Ahh, you're totally right. I think I glossed over that because I already had Bluetooth on, but it makes sense now since the FM radio is on that same piece of silicon.
I wonder how much of a difference it makes on battery - had it disabled for those other tests of course.
I'm sure the Nokia has sweet hardware, but it's still all plastic.. Plastic screen that will scratch the first 10 minutes you own it, and a friend has a similar model without a keyboard, and the plasticness is so horrible I shudder.. -_-
I've had the N900 since last November. No screen protector, no case. Not 1 scratch. So speak for yourself, maybe you ought to put your phone in a separate pocket as your keys.
The case is somewhat plastic yeah.. but it hasn't really bothered me so much. I have only a few tiny tiny scratches on the screen, you can only spot them by mirroring a clean screen against bright light.
At the back I have a few bigger scratches because the phone fell on concrete..
I have a 1200-series Nokia phone, which I keep in the same pocket as the keys, and the display is in a serviceable condition after more than two years of abuse
Actually, the Symbian OS- Nokia's No.1 Smartphone OS is more open with entire OS(including the core APIs) being Open Source. Symbian is more open than Android.
That's only true for symbian^3 and newer OSes. Only the Nokia N8 is currently shipping S^3 I believe.
You should also mention that the Maemo 5 OS has many binary packages to get all the cellular hardware and PowerVR GPU working.
Anyways, it definitely has more support for the FOSS community than android though as far as I know. You're free to flash your own ROMs without needing to root it and you don't need to do weird stuff with java VMs. Just a simple recompile for ARM and support for Qt I think.
Symbian is server-client architectured operating system. Symbian has EKA2 microkernel + servers (modules). But Symbian is not at same time _just_ the operating system. It has other features (like libraries and so on) as well what does not belong to the actual OS. Fact is that Symbian really is open source.
But in other hand, the Android is not the operating system. It is a software system. The Linux is the operating system in the Android. Linux is monolithic kernel. Monolithic kernel is exactly same thing as operating system. It is the oldest (actually original) OS architecture. Server-client and layered architectures were developed almost few decades after the monolithic because there was demand to get OS architecture what is in theory more secure and more stable, but slower.
Symbian is licensed under EPL. While Linux OS is licensed under GPLv2 (only).
Both licenses are aproofed by the OSI and FSF. So both OS's are Libre software. Android is software system what has multple different licensed software in it. The Linux OS in it is the GPLv2 (what can not be changed) and the distributor itself can use as well closed source software if the license allows. Usually this means that the software platforms or the softwares what are responsible for user interface can be with different license than F/OSS license.
By the facts, it is not true at all to say that "Android is not F/OSS operating system". Because a) Linux kernel is the operating system in Android. Android is just one distribution of the Linux. b) When talking about the operating systems and android, if wanted to be very wide speaking by terms, then Android is totally F/OSS.
I love my N900 :D I bought it last November, right when it was first released. I had a N810 at the time, so I was excited to get the next iteration. With PR1.2 and a modest overclock to 800mhz, it scores ~12000ms on the sunspider javascript benchmark, which is on par with the HTC Incredible and the Nexus 1.
I didn't have to get t-mobile, as my local carrier, Cincinnati Bell, uses the same 3g frequencies as T-mobile. I get blazing fast speeds of 3mb/s.
As Brian said in the review, the Skype integration is excellent. It even tells you how much credit you have remaining and the call cost at the end of the call. (And I can make video calls over 3g, take that iPhone)
Yes they do plan to port MeeGo to the N900 - in fact, the N900 is the primary development platform for MeeGo so not making it available in one form or another would be utterly ridiculous.
What Nokia have said is that the version of MeeGo that will be made available for the N900 will not be officially supported, which basically means you can't go running to Nokia Care when you find a bug. Since I can't believe anyone does this even with a supported OS, the lack of Nokia Care is no great loss - you'll still have a very large and committed community to fall back on for help.
So in brief: Yes, MeeGo *IS* coming to the N900 - whether you install it or not is your choice.
...sorry, those airquotes have some very painful memories for those of us who lived through the 770 era. When 'unofficial' support meant a kludged-together hack.
with 750mhz processor convex keys and ditching the lame D pad making this the best smart phone for my use talking 5-6 hours a day plus on best network instead of T or TM.
The latest Maemo5 PR1.2 does bring a welcome improvement to battery life, in some cases as much as 50% improvement to standby time.
The recently released Opera Mobile on the N900 is lightning fast - it would be interesting to see how that performs in your comparison tests, or the latest Fennec (Firefox Mobile 1.1). The stock MicroB browser is beginning to look a little long in the tooth what with all the Javascript run-time improvements in competing browsers, but it does still offer the most complete web experience on pretty much any mobile device.
Overall though, a very good and welcome review of Maemo5 which is much misunderstood by a world obsessed with Android and iPhone.
Two small corrections: Nokia's next MeeGo device is still going to be ARM (MeeGo is a two-platform OS, ARM and Atom), if there is a Moorestown device far along in the pipelines, it's not Nokia's. PR1.2 is very likely not the last update. Nokia has pledged to deliver QtMobility (the mobile device Qt APIs) in a future update, and there is an active Qt4.7 branch for Maemo5 which also suggests work is being done there.
