"Spec showdown: iPhone 5S vs. Galaxy S4 vs. HTC One"

[pit5000]

the spec sheet is an outline and a gives a general idea of how the device will operate...

 

not all the time, the GS4 has a 50% bigger battery than iPhone yet it does not have 50% better battery life.

 

The GS4 also has the beefiest CPU but it's responsiveness is not that much greater than the HTC One due to it's "bloatware"

 

when comparing most devices, i would prefer adjectives over numbers

[atomicmonkey101]

not all the time, the GS4 has a 50% bigger battery than iPhone yet it does not have 50% better battery life.

 

The GS4 also has the beefiest CPU but it's responsiveness is not that much greater than the HTC One due to it's "bloatware"

 

when comparing most devices, i would prefer adjectives over numbers

 

 

K SERIOUSLY! I SAID OUTLINE, NOT EXACT SPECS AND SOFTWARE FUNCTIONALITY. just take the point ok.

[MzCatieB]

[eshbop]

We need more phones with "mid-low" end hardware in but still with all the features that actually matter. IMO the hardware in these top tier phones is just to look good on spec sheets.

 

Skip the quad core CPU, skip the 1080p on ~5" displays, skip the >9000megapixels and start implementing features that matter.

[pit5000]

i want a phone with google now and siri! i want them to argue! haha

[jrfox87]

Spec sheets might be helpful when purchasing a windows laptop but when it comes to phones they really don't mean a damn thing. This thread is just pointless.

[c4pt1n54n0]

What about the LG G2? quad core 2.3GHz.

http://www.phonearena.com/phones/LG-G2_id7969

[pit5000]

What about the LG G2? quad core 2.3GHz.

http://www.phonearena.com/phones/LG-G2_id7969

 

looks nice but the experience is what would matter to me and most others

 

even with tiny bezels the biggest screen size my hand can comfortably use is about 4.2 (my right hand is 9% smaller than my left)

[R4STABAN]

What the point in the quad cores in phones right now anyway?

 

I turn power saving on on my S3 and the only difference in performance is that it breaks google's play music app or whatever it's bloody called.

 

The phone doesn't even need a quad core, let alone the octocore on the S4.

[LAwLz]

When the iPhone does not have the best specs:

"Baww who needs specs anyway? The iPhone is still the best. You don't need those specs anyway."

 

When the iPhone has the best specs:

"Haha all other phones are so bad! The iPhone has the best specs!"

 

 

Personally, I think the people who says specs for phones doesn't matter don't know enough about phone hardware to actually draw a good conclusion from spec sheets.

 

 

 

What the point in the quad cores in phones right now anyway?

 

I turn power saving on on my S3 and the only difference in performance is that it breaks google's play music app or whatever it's bloody called.

 

The phone doesn't even need a quad core, let alone the octocore on the S4.

Just stop. We need better hardware in phones. People said the same thing about desktop computers a few decades ago. "what's the point of having more than 128MB of RAM anyway?". It's extremely shortsighted to say we don't need better hardware.

Oh and FYI, I don't think my Nexus 10 nor my Galaxy S 4 is anywhere near close to being as powerful as I want them. They can't even play 10 bit H.264 with a resolution of 1920x1080 at full speed. We don't have hardware decoding for HEVC either, so unless we get much more powerful CPUs we will be stuck with H.264 for video for a very long time. That's one example of why we need more performance right now. Then if we consider all the possibilities smartphones has in the future we really need higher performing hardware.

So you don't need that much performance from your phone, good for you. Just don't say that it is useless just because you don't need it.

 

 

 

 

 

We need more phones with "mid-low" end hardware in but still with all the features that actually matter. IMO the hardware in these top tier phones is just to look good on spec sheets.

 

Skip the quad core CPU, skip the 1080p on ~5" displays, skip the >9000megapixels and start implementing features that matter.

For example? Samsung has introduced a ton of features on their phones but they are not really useful.

