Wow... Just freaking wow...

[Ibrick]

I refuse to stick to a single core for my next phone...

Is the Bionic coming with Ice Cream?

Otherwise there isn't software available to take advantage of dual core tech.

Can you tell me one thing a dual core phone will do better than a single core running Froyo or Gingerbread?

If you want a 'future proof' phone, you're looking for a unicorn..

I'm not just saying this because I have a Thunderbolt. I was going to wait for the Bionic just like you. However, I could never get over the fact that while hardware is advancing VERY rapidly, software isn't. In a year, when I can upgrade, hopefully the software has caught up. Now that VZW has discontinued 1yr contracts I'm even more happy with my decision.

Google hasn't released the source code for Honeycomb for a reason. They dont want people running it on phones. That's what Ice Cream is going to be for and why having a dual core device until Ice Cream is around the corner gains you very little.

Just sayin..

There's lots of good reasons to wait for the Bionic, but dual core being the major buying factor is silly.

 

[BlueBiker]

However, I could never get over the fact that while hardware is advancing VERY rapidly, software isn't.

Thus has it always been: The Intel 80386 went into production in June '86, but the 32-bit consumer-oriented Win95 didn't come out until August '95. It was a loooooong wait!

There's lots of good reasons to wait for the Bionic, but dual core being the major buying factor is silly.

Disagree. Linux (on which Android is based) has supported multi-processing for 15+ yrs, and even if Android apps don't support it immediately, the O/S can still take advantage of it for background services, leaving more crunch available for foreground apps.

I don't think this is a good time to enroll in a 2yr plan with a single-core smartphone.

 

[shneeko6]

Is the Bionic coming with Ice Cream?

Otherwise there isn't software available to take advantage of dual core tech.

Can you tell me one thing a dual core phone will do better than a single core running Froyo or Gingerbread?

If you want a 'future proof' phone, you're looking for a unicorn..

I'm not just saying this because I have a Thunderbolt. I was going to wait for the Bionic just like you. However, I could never get over the fact that while hardware is advancing VERY rapidly, software isn't. In a year, when I can upgrade, hopefully the software has caught up. Now that VZW has discontinued 1yr contracts I'm even more happy with my decision.

Google hasn't released the source code for Honeycomb for a reason. They dont want people running it on phones. That's what Ice Cream is going to be for and why having a dual core device until Ice Cream is around the corner gains you very little.

Just sayin..

There's lots of good reasons to wait for the Bionic, but dual core being the major buying factor is silly.

the atrix has been benched marked against other phones with Froyo and it blows everything away. Froyo can handle dual cores just fine. Granted, the performance will surely increase down the line with the releases of newer os versions.

 

[Vehtemas]

the atrix has been benched marked against other phones with Froyo and it blows everything away. Froyo can handle dual cores just fine. Granted, the performance will surely increase down the line with the releases of newer os versions.

Exactly, not only this but the dual core can offload the resource usage to make sure that the processor as a whole runs cooler than if it was single core.

This will conserve battery life and keep the phone cooler.

 

[Ibrick]

Thus has it always been: The Intel 80386 went into production in June '86, but the 32-bit consumer-oriented Win95 didn't come out until August '95. It was a loooooong wait!



Disagree. Linux (on which Android is based) has supported multi-processing for 15+ yrs, and even if Android apps don't support it immediately, the O/S can still take advantage of it for background services, leaving more crunch available for foreground apps.

I don't think this is a good time to enroll in a 2yr plan with a single-core smartphone.

Agreed, which is why the one year is the way to go for any current device. Let's not forget the only phone you can walk into a store a buy today with a dual core processor is the atrix.

However I do think the bionic is a little lacking in the RAM dept to really take advantage of running multiple requests simultaneously.

 

[Ibrick]

the atrix has been benched marked against other phones with Froyo and it blows everything away. Froyo can handle dual cores just fine. Granted, the performance will surely increase down the line with the releases of newer os versions.

What benchmarks are u referring to?