Sorry to break your heart dude but the ones with raised keyboard were the early builds. Motorola changed it to flat after reported sliding problems with the raised design
Actually one of my friends got a Moto Droid Thursday and I had a chance to play with it Friday, it did feel like they had improved the key feel slightly. IIRC the Droids on display had concave keys, this one was slightly convex.
I understand that's because they are in the same package is the reason why you need the BT to be on to get FM, but that can't be too common. After all, most smartphones seem to have WiFi and BT(+EDR) and FM all the same transceiver.
You talk about the display brightness and how nice it looks, but you need to mention gamut. In some tests the 3GS shows ~65% of gamut, while the Droid shows 102%. Nexus One is at 141%. I expect the Incredible to be around there, so while the colors look nice on AMOLED, you must remember it's over-saturated and inaccurate while the Droid is spot on at 102%.
When a screen is advertises as 98% of the Adobe sRGB Gamut, it means that the screen covers 98% of the colours defined by Adobe for that gamut..
If it says 141% of the Adobe sRGB gamut, it means that it covers more than that defined area. It doesn't mean that the colours are oversaturated. It also doesn't mean that it can display all the colours there is.
On the other hand, I doubt that anyone is going to do color correction or some sort of display calibration on their smartphone, and since most companies set their displays to be somewhat saturated by default, I would guess that in practice the Incredible's AMOLED screen will be oversaturated compared to the Droid's LCD.
So here's the problem - there's absolutely no way to measure it. Or at least, I haven't found an acceptable solution.
Going off the display panel numbers seems extremely unrealistic for obvious reasons, but barring that there are other bigger problems.
1. Android uses 16-bit color in a lot of places because they're rendering them with 3D OpenGL compositing and compressed textures. One of the most glaring - and dare I say troubling - examples is right inside the gallery application. The gallery application in 2.0.1 was full 24-bit color, but in 2.1 Google contracted with Cooliris to develop a more flashy 3D gallery. Obviously, the limitations imposed by the GPU on different devices (and possibly even from the POV of what textures are supported) necessitated 16-bits per color. In practice, it just looks awful. Without even being nitpicky, I can notice lots of banding.
2. The AMOLED displays use the PenTile array, which also does a lot of dithering inherently - in fact, their pattern is essentially trying to get around Nyquist by being very creative with the human eye system, and this intermediate software layer of theirs. The consequence is that it ends up smoothing and dithering the 16-bits, making it really hard to see the banding, but it's still there. Pull up the color gradient images from the article and scrutinize the Incredible. There's no banding, but in person, you can stlll pick out dithering and a problem.
3. I still have no way of doing gamut testing on any mobile devices. So back when I started on the iPad article, I had a (relatively clever, I think) idea to use the calibration software through a 24-bit remote desktop session, tricking it into using any mobile device like a screen. This just doesn't work for reasons outside my understanding. I've done it on iPhone OS and Android, and for some reason the results are just complete bogus. So there's no way of really telling what the % gamut coverage of Adobe 1998 any of these things are. Moreover, since there's no way of loading a display profile on them, you're really stuck with whatever it shipped with anyways.
The sad state of things is that AMOLED "looks" brighter and more contrasty, but the color accuracy is just undoubtedly wrong. I mean, it's obvious to make that comparison when you're surrounded by calibrated IPS panels with Delta-E tracking under 1.0, you hold up any of the phones, and see a veritable library of differently hued photos.
I'm open to any suggestions you guys have for really measuring gamut. I mean, we could try being more manual and laboriously testing colors one by one (that's basically how I do brightness - white, black, and contrast) but, is it worth it?
Shouldn't the speakerphone testing be done with the devices suspended off the desk?? I know my phone sounds different if it's on a hard surface like a desk.
Wow! Just moments after finally placing my order for an N900 about eight hours ago (I've been lusting over this phone ever since it was just rumored to exist), I noticed this article on AT, with no comments having been posted to it yet. Cool, huh?
I have a feeling there are many people like me....people that have been thinking about purchasing this incredible phone, but have been holding back for various reasons: for the price to come down a bit, to see how Nokia supported it with software updates, to find out about bugs and if they're being fixed, to feel comfortable about the future of Maemo on the N900 and, at this point, feeling comfortable about buying this phone even if Nokia comes out with something better in a few months time.
I've been depending daily on my flip phone/N800 tablet combination for a few years now, and have been dying to step up to the next level, even before I knew that would come in the form of the N900. A few months ago I looked at the Droid (currently I'm with Verizon), and lately considered the htc EVO on Sprint, but when you combine the current capabilities and the exciting future of the N900 (thanks to its truly open philosophy and dedicated enthusiast/developer base), I just couldn't wait any longer to get on board! T-Mobile 3.5G here I come!
Thanks for this article, Anandtech! You've been my main "source for hardware analysis and news" for over ten years now! :)
I've got my N900 clocked to use 250Mhz idle and 805Mhz stress clocks and it fastens everything by huge amount. 600Mhz is sometimes a bit slow and if you up it a little bit, everything starts to get smoother..
