10 Common Misconceptions About Smartphone Specs

[minervx]

After overhearing several conversations of non-techies debating between iPhone and Android, the amount of misleading claims ("blast processing") I've heard is infuriating.  Beyond merely having a different opinion, a lot of technical terms are being thrown around as marketing hype without people knowing what they mean, varying from deceptive to outright wrong.

 

• Retina displays are not unique.  Retina just means high pixel density.  Nearly all mid to high end phones have them.
• 2560x1440 (1440p) resolution does not make a meaningful difference on a tiny 6" screen.
• The difference between a 1080p, Retina and 1440p resolution display on a phone are very minimal
• Camera quality is based more on color and lighting than on megapixels
• A higher resolution face camera is not necessarily a helpful feature for the dermatologically (or aesthetically) challenged.
• A high-end processor won't benefit you if you mostly just text, web browse and skype.
• A higher benchmark doesn't necessarily mean more real-world results.
• RAM is rarely mentioned amongst non-techies, yet having at least 2 GB of it is essential for good performance.
• iPhones and Android phones have mostly the same features, so claiming a shared feature on one's side is silly.
• Mid-range phones ($250-400) are not crap like they used to be and can do millions of people just fine.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

4 minutes ago, minervx said:

After overhearing several conversations of non-techies debating between iPhone and Android, the amount of misleading claims ("blast processing") I've heard is infuriating.  Beyond merely having a different opinion, a lot of technical terms are being thrown around as marketing hype without people knowing what they mean, varying from deceptive to outright wrong.

 

• Retina displays are not unique.  Retina just means high pixel density.  Nearly all mid to high end phones have them.
• 2560x1440 (1440p) resolution does not make a meaningful difference on a tiny 6" screen.
• The difference between a 1080p, Retina and 1440p resolution display on a phone are very minimal
• Camera quality is based more on color and lighting than on megapixels
• A higher resolution face camera is not necessarily a helpful feature for the dermatologically (or aesthetically) challenged.
• A high-end processor won't benefit you if you mostly just text, web browse and skype.
• A higher benchmark doesn't necessarily mean more real-world results.
• RAM is rarely mentioned amongst non-techies, yet having at least 2 GB of it is essential for good performance.
• iPhones and Android phones have mostly the same features, so claiming a shared feature on one's side is silly.
• Mid-range phones ($250-400) are not crap like they used to be and can do millions of people just fine.

There's only one product in the world that has Blast Processing, and that's the Sega Mega Drive.

 

[minervx]

Blast Processing for the win.

 

(Threadripper + GT 1030 + 2 GB RAM)

[rip]

19 minutes ago, minervx said:

• Retina displays are not unique.  Retina just means high pixel density.  Nearly all mid to high end phones have them.

Who said Retina was unique??

19 minutes ago, minervx said:

 

• 2560x1440 (1440p) resolution does not make a meaningful difference on a tiny 6" screen.
• The difference between a 1080p, Retina and 1440p resolution display on a phone are very minimal

Are you basing it off long time experience? How TF 6" is small? 

19 minutes ago, minervx said:

 

• A higher resolution face camera is not necessarily a helpful feature for the dermatologically (or aesthetically) challenged.

So what you are saying ugly people can't have selfies?

19 minutes ago, minervx said:

• A high-end processor won't benefit you if you mostly just text, web browse and skype.
• RAM is rarely mentioned amongst non-techies, yet having at least 2 GB of it is essential for good performance.

No but people multi task too. I have never seen a person with a high end phone just text. web browse and skype and nothing more. People also do FB on their phone, twitter and other stuff.

Define good performance. Just "text, web browse and skype" then 2GB might be excessive. Example: iPad Mini 3 and iPhone 6/6+ has only 1GB of RAM

 

19 minutes ago, minervx said:

After overhearing several conversations of non-techies debating between iPhone and Android, the amount of misleading claims ("blast processing") I've heard is infuriating. 

This whole post and bunch of your other posts are misleading, including your inability to count to 10

[impure]

The difference between 1080p and 1440p may not be significant. But it is definitely meaningful.

[minervx]

1) Many people tout retina as an accomplish.  This is marketing hype for the masses, of course.

2) 6" is small for 1440p.  Most people won't notice the difference.

3) Not even a presidential amount of tweeting would even put a Snapdragon S35 or A11 close to full load.

4) 1GB of RAM could be fine for a device that's used for some Youtubing before bed but may not necessarily accomodate the more frantic and varied needs of a phone day to day

 

I guess 1GB --> 2GB is small potatoes, but 1080p resolution to 1440p resolution on a 6" phone is significant...

[rip]

Just now, minervx said:

1) Many people tout retina as an accomplish.  This is marketing hype for the masses, of course.

2) 6" is small for 1440p.  Most people won't notice the difference.

3) Not even a presidential amount of tweeting would even put a Snapdragon S35 or A11 close to full load.

4) 1GB of RAM could be fine for a device that's used for some Youtubing before bed but may not necessarily accomodate the more frantic and varied needs of a phone day to day

 

I guess 1GB --> 2GB is small potatoes, but 1080p resolution to 1440p resolution on a 6" phone is significant...

1) I don't see people buying phones because it's marketed as Retina. I don't know where you are getting that

2) The flagship phone Note 8 is 6.3" and it's considered a phablet more like a phone and is also a 1440p, so according to you, Samsung did a remarkably bad job at that.