 

[Ibrick]

Exactly, not only this but the dual core can offload the resource usage to make sure that the processor as a whole runs cooler than if it was single core.

This will conserve battery life and keep the phone cooler.

Theoretically..

Again software optimization is key there.

I'm not bashing the bionic, I think its gonna be a hell of a device.
All I'm saying is your not gaining much, if anything, by putting all your hope into the dual core at this time.

The Qualcomm MSM8960 will find its way into a VZW device since its optimized for LTE, probably making its appearance at CES 2012. Just guessing at that since it was announced for release Q2 of this year.

The Tbolt is a holdover for me, a great one at that. With a 1 yr contract and unlimited data, ill be in a great position for dual core tech as soon as Jan of next year.

 

[jinwons]

For folks like you who still don't believe that dual core processor in 2.2 or 2.3 are utilizing multi-cores, I give this link below. Why would they make it if it just works like single core phone with 2.2?

http://androidevolutions.com/tag/android-2-2-dual-core/

Notice that they had to overcloak single core MyTouch 4G to whopping 1.8Ghz to make test numbers even at some reasonable distance from Tegra2. Also Xoom with its dual core capable Honeycomb OS, 1Gb RAM does only marginally better than 2X with 2.2 froyo, 512Mb RAM.

 

[Ibrick]

For folks like you who still don't believe that dual core processor in 2.2 or 2.3 are not utilizing multi-cores, I give this link below. Why would they make it if it just works like single core phone with 2.2?

http://androidevolutions.com/tag/android-2-2-dual-core/

Notice that they had to overcloak single core MyTouch 4G to whopping 1.8Ghz to make test numbers even at some reasonable distance from Tegra2. Also Xoom with its dual core capable Honeycomb OS, 1Gb RAM does only marginally better than 2X with 2.2 froyo, 512Mb RAM.

That link kind of contradicts itself..

It says basically it can take advantage of both cores, but not anywhere close to their capability. Will dual core help? Yes. Is the software optimized for it? No.

That's what I've been saying this whole time.

Besides bragging rights and playing quadrant, dual core won't make a noticeable difference in the real world. Not yet..

 

[jinwons]

That link kind of contradicts itself..

It says basically it can take advantage of both cores, but not anywhere close to their capability. Will dual core help? Yes. Is the software optimized for it? No.

My point is that even 2.2 is able to utilize dual cores properly unlike what you make it out to be unable to do so.

The smartbench 2011 is actually taking advantage of dual cores, hence single core phone performs so miserably there. Quadrant is single core app, so it doesn't make that great difference. But 2X still beats Tbolt by ~40% in quadrant. For most normal apps, it won't matter much. But games designed to run with dual cores are being developed at the moment with some already out. Considering that now VZW nixed one year contract, getting dual core is more future proof if you care about games, multimedia stuffs.

 

[BlueBiker]

That link kind of contradicts itself..

It says basically it can take advantage of both cores, but not anywhere close to their capability. Will dual core help? Yes. Is the software optimized for it? No.

That's what I've been saying this whole time.

Besides bragging rights and playing quadrant, dual core won't make a noticeable difference in the real world. Not yet..

Well that link shows that multi-threading within an app isn't helpful right now, but it mostly ignores the benefits of providing parallelism between multiple apps and between the apps and the operating system.

On a Windows box your system might be performing a virus scan, defragging a hard drive, downloading OS updates, spooling a document to a printer... all while you're sitting there in email. Even if your email program isn't multi-threaded, you get a huge benefit from multi-cores by allowing all of that background busywork to be done on the 2nd core while your email program hums along smoothly on the 1st.

 

[Ibrick]

My point is that even 2.2 is able to utilize dual cores properly unlike what you make it out to be unable to do so.

Your link clearly states froyo and gingerbread are unable to fully utilize dual cores.

They can use them, but not near their potential. That's my point. In real world use there is no noticeable difference at this time.

Maybe if graphic intensive gaming is a large priority..
Other than that will anyone notice an increase in performance besides what some benchmark score says?

 

[jinwons]

Your link clearly states froyo and gingerbread are unable to fully utilize dual cores.

