

If you don't think the nexus is competitive, you can continue to wait until you find hardware that is acceptable to you, in the mean time I will be enjoying ics. Then when you finally get you're competitive device right before google announces the j-release you will have months of waiting while I will have only weeks.

 

[Poopai]

Hence giving you the extra efficiency for brute-forcing RSA encryptions, or mining Bitcoins, or other tasks which obviously require you to have the most cutting edge phone hardware.

Or the ability to play better graphics games.

 

[TuxDotKing]

Or the ability to play better graphics games.

What games are aiming so far at the high end that the Galaxy Nexus can't play them? Remember that the much vaunted TegraZone games are only optimized for Tegra chips, not exclusive to them. Furthermore the Galaxy Nexus will be playing pretty much any game made for Android for the next year or two because it is the official Google development device, so you actually have a much better shot at game compatibility with it.

And with such a beautiful screen, I highly doubt any game could look bad on it.

 

[djwyman]

Why wait for better hard ware? Nexus devises always own the speed (stock) charts until just before a new one comes out despite usually having lesser hard ware than devices that come out around the same time...why you might ask... because the software and hardware are made for each other instead of the software adapted for said hardware ...this why iPhones...nexus phones are almost going to be the best running phones until the next nexus phone.

D.J.

 

[Cory Streater]

As far as waiting goes? Tomorrow isn't promised.

Best line ever.

 

[anon(512898)]

What games are aiming so far at the high end that the Galaxy Nexus can't play them? Remember that the much vaunted TegraZone games are only optimized for Tegra chips, not exclusive to them. Furthermore the Galaxy Nexus will be playing pretty much any game made for Android for the next year or two because it is the official Google development device, so you actually have a much better shot at game compatibility with it.

And with such a beautiful screen, I highly doubt any game could look bad on it.

well he does have a point in that pushing that many pixels will use a lot more gpu power, limiting what the gpu can actually draw.

 

[Poopai]

What games are aiming so far at the high end that the Galaxy Nexus can't play them? Remember that the much vaunted TegraZone games are only optimized for Tegra chips, not exclusive to them. Furthermore the Galaxy Nexus will be playing pretty much any game made for Android for the next year or two because it is the official Google development device, so you actually have a much better shot at game compatibility with it.

And with such a beautiful screen, I highly doubt any game could look bad on it.

You need to stop thinking in the materialistic moment and look towards the future, within which a quad-core device with a far superior GPU will have much greater potential for, and much greater "future proofness". With your standards, getting such a device when it first comes out will last you 4 years and not just two, doubling your money's worth.

 

[TuxDotKing]

well he does have a point in that pushing that many pixels will use a lot more gpu power, limiting what the gpu can actually draw.

Any game that came out within the next year with such high requirements that the Galaxy Nexus couldn't meet them or run it smoothly would be seriously limiting it's audience to a point I'm unwilling to believe any reasonable developer would be fine with, let's be real here. This is a brand new phone people. This isn't an OG Droid, or god forbid, an HTC Hero.

You need to stop thinking in the materialistic moment and look towards the future, within which a quad-core device with a far superior GPU will have much greater potential for, and much greater "future proofness". With your standards, getting such a device when it first comes out will last you 4 years and not just two, doubling your money's worth.

I am looking towards the future. That's why I'm getting the device that gives me full, unrestricted freedom over the software as an intended feature and will run any Android upgrades that come out in the forseeable future. Worse case scenario is that Google suddenly does something absolutely insane with Android 5.2 that means I absolutely can't run it and I just shove it off and replace it with Tizen. (Or maybe someone will finally make a decent mobile Debian distro.)

I have tons of great software and hacking options, none of which are limited by not being able to play Battlefield 3 on my phone.

 

[Mannysaurus]

Quad-core devices will be available in August 2012. I have no insider information, this is just my opinion. If I happen to be correct I could always go back on this thread and tell everyone "I told you so".

Oh, and will quad-core really be a big upgrade from dual-core? I don't want a phone that devours power in exchange for a weak battery. I like to have my things balanced.

 

[anon(512898)]

The thing to remember is that development isn't based around the best that is available, it is based around what the majority has. A lot of android users do not have a top of the line gpu, and since most normal people only update once every two years, the specs the average user has will improve at a fairly slow rate. That means that, just like now, a significantly more powerful gpu will do you little good.

If you really want to see better, more graphically intense games on the market, hope for low end handsets to get better.

 

[Greatbape]

Why wait for better hard ware? Nexus devises always own the speed (stock) charts until just before a new one comes out despite usually having lesser hard ware than devices that come out around the same time...why you might ask... because the software and hardware are made for each other instead of the software adapted for said hardware ...this why iPhones...nexus phones are almost going to be the best running phones until the next nexus phone.

D.J.

I doubt the nexus out performs the GS2. Most powerful phone I have seen so far is the note, and I highly doubt the nexus will run better than that monster.

Quad-core devices will be available in August 2012. I have no insider information, this is just my opinion. If I happen to be correct I could always go back on this thread and tell everyone "I told you so".

Oh, and will quad-core really be a big upgrade from dual-core? I don't want a phone that devours power in exchange for a weak battery. I like to have my things balanced.

Going back and looking at the Tegra 3 demos compared to tegra 2.. quad core is a pretty big boost. I mean if you like to browse, game, watch HD movies, edit videos, stream/video chat, remote controlling things, etc. Also Tegra 3 is supposed to be just as battery efficient or better than tegra 2. The transformer prime will be out soon... will put things into perspective for a lot of people.

 

[anon(512898)]

Going back and looking at the Tegra 3 demos compared to tegra 2.. quad core is a pretty big boost. I mean if you like to browse, game, watch HD movies, edit videos, stream/video chat, remote controlling things, etc. Also Tegra 3 is supposed to be just as battery efficient or better than tegra 2. The transformer prime will be out soon... will put things into perspective for a lot of people.

That is because these demos are written to take advantage of the extra processing threads, which in reality, very few apps will do.

As for the transformer prime, quad core will likely be the standard for tablets in the the first half of 2012, but I seriously doubt that we will see many, if any quad core phones before the summer. Remember, tegra did not see much traction inside of phones and most oems did not go dual core until qualcom and ti released dual core chips. It will likely be similar with quad core.

 

[Poopai]

That is because these demos are written to take advantage of the extra processing threads, which in reality, very few apps will do.

That just means the phone will last you even longer.

 

[anon(512898)]

That just means the phone will last you even longer.

This isn't even a question of adoption driving development, even on the desktop where quad core has been available and standard for years, most apps don't support multi threading. This is because multi threading is hard, and in some cases, not even possible. To do multi threading at all, your program has to contain several parts that do not have dependencies upon each other so that they can be computed in parallel. Parrallelizem is one of the greatest challenges of modern computer science, and if anyone comes up with a good solution, it will be the biggest revolution since object oriented design. This is why intel has not followed amd down the "cram more cores in" race and intel's quad core cpus outperform amd's 8 core cpus.

The dual core case is different, as long as the system intelligently assigns threads the foreground process can be run on one core and the system and background processes run on another. Dual core can be leveraged without the app developers doing anything.