The custom kernel is using lower voltages but higher clocks than nokia stock kernel.. which is why 805mhz drains just about the same amount of power than 600mhz with stock kernel.
I just love the fact that you can do that kind of things on this phone..
One guy was asking how to backup sms messages.. well there wasn't any app for it so you could just run a command with sqlite in Xterm to search through the database for all sms's and forward the results with > to a text file :)
That's a truly epic article, the in-depth look at both the hard- and software side of things is far and above what I'm used to reading regarding smartphone reviews. Many thanks for that!
Looking forward to similar articles in the future.
Epic, right, and you don't care that Apple's device is visible where it has advantage but is not shown, where it doesn't. Like on contrast comparison images.
I actually completely spaced on that one - I probably had a 3GS in my pocket when I took those photos.
There's no conspiracy - I just thought that the Incredible's AMOLED display would make an interesting comparison with the Motorola Droid's LCD, and the N900's resistive layer would mix things up a bit.
The iPhone screen really shows its age in the numbers from the bench though. It leaks light pretty badly and obviously the lower PPI is... well... bad.
Nokia has been making devices that work without much hoopla for a long time. It is not for everyone but it beats the available iPhone in more useful ways than is possible.
The Adrena 200 is based on the AMD Z430 GPU. A Z340 does not even exist AFAIK. I know, I'm nitpicking here, but I just thought I had to mention it.
The Adreno 200 runs at a frequency of 133 MHz, giving it a theoretical performance of 133 MPixels/s of fill rate and 22 Million Triangle/s. The Adreno 205 is the same core but running at 200 MHz and is what will be used in the MSM7X30 and QSD8X50A (45 nm version of the current Snapdragon chip with some small tweaks). The SGX530 used in the Droid (OMAP3430) runs at around 100 MHz, which should give it a theoretical fill rate of 250 MPixels/s and a 7 million Triangles/s. On the OMAP3630 the SGX530 will run at 200 MHz AFAIK. That's all theoretical performance, as we all know they're only part of the story. Just take a look at the GTX480 and the Radeon 5870 and you'll know that theoretical performance doesn't get you very far.
1) there was a mistake on the N900 hardware page: it's a 3.5 mm jack, not a 1.8 mm. You probably mixed it up with 1/8"
2) The N900 can do Video calling over 3G, like most 3G phones in Europe have done since 2003. It works ok, but it's hella expensive, so no one does it more than once or twice.
Please continue this type of in depth comparison with current and future hardware. PC hardware is all well and good, but it's all so fast now the mobile space is a much more interesting battle. Not to mention with how fast things are evolving there is the opportunity for a lot of content.
For eample, my droid purchased in early April came out of the box running at 600 MHz (though now it actually runs at up to 900 Mhz). My wife got hers in early June and hers is 600 MHz too and also came out of the box with Android 2.1 already on it.
For whatever reason, setcpu always sees a stock droid's max at 600, but they do run at 550. I just got a new one yesterday after bricking my old droid, it showed the same thing.
Nokia was the originator of the "sell unsubsidized smartphones direct" model, years before Apple or Google. You could get a Nokia N80 at CompUSA completely unlocked for $800 in 2006, a year before the unsubsidized iPhone.
forgot to mention. the CPU is at 800Mhz. I've had it up at 900Mhz with bare Android build (leaked 2.2) and the performance seems no different, but no numbers, sorry.
That's pretty wrong what you're saying there. Qualcomm didn't even license the A8 (nor will they ever). What they did license is the ARMv7 instruction set (and that's a huge difference). With that they made a custom implementation of the ARMv7 architecture. (BTW Qualcomm already stated in 2005 that they're an architectural licensee for ARM’s ARMv7 instruction set)
There are many differences between Scorpion and A8. I'll quote from a certain article since i can't say it better: 'Although Scorpion and Cortex-A8 have many similarities, based on the information released by Qualcomm, the two cores differ in a number of interesting ways. For example, while the Scorpion and Cortex-A8 NEON implementations execute the same SIMD-style instructions, Scorpion’s implementation can process128 bits of data in parallel, compared to 64 bits on Cortex-A8. Half of Scorpion’s SIMD data path can be shut down to conserve power. Scorpion’s pipeline is deeper: It has a 13-stage load/store pipeline and two integer pipelines—one of which is 10 stages and can perform simple arithmetic operations (such as adds and subtracts) while the other is 12 stages and can perform both simple and more complex arithmetic, like MACs. Scorpion also has a 23-stage floating-point/SIMD pipeline, and unlike on Cortex-A8, VFPv3 operations are pipelined. Scorpion uses a number of other microarchitectural tweaks that are intended to either boost speed or reduce power consumption. (Scorpion’s architects previously designed low-power, high-performance processors for IBM.) The core supports multiple clock and voltage domains to enable additional power savings."
"Qualcomm claims that Scorpion will have power consumption of roughly 200 mW at 600 MHz (this figure includes leakage current, though its contribution is typically minimal in low-power processes). In comparison, ARM reports on its website that a Cortex-A8 in a 65 nm LP process consumes .59 mW/MHz (excluding leakage), which translates into about 350 mW at 600 MHz."