They can use them, but not near their potential. That's my point. In real world use there is no noticeable difference at this time.

Maybe if graphic intensive gaming is a large priority..
Other than that will anyone notice an increase in performance besides what some benchmark score says?

Where does that article state that froyo and and gingerbread are unable to fully utilize dual cores? I guess you are referring to this paragraph, but it simply says that there might be some room to further optimize it. It might not be at 100% optimization, maybe 80~90% but still damn better than 0% optimization on single core phones.

"The reality is that Froyo running on these devices have been recompiled with SMP (Symmetric Multi-Processing) option turned on. The Linux kernel used in Android OS has been supporting multi-core processors for many years. This should not be a news to us.
It might be possible to further optimize these SMP enabled Android OS but even in its current state, it is more than capable of handling both cores."

Did you notice the score on Xoom of which Honeycomb is fully optimized for dual core? But it does just how much better than 2X on Froyo? Very marginally, which means Froyo on 2X is very close to fully optimized for dual core. There are other benchmark results that dual cores blow away single cores too.

Even in real world hands on by reviewers, it's noticeably snappier, smoother than single core phones. Most reporters say that now dual core android phones feel as smooth, fluid as iPhone4, which is hard to say for any single core phones.

 

[Ibrick]

Where does that article state that froyo and and gingerbread are unable to fully utilize dual cores? I guess you are referring to this paragraph, but it simply says that there might be some room to further optimize it. It might not be at 100% optimization, maybe 80~90% but still damn better than 0% optimization on single core phones.

"The reality is that Froyo running on these devices have been recompiled with SMP (Symmetric Multi-Processing) option turned on. The Linux kernel used in Android OS has been supporting multi-core processors for many years. This should not be a news to us.
It might be possible to further optimize these SMP enabled Android OS but even in its current state, it is more than capable of handling both cores."

Did you notice the score on Xoom of which Honeycomb is fully optimized for dual core? But it does just how much better than 2X on Froyo? Very marginally, which means Froyo on 2X is very close to fully optimized for dual core. There are other benchmark results that dual cores blow away single cores too.

Even in real world hands on by reviewers, it's noticeably snappier, smoother than single core phones. Most reporters say that now dual core android phones feel as smooth, fluid as iPhone4, which is hard to say for any single core phones.

You obviously haven't played with a Tbolt .. even in its stock form, a couple of my co-workers, who both are Apple geeks were blown away with its smoothness, it's snappiness, how fast the phone responded etc. Now running a custom ROM and kernel its significantly more pronounced.

How much more snappy and smooth do you want things other than 'instant'?

We're not comparing the dinc or evo to devices you've only read about. U need to do some real world testing yourself..

There isn't anything a dual core can do better than the best singles at this stage in the game. Duals are the future no doubt, and I swore my next phone would have a dual core, but reality is, right now, the software can't utilize both cores to their potential, to the point anyone besides a fancy benchmark program can pickup..

As far as what in the article I'm referring to.. here's a nice chunk;

"For most of today’s applications, you will not feel the extra performance improvement on dual-core devices. This is because they use just a single thread for CPU intensive tasks. Properly designed apps will use a foreground thread to render GUI and a background thread for calculations. This provides more responsive GUI. So dual-core processors will help to some degree, but only a little since the two threads don’t split work equally (often not even close). There are very few applications that will spawn multiple threads symmetrically. In other words, work that requires heavy CPU utilization are split equally across multiple threads. When apps are designed in such a manner, dual-core processors will help out greatly, often approaching towards the theoretical limit of 2x."

 

[jinwons]

You obviously haven't played with a Tbolt .. even in its stock form, a couple of my co-workers, who both are Apple geeks were blown away with its smoothness, it's snappiness, how fast the phone responded etc. Now running a custom ROM and kernel its significantly more pronounced.

How much more snappy and smooth do you want things other than 'instant'?

We're not comparing the dinc or evo to devices you've only read about. U need to do some real world testing yourself..

