4"+ smartphones -- the market has spoken (and it says yes) (1 Viewer)

[Sam Posten]

Keep holding your breath for the Bionic btw...

http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/19/droid-bionic-delay/

 

[Hanson]

Is it the Tegra 2? Is that a problem? The Revolution was announced as a Tegra 2 phone, but LG swapped it out with a Snapdragon before production.

 

[DaveF]

The article guesses it's not a specific hardware problem, but Motorola trying to not put undifferentiated product. That's probably hard to do when you're using the same software and hardware as everyone else. As decades of forgotten or failing PC makers learned, e.g. Gateway and Dell, it's hard to differentiate while making the same thing everyone else is making.

A Motorola spokeswoman told the WSJ that the Bionic improvements came about after “compelling feedback” from CES.
Most likely, Motorola is trying to figure out some way to differentiate the Bionic from the slew of other 4G phones on the horizon.

 

[Hanson]

I read the article as well, and it sounds like spin to me.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

In the tech market, software always commoditizes hardware. There is really only so much apparent diff you can make on the hardware side, which is probably why many of these makers continue to try to put a spin on their handsets, etc. w/ add-on skins and such to maximize on differentiation w/ use of whatever software layer they can feasibly add.

Anyway, it's too bad that the Droid Bionic will be delayed that much -- probably a significant loss in terms of quality options for the near term. Ah well, at this rate, maybe the iPhone 5.2 w/ super-duper, transformable 3-to-7" Retna-X-Factor screen running w/ month-long battery life will be out soon enough...

Anyhoo...

_Man_

 

[DaveF]

Do you think instead that the Tegra 2 is in short supply, hindering production? Could be the article is BS, but that seems an odd error from what I'd guess to be an informed publication. (Maybe not. I don't read VentureBeat usually)

 

[Hanson]

I think that the Tegra 2 isn't what it's cracked up to be, and manufacturers are scrambling to replace them.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

There seems to be too many "theories" to go around on that. Think I read one that thought the DB was having overheating issues due in part to the Tegra 2 -- that was supposedly an issue w/ the HTC Thunderbolt before they solved it for their recent release...

As I've been checking up on news/info about the DB, I did read some rumor from some Florida web-blogging "journalist" that there was talk of this kind of delay (amongst Tampa area distributors/dealers?) as far back as 3 weeks ago, so this is not a big surprise to me -- I was just hoping that rumor was premature and would turn out to be false. Oh well...

OTOH, yeah, maybe the Tegra 2 really isn't all that great afterall. It certainly doesn't seem to compare well w/ the custom A5(?) chip used in the iPad 2 at least in terms of 3D acceleration performance.

It's also kinda telling that Samsung has opted to hide what actual processor they plan(ned) to use in their upcoming new G Tabs. Same goes for some of the upcoming Android smartphones. Though none of that really tells us why exactly...

_Man_

 

[Hanson]

A little late to the party, but here's engadget's Galaxy S2 review:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/28/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-review/

For a handset with such a broad range of standout features and specs, the Galaxy S II is remarkably easy to summarize. It's the best Android smartphone yet, but more importantly, it might well be the best smartphone, period. Of course, a 4.3-inch screen size won't suit everyone, no matter how stupendously thin the device that carries it may be, and we also can't say for sure that the Galaxy S II would justify a long-term iOS user foresaking his investment into one ecosystem and making the leap to another. Nonetheless, if you're asking us what smartphone to buy today, unconstrained by such externalities, the Galaxy S II would be the clear choice. Sometimes it's just as simple as that.

Quite the high praise. With the SG2 headed to Sprint in July, I might have to delay what was a slam dunk Evo 3D purchase.

 

[DaveF]

Engadget claims it has 12 hours battery life, in use (10 hrs active use, 15% remaining after). Is that real? That's, what, double?, what Android phones are generally reported at and maybe 50% more than iPhone 4 claims (6 - 10 hrs, depending on usage). Although, video & music playback can be quite long-lasting, so maybe that's a chunk of it.