3) I don't want to talk about politics

4) Have you ever used them? I have been using 5S for years as well as borrowing my parent's iPhone 6+ for time to time, all of which has only 1GB of RAM

 

[DrMacintosh]

Nobody claims retina is better anymore. Higher pixel densities have been achieved but they don’t really matter and just waste resources. 

 

Retina was revolutionary when came out, nobody had a display that was that pixel dense on a smartphone. You can thank Apple for pretty much all the staple features of smartphones now a days. 

 

Also 2GB of RAM is not enough for Android. 

[Daniel Z.]

52 minutes ago, minervx said:

After overhearing several conversations of non-techies debating between iPhone and Android, the amount of misleading claims ("blast processing") I've heard is infuriating.  Beyond merely having a different opinion, a lot of technical terms are being thrown around as marketing hype without people knowing what they mean, varying from deceptive to outright wrong.

 

• Retina displays are not unique.  Retina just means high pixel density.  Nearly all mid to high end phones have them.
• 2560x1440 (1440p) resolution does not make a meaningful difference on a tiny 6" screen.
• The difference between a 1080p, Retina and 1440p resolution display on a phone are very minimal
• Camera quality is based more on color and lighting than on megapixels
• A higher resolution face camera is not necessarily a helpful feature for the dermatologically (or aesthetically) challenged.
• A high-end processor won't benefit you if you mostly just text, web browse and skype.
• A higher benchmark doesn't necessarily mean more real-world results.
• RAM is rarely mentioned amongst non-techies, yet having at least 2 GB of it is essential for good performance.
• iPhones and Android phones have mostly the same features, so claiming a shared feature on one's side is silly.
• Mid-range phones ($250-400) are not crap like they used to be and can do millions of people just fine.

1. True, Retina is a marketing term from Apple.

2. It does for some stuff and reading. Not a large difference but still visible.

3. Isn't this the same as #2? Anyways, the non-plus iPhones have really low res displays.

4. True.

5. True but more resolution if it is the same everything else is still good. The only good thing about less resolution is larger pixels=better low light.

6. It does. Higher end CPUs like the A10, Snapdragon 835, and Exynos 8895 use smaller nm sizes and therefore use less power or have better performance for same power. For easy tasks, my 8890 only uses the low power cores, so it sips energy. IMO the best power saving mobile CPU is the one in the Galaxy A5 2017. Actually, anything with 4-8 LP cores that isn't Mediatek and has 14nm is good for power.

7. It doesn't but a CPU with 800 on geekbench will most likely be slower than a CPU with 6000.

8. 2GB is good for iOS, you should have at least 3 for android.

9. Not true, iOS has some iOS only stuff while Android has android only stuff. With apps you can add gestures to your phone on android.

10. very true.

[Daniel Z.]

41 minutes ago, minervx said:

1) Many people tout retina as an accomplish.  This is marketing hype for the masses, of course.

2) 6" is small for 1440p.  Most people won't notice the difference.

3) Not even a presidential amount of tweeting would even put a Snapdragon S35 or A11 close to full load.

4) 1GB of RAM could be fine for a device that's used for some Youtubing before bed but may not necessarily accomodate the more frantic and varied needs of a phone day to day

 

I guess 1GB --> 2GB is small potatoes, but 1080p resolution to 1440p resolution on a 6" phone is significant...

1. Retina is generally lower res than the Android flagships like LG G6 and Galaxy S8.

2. Nope, I can

3. Please, enough of Trump. I dislike him as well but you would have to have a auto tweet bot 24/7 with many background tasks to stress an S35.

4. No. Android is still pretty bad for RAM.

[Daniel Z.]

19 hours ago, huilun02 said:

Probs the biggest misconceptoon is that manufacturers made the right choice to remove audio jack and stop producing phones with removable battery. That the only good brands to buy from are the most heavily marketed (Apple/Samsung) that everything else sucks. And that they absolutely need to buy the latest flagship every year. 

 

Fukin sheeple. 

Samsung is pretty good. Apple is good if you need its security, something specific, or you really hate android.

[Zodiark1593]

21 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

Nobody claims retina is better anymore. Higher pixel densities have been achieved but they don’t really matter and just waste resources. 

 

Retina was revolutionary when came out, nobody had a display that was that pixel dense on a smartphone. You can thank Apple for pretty much all the staple features of smartphones now a days. 

 

Also 2GB of RAM is not enough for Android. 

The 960 x 640 displays Apple shipped with the iPhone 4 tbh weren't terribly far off from the 800 x 480 mark of many Android phones of the time (not counting terrible Pentile AMOLED displays).

 

Compared to the 3GS, the iPhone 4 had a revolutionary display in every aspect. Compared to contemporary Android devices of the time, it was an undeniable step up, but not quite so revolutionary as it was just a step.

 

As for resolution wasting resources, it doesn't require much performance to rasterize some icons and layers. Bandwidth and fill rate are the primary bottlenecks in UI rendering. Heavy overdraw can make performance chug at very high resolutions, but can be optimized by limiting overlapping layers. If anything, Apple has a more expensive UI due to the use of blurring shaders, meaning running higher resolutions would be even more expensive from a power and performance standpoint.

 

Having used a variety of lower and mid end devices myself, 2 GB works well enough on Android that many less demanding users are not going to be left wanting. It is sufficient for a heavy app or two (one such being a tab laden Browser), though one can push things pretty far. I found even 1 GB can be usable for basic tasks, but not much more than that.