There isn't anything a dual core can do better than the best singles at this stage in the game. Duals are the future no doubt, and I swore my next phone would have a dual core, but reality is, right now, the software can't utilize both cores to their potential, to the point anyone besides a fancy benchmark program can pickup..

As far as what in the article I'm referring to.. here's a nice chunk;

"For most of today’s applications, you will not feel the extra performance improvement on dual-core devices. This is because they use just a single thread for CPU intensive tasks. Properly designed apps will use a foreground thread to render GUI and a background thread for calculations. This provides more responsive GUI. So dual-core processors will help to some degree, but only a little since the two threads don’t split work equally (often not even close). There are very few applications that will spawn multiple threads symmetrically. In other words, work that requires heavy CPU utilization are split equally across multiple threads. When apps are designed in such a manner, dual-core processors will help out greatly, often approaching towards the theoretical limit of 2x."

You still didn't answer my question: where does that article state "Froyo and Gingerbread are unable to fully utulize dual cores"?
You quoted wrong paragraph which just states single core apps won't benefit much from dual core processor, which is common sense to anyone here. I agree on that too. There are not so many apps design to run on dual cores yet. But I was merely responding to your incorrect assertion that current android phone OSs are unable to fully utilize dual cores. So now it seems apparent it came from nowhere other than you.

As for the snappiness of Tbolt, yes I did play with couple of units of my friend. It's fast indeed, probably as fast as single core can be. But still I wouldn't call it as smooth as iPhone4. I noticed some lags here and there while scrolling apps and zooming on browser. Plus you can't deny its battery life is just horrendous as most users are reporting. As some pointed out here, dual core phones will have edge on battery life as well by splitting task to two threads. I also played with my friend's Atrix, and even with its Motoblur UI on it, it felt a little faster than Tbolt in overall UI operation with nearly zero lags. And he attests that he's having no problem getting through a day usage. The only things Tbolt got going for it is the HTC name on it and the fact that it's first LTE phone. I bet that by Fall this year, interest on it will diminish badly after Bionic, SGS2 release and even better dual core phones on the horizon at that moment. If VZW still allows one year contract, probably it's fine to get it now and upgrade early next year. But getting tied to it two years? It's not good for anyone serious on gaming, multi-medias.

 

[Ibrick]

You still didn't answer my question: where does that article state "Froyo and Gingerbread are unable to fully utulize dual cores"?
You quoted wrong paragraph which just states single core apps won't benefit much from dual core processor, which is common sense to anyone here. I agree on that too. There are not so many apps design to run on dual cores yet. But I was merely responding to your incorrect assertion that current android phone OSs are unable to fully utilize dual cores. So now it seems apparent it came from nowhere other than you.

As for the snappiness of Tbolt, yes I did play with couple of units of my friend. It's fast indeed, probably as fast as single core can be. But still I wouldn't call it as smooth as iPhone4. I noticed some lags here and there while scrolling apps and zooming on browser. Plus you can't deny its battery life is just horrendous as most users are reporting. As some pointed out here, dual core phones will have edge on battery life as well by splitting task to two threads. I also played with my friend's Atrix, and even with its Motoblur UI on it, it felt a little faster than Tbolt in overall UI operation with nearly zero lags. And he attests that he's having no problem getting through a day usage. The only things Tbolt got going for it is the HTC name on it and the fact that it's first LTE phone. I bet that by Fall this year, interest on it will diminish badly after Bionic, SGS2 release and even better dual core phones on the horizon at that moment. If VZW still allows one year contract, probably it's fine to get it now and upgrade early next year. But getting tied to it two years? It's not good for anyone serious on gaming, multi-medias.

Obviously you haven't read what I've been saying. Look at the title of this thread. Its about 1yr contracts. I got the Tbolt on a 1yr exactly for the reasons that have been stated. Right now there's not a noticeable benefit to dual core. In a year, there will be. That's the only reason I bought the Tbolt, was to get me to a point dual cores will show a noticeable benefit and software is able to capitalize on them.