With that said, i don't understand where the misconception about the Scorpion being an A8 started. Even Qualcomm states clearly on their own website that Scorpion is not licensed from ARM. They also state that they invested hundred of millions in creating their own core based on the ARMv7 instruction set. I hope now all the staff from Anand will stop saying that there's an A8 inside of Snapdragon. Or maybe you should even clarify that with a small article.
Cortex is the CPU designed by ARM. This is available as a hard-macro (layout already done) or soft-macro (just the functional RTL). Some companies license this in either version. For those who license the soft-version, such as TI, nVidia and Broadcom, they can do a customized place-and-route along with clock-tree optimizations and voltage partitioning to try to make the design run faster.
However, the micro-architecture is the same.
A few companies have ARM architectural licenses (Apple, Qualcomm, Marvell) and instead of licensing the Cortex line of processors, they design their own. The micro-architecture is developed independent of what ARM did in their Cortex series albeit there will often be similarities.
Scorpion inside Snapdragon was developed in the course of years and while it has many similarities to the A8 from a power-point standpoint, the micro-architecture underneath was designed from the ground up. Everything from the branch predictors, the cache controller, exception handling, execution units and most notably, a partially OoOE scheduler and retirement buffer.
There's also the 128-bit, fully pipelined, partially OoOE SIMD/FP unit.
Personally I think there's better things for you guys to do or test with your time... Who cares if a phone's screen colors are more or less accurate, as long as they aren't outright flawed or ugly to look at it shouldn't be a big deal, not like anyone's gonna be doing any pro content editing work on their phones! (I don't even own an AMOLED screen so I'm not particularly biased one way or the other, I own an EVO atm)
I was just wondering if the author had installed AdBlock+ and then run the browser speed numbers or without it being on. If it was not installed which is what I am guessing from the photos, did you notice an improvement in the render times when it was installed. I actually bought the phone recently after seeing it on sale for 380$ and wanted to know the details. Also, I have heard that the current build of the OS allows potrait mode even for the browser(although it has to be activate through some setting) and not just the phone.
Amanda, delighted to have found you. Given the issues in the title, affecting 20~50% of MOTO Droid users, was surprised to see no mention of it. The MOTO boards are alive with disdain and some feel an in you face attitude by Motorola Droid 2 and X announcements. Would you do an iPhone like analysis of voice, antenna and signal issues across Verizons Droids: HTC incredible and MOTO Droid. Your scientific analysis would be welcomed.
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tarunactivity - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link
a notable omission:The FM receiver on the N900 requires Bluetooth to be switched on. So if you want FM, you need to plugin your earphones + enable bluetooth.
Kind of counter productive , if you ask me,and surely a waste of power.
Brian Klug - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Ahh, you're totally right. I think I glossed over that because I already had Bluetooth on, but it makes sense now since the FM radio is on that same piece of silicon.I wonder how much of a difference it makes on battery - had it disabled for those other tests of course.
-Brian Klug
asdasd246246 - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link
I'm sure the Nokia has sweet hardware, but it's still all plastic..Plastic screen that will scratch the first 10 minutes you own it, and a friend has a similar model without a keyboard, and the plasticness is so horrible I shudder.. -_-
legoman666 - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link
I've had the N900 since last November. No screen protector, no case. Not 1 scratch. So speak for yourself, maybe you ought to put your phone in a separate pocket as your keys.legoman666 - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link
back: http://imgur.com/tf6RE.jpgfront: http://imgur.com/XDsyI.jpg
akse - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
The case is somewhat plastic yeah.. but it hasn't really bothered me so much. I have only a few tiny tiny scratches on the screen, you can only spot them by mirroring a clean screen against bright light.At the back I have a few bigger scratches because the phone fell on concrete..
Calin - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
I have a 1200-series Nokia phone, which I keep in the same pocket as the keys, and the display is in a serviceable condition after more than two years of abusearnavvdesai - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link
Actually, the Symbian OS- Nokia's No.1 Smartphone OS is more open with entire OS(including the core APIs) being Open Source. Symbian is more open than Android.Talcite - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
That's only true for symbian^3 and newer OSes. Only the Nokia N8 is currently shipping S^3 I believe.You should also mention that the Maemo 5 OS has many binary packages to get all the cellular hardware and PowerVR GPU working.
Anyways, it definitely has more support for the FOSS community than android though as far as I know. You're free to flash your own ROMs without needing to root it and you don't need to do weird stuff with java VMs. Just a simple recompile for ARM and support for Qt I think.
teohhanhui - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Nokia N8 is still far from "currently shipping"...Fri13 - Sunday, June 20, 2010 - link
Symbian is server-client architectured operating system. Symbian has EKA2 microkernel + servers (modules). But Symbian is not at same time _just_ the operating system. It has other features (like libraries and so on) as well what does not belong to the actual OS.Fact is that Symbian really is open source.
But in other hand, the Android is not the operating system. It is a software system. The Linux is the operating system in the Android. Linux is monolithic kernel. Monolithic kernel is exactly same thing as operating system. It is the oldest (actually original) OS architecture. Server-client and layered architectures were developed almost few decades after the monolithic because there was demand to get OS architecture what is in theory more secure and more stable, but slower.