[ddwgg]

Spec sheets are completely pointless. It's all about user experience. 

 

For example, Linus doesn't even use his HTC One with "Beats Audio" because the audio output is terrible, so he uses his 3 year old iPhone 4 for music.

[R4STABAN]

Just stop. We need better hardware in phones. People said the same thing about desktop computers a few decades ago. "what's the point of having more than 128MB of RAM anyway?". It's extremely shortsighted to say we don't need better hardware.

Oh and FYI, I don't think my Nexus 10 nor my Galaxy S 4 is anywhere near close to being as powerful as I want them. They can't even play 10 bit H.264 with a resolution of 1920x1080 at full speed. We don't have hardware decoding for HEVC either, so unless we get much more powerful CPUs we will be stuck with H.264 for video for a very long time. That's one example of why we need more performance right now. Then if we consider all the possibilities smartphones has in the future we really need higher performing hardware.

So you don't need that much performance from your phone, good for you. Just don't say that it is useless just because you don't need it.

 

I did say right now.

 

What's the point watching 1080p h.264 encoded content on a phone? the battery will beg for mercy.

How many people buy a tablet and then stream ultra high quality video to it? Barely any.

 

All that's happening is company A goes:

CHECK OUT OUR QUAD CORE, BUY OUR PHONE.

Then company B goes:

NO BRO, WE GOT A OCTOCORE, BUY OUR PHONE.

 

Neither likes to admit the battery gets it's ass ripped out by all this and that the cores are not even worthwhile for the vast majority of their customers.

 

What was that stupid game they were showing at the 5s reveal? idr. What a complete joke. I'll bet the battery lasts half an hour tops while playing that.

[LAwLz]

I did say right now.

With that attitude, we would still have 128MB of RAM on our desktops. We won't get programs to utilize more power before we actually have access to such power.

 

 

What's the point watching 1080p h.264 encoded content on a phone? the battery will beg for mercy.

How many people buy a tablet and then stream ultra high quality video to it? Barely any.

I do it all the time. I don't want to reencode my videos just to put them on my phone, and why settle for 720p if my phone has a 1080p display (or in my tablet case, a 2560x1600 display)?

With hardware acceleration it doesn't use that much battery either (software decoding is a battery hog though). And again, just because you don't do it doesn't mean nobody does it. We shouldn't cater to the lowest denominator all the time. Think of it this way, most people don't use their computers for more than checking facebook. Does that mean that Nvidia shouldn't sell any hardware more powerful than the GTX 630? Does that mean that Intel shouldn't sell anything better than an i3? It's the same deal here. Just because most people doesn't need it, doesn't mean we shouldn't make it. That's a very egocentric way of looking at things.

 

 

Neither likes to admit the battery gets it's ass ripped out by all this and that the cores are not even worthwhile for the vast majority of their customers.

Ever heard of "race to idle"? The higher performance something has, the faster it can finish work and go into a deep sleep state. The longer your device spends in deep sleep, the longer battery life you get. So yeah, higher performance will result in longer battery life. We also get a bigger dynamic range. A very powerful processor won't use any more power than a low performance processor if they do the same task (the high performance one might actually have higher performance:watt).

The newer generations of SoCs in phones can also control each core's voltage individually, and go as far as to completely turn of unused cores. When your phone is in your pocket, it might only have 1 core active, and it is running on a very low frequency. Then when you wake it up and go to a web page, it sets all the cores to maximum frequency, fetches and loads the page as fast as possible, and then all but one core is turned off again. Even if the peak power consumption is higher than on a dual core phone, the total power consumption will be lower since it goes back to deep sleep faster.

 

 

What was that stupid game they were showing at the 5s reveal? idr. What a complete joke. I'll bet the battery lasts half an hour tops while playing that.

Infinity Blade? It lasts a few hours playing that, not half an hour.

