What's going on with the specs war?

[Marute]

A new trend is upon us; the so-called Mini versions of flagship smartphones arrive with smaller screens and less powerful hardware. And while I too would love to see a 4.3" or 4.5" top notch flagship smartphone with all the latest and most modern features instead of purely the 4.7" and 5" beasts, something got to me yesterday.

Take the HTC One Mini for instance. With the exception of a few features such as NFC it can do the exact same thing as it's bigger brother, the HTC One. I'll ask you to ignore those left out features for a second and only focus on the hardware that's inside. Reviews show that the interface runs as smoothly as the HTC One's interface so why do I need a quad-core CPU? Why do manufacturers keep putting ever more potent CPU's in the handsets when software optimization and clever programming is more important? Look at the Galaxy S4. It is my understanding that it occasionally can have a tiny bit of lag when loading a large amount of widgets on a home screen, and this guy features a quad-core CPU! The answer is not more cores and more GHz, they - all the manufacturers - should relax a bit on the hardware part and go through the software to make sure it's butter smooth and light. It would also cut costs as the hardware would be cheaper.

I know it's doable. I myself am running a Lumia 800 with a 1,4GHz single core CPU and it's ever as smooth (I know it's another OS, though). And if we return to the HTC One Mini, it does as well as the HTC One despite it having an inferior CPU with only half the cores.

 

[ryanr509]

A new trend is upon us; the so-called Mini versions of flagship smartphones arrive with smaller screens and less powerful hardware. And while I too would love to see a 4.3" or 4.5" top notch flagship smartphone with all the latest and most modern features instead of purely the 4.7" and 5" beasts, something got to me yesterday.

Take the HTC One Mini for instance. With the exception of a few features such as NFC it can do the exact same thing as it's bigger brother, the HTC One. I'll ask you to ignore those left out features for a second and only focus on the hardware that's inside. Reviews show that the interface runs as smoothly as the HTC One's interface so why do I need a quad-core CPU? Why do manufacturers keep putting ever more potent CPU's in the handsets when software optimization and clever programming is more important? Look at the Galaxy S4. It is my understanding that it occasionally can have a tiny bit of lag when loading a large amount of widgets on a home screen, and this guy features a quad-core CPU! The answer is not more cores and more GHz, they - all the manufacturers - should relax a bit on the hardware part and go through the software to make sure it's butter smooth and light. It would also cut costs as the hardware would be cheaper.

I know it's doable. I myself am running a Lumia 800 with a 1,4GHz single core CPU and it's ever as smooth (I know it's another OS, though). And if we return to the HTC One Mini, it does as well as the HTC One despite it having an inferior CPU with only half the cores.

One thing to also realize is the processor pushing the pixels for the screen is a big burden on the CPU. So a smaller screen means it doesn't need as much horsepower to push the lesser amount of pixels.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Aquila]

I would venture that very few parts of the OS on any device are using 4 or 8 cores with any regularity, and most apps never utilize the full potential of the device. Any lag perceived on modern devices is generally buggy software, not a lack of muscle.

 

[Marute]

I would venture that very few parts of the OS on any device are using 4 or 8 cores with any regularity, and most apps never utilize the full potential of the device. Any lag perceived on modern devices is generally buggy software, not a lack of muscle.

Ny point exactly. Applications will hardly utilize such hardware fully for quite some time. It really annoys me when people see a new phone and go "old specs moving on" at a dual core handset. We should look at how smooth the interface is and how well the phone works and not just the specs. If the user experience is nice and smooth, I'd say you don't need a more powerful CPU. In that regard, the so-called mid range devices are often as potent as any flagships.

 

[wrecklass]

No doubt the average user would be well served by a dual core CPU with a gig of RAM.

That said the margin for all hardware vendors (computers, tablets and smart phones) is at the high end. They will get more money per phone with those high end devices. As an old friend used to say, "it only costs 80% more to fly first class."

And there are users who not only care, they have a use for those features. Video editors, hard core gamers and developers push the high end and the hardware vendor cater to them.

What makes mobile different is that on the PC end of things the majority of users buy cheap (<$1000) laptops and computers. While in the smart phone market we are all still getting high end devices until the market changes its habits.

Sent from my Nexus 7