Symbian is licensed under EPL. While Linux OS is licensed under GPLv2 (only).
Both licenses are aproofed by the OSI and FSF. So both OS's are Libre software.
Android is software system what has multple different licensed software in it. The Linux OS in it is the GPLv2 (what can not be changed) and the distributor itself can use as well closed source software if the license allows. Usually this means that the software platforms or the softwares what are responsible for user interface can be with different license than F/OSS license.
By the facts, it is not true at all to say that "Android is not F/OSS operating system". Because a) Linux kernel is the operating system in Android. Android is just one distribution of the Linux. b) When talking about the operating systems and android, if wanted to be very wide speaking by terms, then Android is totally F/OSS.
numberoneoppa - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link
Great article, Brian. I learned a lot. =)legoman666 - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link
I love my N900 :D I bought it last November, right when it was first released. I had a N810 at the time, so I was excited to get the next iteration. With PR1.2 and a modest overclock to 800mhz, it scores ~12000ms on the sunspider javascript benchmark, which is on par with the HTC Incredible and the Nexus 1.I didn't have to get t-mobile, as my local carrier, Cincinnati Bell, uses the same 3g frequencies as T-mobile. I get blazing fast speeds of 3mb/s.
As Brian said in the review, the Skype integration is excellent. It even tells you how much credit you have remaining and the call cost at the end of the call. (And I can make video calls over 3g, take that iPhone)
topsecret - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link
You should test the N900 with it running meego.Talcite - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Nokia doesn't plan to port meego to the N900.CityBlue - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Yes they do plan to port MeeGo to the N900 - in fact, the N900 is the primary development platform for MeeGo so not making it available in one form or another would be utterly ridiculous.What Nokia have said is that the version of MeeGo that will be made available for the N900 will not be officially supported, which basically means you can't go running to Nokia Care when you find a bug. Since I can't believe anyone does this even with a supported OS, the lack of Nokia Care is no great loss - you'll still have a very large and committed community to fall back on for help.
So in brief: Yes, MeeGo *IS* coming to the N900 - whether you install it or not is your choice.
jed22281 - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Yup, exactly what cityblue said.Brian needs to clarify this in his article.
There'll be plenty of "unofficial" support for meego on n900
tbutler - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
...sorry, those airquotes have some very painful memories for those of us who lived through the 770 era. When 'unofficial' support meant a kludged-together hack.Brian Klug - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Thanks for the clarification CityBlue, I'll definitely update. I wrote some of this partially when support wasn't fully understood.-Brian
topsecret - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
"the Motorola Droid remains the flagship of Android phones that come with a hardware keyboard"I dunno, the samsung moment is a pretty nice phone.
Zebo - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
with 750mhz processor convex keys and ditching the lame D pad making this the best smart phone for my use talking 5-6 hours a day plus on best network instead of T or TM.krazyfrog - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Dude, you chat like an eight year-old lol.CityBlue - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
The latest Maemo5 PR1.2 does bring a welcome improvement to battery life, in some cases as much as 50% improvement to standby time.The recently released Opera Mobile on the N900 is lightning fast - it would be interesting to see how that performs in your comparison tests, or the latest Fennec (Firefox Mobile 1.1). The stock MicroB browser is beginning to look a little long in the tooth what with all the Javascript run-time improvements in competing browsers, but it does still offer the most complete web experience on pretty much any mobile device.
Overall though, a very good and welcome review of Maemo5 which is much misunderstood by a world obsessed with Android and iPhone.
achipa - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Two small corrections:Nokia's next MeeGo device is still going to be ARM (MeeGo is a two-platform OS, ARM and Atom), if there is a Moorestown device far along in the pipelines, it's not Nokia's.
PR1.2 is very likely not the last update. Nokia has pledged to deliver QtMobility (the mobile device Qt APIs) in a future update, and there is an active Qt4.7 branch for Maemo5 which also suggests work is being done there.
The Solutor - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Not all the Droid/Milestone's keyboard are flat.http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/5872/dsc00180.png
http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/6551/dsc00176.p...
This is my milestone (bought in december).
So there's no need to wait droid 2 to get the raised keys.
Brian Klug - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Interesting... looks like they definitely identified that issue somewhere between finishing the CDMA 'Droid' design and the GSM Milestone. Cool stuff!-Brian
strikeback03 - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
I read that elsewhere as well. Would be nice if the verizon stores got the newer keyboard models out on display to tryBoyBawang - Sunday, June 13, 2010 - link
Sorry to break your heart dude but the ones with raised keyboard were the early builds. Motorola changed it to flat after reported sliding problems with the raised designstrikeback03 - Monday, June 14, 2010 - link
Actually one of my friends got a Moto Droid Thursday and I had a chance to play with it Friday, it did feel like they had improved the key feel slightly. IIRC the Droids on display had concave keys, this one was slightly convex.solipsism - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
I understand that's because they are in the same package is the reason why you need the BT to be on to get FM, but that can't be too common. After all, most smartphones seem to have WiFi and BT(+EDR) and FM all the same transceiver.For comparison, the iPhone 3GS uses a <a href="http://www.broadcom.com/products/Wireless-LAN/802.... BCM4325</ a>
Affectionate-Bed-980 - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
You talk about the display brightness and how nice it looks, but you need to mention gamut. In some tests the 3GS shows ~65% of gamut, while the Droid shows 102%. Nexus One is at 141%. I expect the Incredible to be around there, so while the colors look nice on AMOLED, you must remember it's over-saturated and inaccurate while the Droid is spot on at 102%.fabarati - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
I think you've misunderstood what gamut means.When a screen is advertises as 98% of the Adobe sRGB Gamut, it means that the screen covers 98% of the colours defined by Adobe for that gamut..