The fact is, from Google's own mouth, froyo and gingerbread are not designed for dual core use. I'm repeating myself again and again here. The source code for honeycomb hasn't been released because they don't want people running it on phones. Ice cream is the first to be designed for dual core processors. Using, and utilizing to full potential are two completely different things..

Froyo and gingerbread can use both cores, but not to their full potential. You won't see a real world improvement over the best singles until the software is designed for them.

'Applications' is a very broad term and does not just apply to 'the market' apps. Everytime the phone is on its running an application of some kind. None of which are designed for dual cores. That is what the article is referring to. Froyo was not designed for dual core phones. Yes its Linux based so it can use them to some potential, but not optimized to the point of seeing a real-world difference.

Will a benchmark measuring stick show a higher number? Sure, does that mean anyone will see a real world difference? No.

Done.

 

[krouget]

As to the original thread topic, this is unfortunate news. I was looking to switch to a 1 year contract, given how rapidly new Android phones are being released.

That said, it looks like I'm still on track for the Bionic, unless something more noteworthy is released between now and early July.

 

[BlueBiker]

IBrick, I'm sympathetic to a lot of what you're saying. And I think you're making a reasonable choice with a one-yr Tbolt.

But as the other poster suggested, "The perfect is the enemy of the good." It's not necessary to have a 100% solution in order to have an excellent one.

The fact is, from Google's own mouth, froyo and gingerbread are not designed for dual core use. I'm repeating myself again and again here.

You can keep repeating that, but it doesn't make it accurate or useful. Yes, multi-threaded games and media apps may not make good use of multi-core for awhile on Froyo, and maybe that's important to you and many other users. But that does not imply that those and other apps won't benefit from Android's current ability to take advantage of a second core for its own use to offload processing that would otherwise slow down an app's main thread.

'Applications' is a very broad term and does not just apply to 'the market' apps. Everytime the phone is on its running an application of some kind.

Yes, that's a good way to look at it. Anytime the phone's on, it's probably got a dozen or more app/launcher/service threads in existence, some of which could take advantage of the presence of more cores.

Will a benchmark measuring stick show a higher number? Sure, does that mean anyone will see a real world difference? No.

Okay I agree with you here too. The real-world feel for a phone is a lot more important than a number in a theoretical test.

 

[jinwons]

Saying that Froyo, Gingerbread are unable to fully utilize dual core is just subjective statement without any testings, benchmark numbers. How much is dual core better in android 2.4? 5%?, 10%? No one really knows yet. I don't think it will gain performance more than 10% over gingerbread if any. A lot of folks including some here seem to think Ice Cream will be saver to dual core phones providing sigificant boost all of sudden. That's not true. 2.4 will be simply gingerbread plus some UI tweaks and support for running dual core apps on single core phones. That's it. There is still no concrete version numbers for future android OS yet. 2.4 might be just called another gingergred like 2.0, 2.1 were just Eclair. If fully optimized vs just using dual core is that different, why does Xoom perform just tiny bit better than 2X on Froyo with half the RAM?

Android 2.3 vs 2.4: Two Bites at Gingerbread | Android Community

Android 3.1 Ice Cream Sundae to Be Unveiled Next Month

Also Bionic will run games in Tegra zone rocking dual cores while Tbolt will run it at half speed even if it's able to run it. Mores apps will follow soon.

 

[mahashel]

IMHO the Bionic is positioned as a very strong device. Think about it. What's the one thing you can't really change in the phone (unless you're an EE with lots of time to kill)? The hardware.
What's the one thing virtually anyone can change (especially if you root)? The software.

Let's assume that the "Froyo isn't multi-core aware" reports are true. In that case, then the phone is overkill when running the current code. However, the software to unlock that potential is only a flash away, be it official or alt ROM.

In other words: I'd rather have a phone with hidden potential that gets unlocked with future, more sophisticated software updates; than a phone that's optimized to run current code as fast as possible.

 

[gemini846]

You guys can always do what I did when I wanted the early upgrade. Sell your current phone on eBay and pay retail. The net is about $300 which is the same you would have paid on a 1Y (of course now it might be $400).