Help Generic mobile question.

[Alex Jones]

Hey everyone,

I want a good mobile to play N.O.V.A 3, Modern Combat 3/4/5, and emulated games.

I want a powerful phone to do all this, but here is my question:

A Samsung Galaxy S4 is the minimum specs I want in my mobile, but I can get an even more powerful (8 core cpu) G9000 S5 clone for a cheaper price, BUT, since it is a generic brand, will it be registered on the play store as a powerful smartphone, thus being able to play future (and current) BIG ANDROID games?

I mean, what is the point in having such a powerful phone if it will not be seen as a powerful phone on the play store, and not let me download big games (like Modern Combat 5)?

Does it use a Samsung Galaxy S5's template register or something, or is it seen as a generic smartphone on the Play Store?

I also plan to use the Ipega PG-9033 controller, and the Tincore Keymapper app.

I would like both opinions and facts. Thank-you in advance.

 

[Hadron]

Why do you assume that the clone is more powerful? More cores does not automatically mean more powerful: it depends on the architecture of the core, as well as other things like memory bandwidth. Just like more megapixels doesn't necessarily mean a better camera (the "megapixel myth"), "more cores = better" is another piece of marketing bullshit, and the truth is much less straightforward.

Tell us what chipset it uses and people can advise, or you can google that information yourself. But don't assume that because the marketing for a no-name clone says "powerful 8 core cpu" that it's actually competitive. And for gaming the gpu is likely to be at least as if not more important.

 

[El Presidente]

In addition to what Hadron says above, 8 cores is more likely 2 sets of 4. From memory, most of the octacore devices have a lower spec quad core processor dealing with less demanding stuff and another set which is used for gaming and anything that the device sees as demanding. They run separately to each other and rarely (if ever) run at the same time as each other/process the same set of instructions.

If it were me, I'd take an S4 over any "clone" device any day of the week.

 

[hiredgun]

In addition to both posts above, with which I totally agree, I'd like to remind you of the old adage that "you get what you pay for!" A clone is just that, a clone, and no one is going to sell you a $400 phone for $150! If you can afford the Samsung I strongly recommend you go with that. The cheap-o models tend to be expensive in the long run when you have to replace it after a few months!

 

[Alex Jones]

Thanks for all the comments guys,

All it says regarding the CPU is that it's a MT6592, 8 core 1.7Ghz cpu. I don't know much about smartphone CPU's, but it sounds better than the S4's 4 core 1.7Ghz CPU, but maybe the S4's is a higher quality CPU?

And all it says about the GPU is that it's dedicated.

Here is the link to the mobile phone's ad:

http://m.ebay.com.au/itm/141446011268

And I can afford an S4 (absolutely LOVE the way it looks) but thought that maybe the other smartphone would be better.

P.S. Don't forget about my question regarding game compatibility with the generic mobile too guys/gals, OK? And thanks again for all the help!

 

[mikedt]

In addition to both posts above, with which I totally agree, I'd like to remind you of the old adage that "you get what you pay for!" A clone is just that, a clone, and no one is going to sell you a $400 phone for $150! If you can afford the Samsung I strongly recommend you go with that. The cheap-o models tend to be expensive in the long run when you have to replace it after a few months!

A very common problem with cheapo fake Samsungs, you end up with photos that look like this...

....taken with a $100 S5 clone.


and gaming compatibility and performance is the least of its problems.

 

[funkylogik]

The fact that the chip's name starts with "MT" (im just guessing here, cba searching it) makes me think it's a Mediatek chip (budget, low performance)
I don't doubt that it would be capable of installing the games you want but I think you'd be better off buying an s4 or even (my phone) a OnePlus One (like $300) with a quad core snapdragon 801 cpu running at max 2.5ghz, 5.5" display, great build quality and battery life

 

[Hadron]

All it says regarding the CPU is that it's a MT6592, 8 core 1.7Ghz cpu. I don't know much about smartphone CPU's, but it sounds better than the S4's 4 core 1.7Ghz CPU, but maybe the S4's is a higher quality CPU?

The quad-core S4 uses a Snapdragon 600 clocked at up to 1.9 GHz, while the Exynos version uses a "dual quad" architecture (4 Coretex A15's clocked up to 1.6 GHz plus 4 Cortex A7's clocked up to 1.2 GHz). So I'm not quite sure which version you are looking at (since 4 @ 1.7 GHz doesn't quite fit either of those), but will assume it's the Qualcomm Snapdragon version.

The significance of that jargon? Different cores can have quite different capabilities in terms of how much processing they can do at the same clock speed. The A15 is a very powerful core (by 2013 standards) but quite power-hungry too. The Krait is a Qualcomm-customised variant based on that which is slightly less powerful per cycle but a lot more energy efficient. The A7 is a low-power core both in terms of energy consumption and processing power.

The MTK6592 has 8 low-end Cortex A7 cores. Each of those provides less than half the processing throughput per core of the Krait 300 used in the Snapdragon 600 SoC. So for a task where you are able to use all 8 core in parallel (some benchmarks) the MTK will be competitive, but for a task executing on a single core the Qualcomm SoC will wipe the floor with it. It also has less cache per core than the Snapdragon and lower memory bandwidth, which can affect throughput too. Frankly I would personally choose fewer, better cores rather than more but weaker.

For graphics it uses the Mali 450 GPU, which is a bit less powerful (for both 2D and 3D rendering) than the Adreno 320 used by the Snapdragon 600.

So the bottom line is that based on the SoC I'd not expect the 8-core generic to be more powerful than the S4, and probably less so for many tasks. I honestly don't know what its game compatibility would be, but as the S4 was by far the best-selling Android handset of 2013 you'd expect developers to make sure their games were compatible with that phone. And then, as others have said, there's the question of general quality of build and components: the ad will claim amazing quality, because it's an advert, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Finally, looking at the ad, one more catch: "8 GB ROM", which is a technically-inaccurate way of saying "8 GB internal storage" (the internal storage is not ROM). You will probably get 4-6 GB in reality because the OS, firmware & system cache will take up part of that space. Most android phones since 4.0 came out do not allow you to run apps off the SD card, so if you want a phone for games you need to look at the internal storage, as some games are large. And by current standards 8GB is tiny, whatever the advert says.

It's your money, but frankly I'd take the S4 every time.

 

[Alex Jones]

Thanks for all your help guys! I have decided to forget generic phones all together!

I have decided to get an S4, or MAYBE even an LG Optimus G Pro.
Also, I actually understood all the technical advice too!

Thanks for helping me not make a big mistake! Take care guys!