[LOLPhilips]

Can't really care about specs but looking at specs those three phones just lost to LG.. LG for crying out loud

[c4pt1n54n0]

looks nice but the experience is what would matter to me and most others

 

even with tiny bezels the biggest screen size my hand can comfortably use is about 4.2 (my right hand is 9% smaller than my left)

Lol, I'm sorry, I mean no offense or anything but that is such a specific percentage! lol I'm now just sitting here looking like an idiot trying to measure the area of my hands.....

[R4STABAN]

With that attitude, we would still have 128MB of RAM on our desktops. We won't get programs to utilize more power before we actually have access to such power.

 

 

I do it all the time. I don't want to reencode my videos just to put them on my phone, and why settle for 720p if my phone has a 1080p display (or in my tablet case, a 2560x1600 display)?

With hardware acceleration it doesn't use that much battery either (software decoding is a battery hog though). And again, just because you don't do it doesn't mean nobody does it. We shouldn't cater to the lowest denominator all the time. Think of it this way, most people don't use their computers for more than checking facebook. Does that mean that Nvidia shouldn't sell any hardware more powerful than the GTX 630? Does that mean that Intel shouldn't sell anything better than an i3? It's the same deal here. Just because most people doesn't need it, doesn't mean we shouldn't make it. That's a very egocentric way of looking at things.

 

 

Ever heard of "race to idle"? The higher performance something has, the faster it can finish work and go into a deep sleep state. The longer your device spends in deep sleep, the longer battery life you get. So yeah, higher performance will result in longer battery life. We also get a bigger dynamic range. A very powerful processor won't use any more power than a low performance processor if they do the same task (the high performance one might actually have higher performance:watt).

The newer generations of SoCs in phones can also control each core's voltage individually, and go as far as to completely turn of unused cores. When your phone is in your pocket, it might only have 1 core active, and it is running on a very low frequency. Then when you wake it up and go to a web page, it sets all the cores to maximum frequency, fetches and loads the page as fast as possible, and then all but one core is turned off again. Even if the peak power consumption is higher than on a dual core phone, the total power consumption will be lower since it goes back to deep sleep faster.

 

 

Infinity Blade? It lasts a few hours playing that, not half an hour.

 

True when you consider that mobile cpu manufacturers need to shift these things to cover their costs I suppose. But there is too much focus on the wrong parts of the smartphones imo.

 

What I'm saying is that we should cater to the lowest denominator when it makes sense. The vast majority of people that buy smartphones, even the flagship models, will not be streaming content like that to their phone. So why should that functionality be a priority over the current rubbish battery life that 100% of all (particularly high-end) smartphone users have to live with? Battery life is imo the biggest problem with smartphones. My S3 is a year old and I have shove it into airplane mode with power saving to get more than 8 hours out of it, which turns it into an expensive and frankly poor mp3 player. It's necessary to do though, otherwise my battery will run out and I might need to call someone. Lol. (This has never been thrash-charged from the wall).

 

@ race to idle, yes I've heard of it, but only as a passing comment about CPUS in a concurrency module. The effectiveness of that principle hinges on whether the high performance cpu does infact have better performance per watt than a lower performance cpu for the majority of all given tasks. Does it right now? Because before I broke my iphone 3gs it had far better battery life than my S3 (especially at idle, although I'm guessing that's a samsung/android thing), so I'm not convinced at all... yet.

 

I call BS on it lasting a few hours. Maybe on a brand new 5s it will. If it's not too expensive I'll try it out and see. No idea how much it costs, I'm not spending mroe than a couple of £ on a mobile game.

[pit5000]

Lol, I'm sorry, I mean no offense or anything but that is such a specific percentage! lol I'm now just sitting here looking like an idiot trying to measure the area of my hands.....

i rounded up to the next integer

[Alex(PlayMedium)]

I don't really care about specs other than the display and the battery life on smartphones.

I am a light smartphone user and my iphone 5 lasts 2-3 days for me without a charge and the screen is sharp enough so I can read everything clearly. What else could I want from my phone other than even more battery life?

Maybe NFC, but that's about it.