If that's an honest-to-goodness 12-hr phone...that's really quite something.











The story of the Galaxy S II's battery life cannot be told without returning to its luscious screen. ... As to the Galaxy S II's actual endurance, we found it highly competitive with the latest batch of Android phones. After 20 hours, half of which were filled with the above tinkering and exploration, we managed to drag the Galaxy S II down to 15 percent of its original charge. This was with our usual push notification suppliers, Gmail and Twitter, running in the background and while constantly connected to our WiFi network.

 

[Hanson]

The reviews are indicating 2 days from one charge with "moderate" use. Part of it is the screen, and part of it is smart CPU management -- it idles down to 200mhz when not actively being used. This is a feature that you need rooting for with current phones. The other interesting thing is that Gingerbread does not natively support dual core processors. When the next Android upgrade comes, some of the performance will increase.

 

[Sam Posten]

Prepare your "I told you so's":
http://www.9to5mac.com/72158/did-nuance-just-spill-the-iphone-5-beans/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+9To5Mac-MacAllDay+%289+to+5+Mac+-+Apple+Intelligence%29

Not sure it's a lock, but if it's gonna happen I'd much rather see it go like this (edge to edge) than making the phone itself bigger like the androids have done.

 

[DaveF]

Double-basket of bean spillage: that's also the missing Nuance announcement.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Looks like crappily faked images.

_Man_

 

[Hanson]

Sam, the "I told you so's" will fly. But those are just (badly) photoshopped images. I don't think the real iPhone 5 screen will cut off the top of the start button as depicted.

 

[Sam Posten]

Nice fingerprints and year old OS...
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/18/motorola-droid-razr-hands-on/

 

[Hanson]

7.1 mm thick is mind boggling. Also mind boggling? The $299 contract price. I know that the Bionic was there first, but that just seems excessive.

Also, poor Bionic owners. I mean, they just had to hold out a couple of months to get a much better phone. Much, much better phone.

BTW, iOS 5 just caught up that year old OS ;-) So it's nothing to sneeze at.

 

[DaveF]

What's the storage in such a phone? Android phones, when reviewed, always seem cagey about their storage capacity. it always feels weird, being used to Apple for which that's the obvious discriminator in the lineup.

 

[Hanson]

There are actually 64GB microUSB cards in the market (sdxc), and they apparently work in the Epic Touch. They will probably work on all the newer chipsets.

So my Epic Touch, which comes with 16GB* on board, can expand to 80GB. The cost of a 64GB card?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005VFFZPE/ref=asc_df_B005VFFZPE1747282?smid=A1C0E2G2LZFK00&tag=dealtmp1-20&linkCode=asn&creative=395105&creativeASIN=B005VFFZPE

$160 for 80GB vs $200 64GB? Kind of a ripoff. And some of the upcoming Android phones will come with 32GB onboard with SD card prices dropping. Sometime next year, you will probably get a 96GB phone for another $120 vs $200 for 64GB.

Android memory management is different from iOS because it's not unified. Think of it like partitions -- there an OS partition, an application partition, and then storage. Since the storage isn't unified, the onboard storage is like an E: drive and the SD card is an F: drive. All pictures and music go on the SD card while system files will go on the onboard storage area. It sounds more complicated than it is.

*Due to the bit to byte conversion as well as the OS and App partitions, the usable internal storage space is around 12GB, but I left it at the reported memory sizes to compare apples to apples, so to speak.

 

[DaveF]

Originally Posted by Hanson /t/310298/4-smartphones-the-market-has-spoken-and-it-says-yes/30#post_3861856

$160 for 80GB vs $200 64GB? Kind of a ripoff. And some of the upcoming Android phones will come with 32GB onboard with SD card prices dropping. Sometime next year, you will probably get a 96GB phone for another $120 vs $200 for 64GB.

Complexity vs Simplicity? To each their own value judgment.