If it says 141% of the Adobe sRGB gamut, it means that it covers more than that defined area. It doesn't mean that the colours are oversaturated. It also doesn't mean that it can display all the colours there is.
Read up on gamuts on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamut
Powerlurker - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
On the other hand, I doubt that anyone is going to do color correction or some sort of display calibration on their smartphone, and since most companies set their displays to be somewhat saturated by default, I would guess that in practice the Incredible's AMOLED screen will be oversaturated compared to the Droid's LCD.Brian Klug - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
So here's the problem - there's absolutely no way to measure it. Or at least, I haven't found an acceptable solution.Going off the display panel numbers seems extremely unrealistic for obvious reasons, but barring that there are other bigger problems.
1. Android uses 16-bit color in a lot of places because they're rendering them with 3D OpenGL compositing and compressed textures. One of the most glaring - and dare I say troubling - examples is right inside the gallery application. The gallery application in 2.0.1 was full 24-bit color, but in 2.1 Google contracted with Cooliris to develop a more flashy 3D gallery. Obviously, the limitations imposed by the GPU on different devices (and possibly even from the POV of what textures are supported) necessitated 16-bits per color. In practice, it just looks awful. Without even being nitpicky, I can notice lots of banding.
2. The AMOLED displays use the PenTile array, which also does a lot of dithering inherently - in fact, their pattern is essentially trying to get around Nyquist by being very creative with the human eye system, and this intermediate software layer of theirs. The consequence is that it ends up smoothing and dithering the 16-bits, making it really hard to see the banding, but it's still there. Pull up the color gradient images from the article and scrutinize the Incredible. There's no banding, but in person, you can stlll pick out dithering and a problem.
3. I still have no way of doing gamut testing on any mobile devices. So back when I started on the iPad article, I had a (relatively clever, I think) idea to use the calibration software through a 24-bit remote desktop session, tricking it into using any mobile device like a screen. This just doesn't work for reasons outside my understanding. I've done it on iPhone OS and Android, and for some reason the results are just complete bogus. So there's no way of really telling what the % gamut coverage of Adobe 1998 any of these things are. Moreover, since there's no way of loading a display profile on them, you're really stuck with whatever it shipped with anyways.
The sad state of things is that AMOLED "looks" brighter and more contrasty, but the color accuracy is just undoubtedly wrong. I mean, it's obvious to make that comparison when you're surrounded by calibrated IPS panels with Delta-E tracking under 1.0, you hold up any of the phones, and see a veritable library of differently hued photos.
I'm open to any suggestions you guys have for really measuring gamut. I mean, we could try being more manual and laboriously testing colors one by one (that's basically how I do brightness - white, black, and contrast) but, is it worth it?
KevinToon - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Shouldn't the speakerphone testing be done with the devices suspended off the desk??I know my phone sounds different if it's on a hard surface like a desk.
R3MF - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
I have an n900, so thanks, good article.Found an interesting MeeGo article since you mentioned it:
http://jedibeeftrix.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/ultim...
medi01 - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
May I ask why 3GS is missing from "side by side comparison"? Just an incident or you are THAT afraid of Mr Jobbs marketing's wrath?dtreader - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Wow! Just moments after finally placing my order for an N900 about eight hours ago (I've been lusting over this phone ever since it was just rumored to exist), I noticed this article on AT, with no comments having been posted to it yet. Cool, huh?I have a feeling there are many people like me....people that have been thinking about purchasing this incredible phone, but have been holding back for various reasons: for the price to come down a bit, to see how Nokia supported it with software updates, to find out about bugs and if they're being fixed, to feel comfortable about the future of Maemo on the N900 and, at this point, feeling comfortable about buying this phone even if Nokia comes out with something better in a few months time.
I've been depending daily on my flip phone/N800 tablet combination for a few years now, and have been dying to step up to the next level, even before I knew that would come in the form of the N900. A few months ago I looked at the Droid (currently I'm with Verizon), and lately considered the htc EVO on Sprint, but when you combine the current capabilities and the exciting future of the N900 (thanks to its truly open philosophy and dedicated enthusiast/developer base), I just couldn't wait any longer to get on board! T-Mobile 3.5G here I come!
Thanks for this article, Anandtech! You've been my main "source for hardware analysis and news" for over ten years now! :)
Go N900!!!
milli - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
"From a performance perspective, the Motorola Droid's 550 MHz Cortex A8 simply isn't a match for the 1 GHz A8 in Snapdragon's Scorpion CPU ... "That should read: ... for the 1 GHz Scorpion CPU in the Snapdragon ...
There's no Cortex A8 in the Snapdragon.
Brian Klug - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
That's being a bit semantic I think.Inside the Snapdragon is a Scorpion, which is Qualcomm's trade name for their hardened (1 GHz supporting) Cortex A8 CPU.
Cortex is the ARM Family, ARMv7-A is the family, and Cortex A8 is the fully qualified core name.
So really, either one is correct ;)
-Brian
akse - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
I've got my N900 clocked to use 250Mhz idle and 805Mhz stress clocks and it fastens everything by huge amount. 600Mhz is sometimes a bit slow and if you up it a little bit, everything starts to get smoother..The custom kernel is using lower voltages but higher clocks than nokia stock kernel.. which is why 805mhz drains just about the same amount of power than 600mhz with stock kernel.
I just love the fact that you can do that kind of things on this phone..
One guy was asking how to backup sms messages.. well there wasn't any app for it so you could just run a command with sqlite in Xterm to search through the database for all sms's and forward the results with > to a text file :)
Exodite - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
That's a truly epic article, the in-depth look at both the hard- and software side of things is far and above what I'm used to reading regarding smartphone reviews. Many thanks for that!Looking forward to similar articles in the future.
medi01 - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Epic, right, and you don't care that Apple's device is visible where it has advantage but is not shown, where it doesn't. Like on contrast comparison images.Misterious.
Exodite - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
No, can't say I mind that at all really.Then again I'm not in the market for an iPhone anyway.
Brian Klug - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
I actually completely spaced on that one - I probably had a 3GS in my pocket when I took those photos.There's no conspiracy - I just thought that the Incredible's AMOLED display would make an interesting comparison with the Motorola Droid's LCD, and the N900's resistive layer would mix things up a bit.
The iPhone screen really shows its age in the numbers from the bench though. It leaks light pretty badly and obviously the lower PPI is... well... bad.
Cheers,
Brian
Rayb - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Nokia has been making devices that work without much hoopla for a long time. It is not for everyone but it beats the available iPhone in more useful ways than is possible.Helmore - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
The Adrena 200 is based on the AMD Z430 GPU. A Z340 does not even exist AFAIK.I know, I'm nitpicking here, but I just thought I had to mention it.
The Adreno 200 runs at a frequency of 133 MHz, giving it a theoretical performance of 133 MPixels/s of fill rate and 22 Million Triangle/s. The Adreno 205 is the same core but running at 200 MHz and is what will be used in the MSM7X30 and QSD8X50A (45 nm version of the current Snapdragon chip with some small tweaks). The SGX530 used in the Droid (OMAP3430) runs at around 100 MHz, which should give it a theoretical fill rate of 250 MPixels/s and a 7 million Triangles/s. On the OMAP3630 the SGX530 will run at 200 MHz AFAIK. That's all theoretical performance, as we all know they're only part of the story. Just take a look at the GTX480 and the Radeon 5870 and you'll know that theoretical performance doesn't get you very far.
fabarati - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
1) there was a mistake on the N900 hardware page: it's a 3.5 mm jack, not a 1.8 mm. You probably mixed it up with 1/8"2) The N900 can do Video calling over 3G, like most 3G phones in Europe have done since 2003. It works ok, but it's hella expensive, so no one does it more than once or twice.
Brian Klug - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Fixed! Thanks!-Brian
wobblysausage - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link
Lies! It cannot make a 3g video call.It can make a skype video call (or a google chat video call) over a 3g data connection but this is not the same thing. Not nearly.
I've had my N900 since November and this is the 1 thing I really miss.
Wadzii22 - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Out of curiosity I ran linpack and Benchmark pi on my droid that's oc'd to 1ghzmy benchmark pi score was 1280 and linpack gives me 17.24 mflops
strikeback03 - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Did you run them stock? As those numbers seem to be a ~4x improvement over what is shown here, which seems odd given the ~2x increase in clockspeed.Wadzii22 - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link
with the phone completely stock my scores were basically the same as whats in the original article.jamyryals - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Please continue this type of in depth comparison with current and future hardware. PC hardware is all well and good, but it's all so fast now the mobile space is a much more interesting battle. Not to mention with how fast things are evolving there is the opportunity for a lot of content.Ratman6161 - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
For eample, my droid purchased in early April came out of the box running at 600 MHz (though now it actually runs at up to 900 Mhz). My wife got hers in early June and hers is 600 MHz too and also came out of the box with Android 2.1 already on it.Wadzii22 - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
For whatever reason, setcpu always sees a stock droid's max at 600, but they do run at 550. I just got a new one yesterday after bricking my old droid, it showed the same thing.CharonPDX - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Nokia was the originator of the "sell unsubsidized smartphones direct" model, years before Apple or Google. You could get a Nokia N80 at CompUSA completely unlocked for $800 in 2006, a year before the unsubsidized iPhone.Stas - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
0.1 build with fixed WiFi and maps.LinPack - 12.2 (twelve point two)MFLOPS
Engadget.com loads in 20 sec (default browser)
'nuff said.
Stas - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
forgot to mention. the CPU is at 800Mhz. I've had it up at 900Mhz with bare Android build (leaked 2.2) and the performance seems no different, but no numbers, sorry.milli - Saturday, June 12, 2010 - link
That's pretty wrong what you're saying there.Qualcomm didn't even license the A8 (nor will they ever).
What they did license is the ARMv7 instruction set (and that's a huge difference). With that they made a custom implementation of the ARMv7 architecture. (BTW Qualcomm already stated in 2005 that they're an architectural licensee for ARM’s ARMv7 instruction set)
There are many differences between Scorpion and A8.
I'll quote from a certain article since i can't say it better:
'Although Scorpion and Cortex-A8 have many similarities, based on the information released by Qualcomm, the two cores differ in a number of interesting ways. For example, while the Scorpion and Cortex-A8 NEON implementations execute the same SIMD-style instructions, Scorpion’s implementation can process128 bits of data in parallel, compared to 64 bits on Cortex-A8. Half of Scorpion’s SIMD data path can be shut down to conserve power. Scorpion’s pipeline is deeper: It has a 13-stage load/store pipeline and two integer pipelines—one of which is 10 stages and can perform simple arithmetic operations (such as adds and subtracts) while the other is 12 stages and can perform both simple and more complex arithmetic, like MACs. Scorpion also has a 23-stage floating-point/SIMD pipeline, and unlike on Cortex-A8, VFPv3 operations are pipelined. Scorpion uses a number of other microarchitectural tweaks that are intended to either boost speed or reduce power consumption. (Scorpion’s architects previously designed low-power, high-performance processors for IBM.) The core supports multiple clock and voltage domains to enable additional power savings."
"Qualcomm claims that Scorpion will have power consumption of roughly 200 mW at 600 MHz (this figure includes leakage current, though its contribution is typically minimal in low-power processes). In comparison, ARM reports on its website that a Cortex-A8 in a 65 nm LP process consumes .59 mW/MHz (excluding leakage), which translates into about 350 mW at 600 MHz."
With that said, i don't understand where the misconception about the Scorpion being an A8 started. Even Qualcomm states clearly on their own website that Scorpion is not licensed from ARM. They also state that they invested hundred of millions in creating their own core based on the ARMv7 instruction set.
I hope now all the staff from Anand will stop saying that there's an A8 inside of Snapdragon. Or maybe you should even clarify that with a small article.
DaveGirard - Saturday, June 12, 2010 - link
sweet Jesus, that Nokia phone is huge. Does it double as an ice cream sandwich cover?metafor - Sunday, June 13, 2010 - link
Cortex is the CPU designed by ARM. This is available as a hard-macro (layout already done) or soft-macro (just the functional RTL). Some companies license this in either version. For those who license the soft-version, such as TI, nVidia and Broadcom, they can do a customized place-and-route along with clock-tree optimizations and voltage partitioning to try to make the design run faster.However, the micro-architecture is the same.
A few companies have ARM architectural licenses (Apple, Qualcomm, Marvell) and instead of licensing the Cortex line of processors, they design their own. The micro-architecture is developed independent of what ARM did in their Cortex series albeit there will often be similarities.
Scorpion inside Snapdragon was developed in the course of years and while it has many similarities to the A8 from a power-point standpoint, the micro-architecture underneath was designed from the ground up. Everything from the branch predictors, the cache controller, exception handling, execution units and most notably, a partially OoOE scheduler and retirement buffer.
There's also the 128-bit, fully pipelined, partially OoOE SIMD/FP unit.
medi01 - Sunday, June 13, 2010 - link
Well, I find it very strange, that "incidentally" iPhone is never shown in bad light. Could you please update your side to side comparison?Impulses - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link
Personally I think there's better things for you guys to do or test with your time... Who cares if a phone's screen colors are more or less accurate, as long as they aren't outright flawed or ugly to look at it shouldn't be a big deal, not like anyone's gonna be doing any pro content editing work on their phones! (I don't even own an AMOLED screen so I'm not particularly biased one way or the other, I own an EVO atm)mojtabaalemi - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link
I hate the design of nokia mobile phones . in my idea an iphone is far far better !paihuaizhe - Sunday, June 20, 2010 - link
(nike-alliance).(com)=>is a leading worldwide wholesaler company (or u can sayorganization)
arnavvdesai - Saturday, June 26, 2010 - link
I was just wondering if the author had installed AdBlock+ and then run the browser speed numbers or without it being on. If it was not installed which is what I am guessing from the photos, did you notice an improvement in the render times when it was installed. I actually bought the phone recently after seeing it on sale for 380$ and wanted to know the details. Also, I have heard that the current build of the OS allows potrait mode even for the browser(although it has to be activate through some setting) and not just the phone.drwiremore - Sunday, July 4, 2010 - link
Amanda, delighted to have found you. Given the issues in the title, affecting 20~50% of MOTO Droid users, was surprised to see no mention of it. The MOTO boards are alive with disdain and some feel an in you face attitude by Motorola Droid 2 and X announcements. Would you do an iPhone like analysis of voice, antenna and signal issues across Verizons Droids: HTC incredible and MOTO Droid. Your scientific analysis would be welcomed.