Galaxy S 4 Dominates In Early Benchmark Testing 276
redkemper writes with an excerpt from BGR.com of interest to anyone in the market for a new phone: "Samsung's Galaxy S 4 might not offer much in the way of an exciting new exterior design, but inside, it's a completely different story. The retooled internals on the U.S. version of the Galaxy S 4 were put to the test by benchmark specialists Primate Labs and the results are impressive, to say the least. The Galaxy S 4 scored a 3,163 on the standard Geekbench 2 speed test, just shy of twice the iPhone 5's score of 1,596. That score was also good enough to top the upcoming HTC One, the Nexus 4 and the previous-generation Galaxy S III."
Great! (Score:3, Interesting)
iPhone is not cutting edge (Score:5, Interesting)
Cyanogenmod not on Galaxy S4 (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.androidauthority.com/galaxy-s4-not-cyanogenmod-support-174322/ [androidauthority.com]
Reports are coming in that Cyanogenmod will not be spending any resources on Galaxy S4. None. They've complained that the Galaxy models are too hard to keep working. The strange thing about it, Cyanogen works for Samsung on their Android Team.
Question is, will that affect your decision to buy or not buy the Galaxy S4.
Let's shoot for desktop replacement, Samsung (Score:2, Interesting)
As long as we're going down the road of matching cores and RAM to that of nearly current desktop specs, why not nail down some standards for connecting peripherals? And no, I don't mean shitty proprietary bluetooth/wi-fi protocols. I mean a standard mini-usb dock with VGA, HDMI, DVI output and a few USB ports for a keyboard and rat. Something that can be implemented by the entire range of Android devices whether it's HTC, or Samsung, or Motorola. Otherwise, I see no point in phone with 4 damn cores and 3-4G of ram. It's just an expensive and wasteful pocket heater. Gaming on a screen that small is ridiculous.
Re:Cyanogenmod not on Galaxy S4 (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It's a friggin' phone (Score:4, Interesting)
To use your example against you, I started a new position as an infrastructure specialist a year ago, working with someone with 13 years experience at the same company. I got outfitted with a new Ryobi 18V tool set so that he and I could share batteries with his decade-old 18V Ryobi tool set. The power drill from his set has places for two bits, the plastic housing is sturdy, and the bit holders don't lose their bits easily. My new one has a flimsy plastic housing the deforms under pressure, has only one position to store a bit, and the bit frequently pops out. The only new feature on my drill is a little LED that's supposed to shine on the work area while the drill is in use, but that feature is negated by the need to use bit extensions to reach into wire management and server racks with equipment protruding.
So, newer is definitely not always better, even when the newer product is a direct successor-in-market to the old product. The Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volaré were arguably worse cars than the Dodge Dart and Plymouth Valiant that they replaced. The Netbook type of computer was a lesser product than the Subnotebook type it replaced. The modern Craftsman any-fastener wrench is a lesser product than the 12pt wrench as while it technically fits everything, it fits nothing especially well.
Re:iPhone is not cutting edge (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, at around the time of iPhone 4, Apple started putting in some good specs. By the time the iPhone 5 came out it, was among the fastest phones. This is in direct contrast to the early iPhones which had tragically bad specs.
I mean it seemed to me the were targeted at complete retards - people would show me their (gen 1) iPhone and say "look at how well you can browse the web". I could see how the UI of the browser was an improvement over my 3-year old PDAs (Axim X50v) browser, however trying to read on that half-VGA screen would give me instant headaches. Yes, my 3-year old PDA has twice the resolution and a faster CPU. In fact, even before that, my ancient (2003) Toshiba e805 had a 4" screen with full VGA resolution. Consider also the fact that the iPhone originally did not support apps, it should become apparent that the touch-friendly UI alone would not have given momentum to the iPhone release if it was not for marketing and fanboy-ism.
And yet it is surprising that people would call the original iPhone e.g. as a "high resolution display" device. There were devices at least 2 years older with 3x the resolution (but Nokia was too stupid to make a phone back then based on the N770/N800), but they were "invisible" to people.
After Apple opened a new market and everybody jumped in, then they started trying to compete on merit and not just style.
Another reversal that has happened is that now iOS is the least innovative OS. Android - though I am still not a great fan - evolves quickly and I have seen UIs made from scratch (e.g. Swipe UI on Maemo/Meego) look like they are coming to us from the next decade (in look and functionality). Instead of a modern OS on retarded hardware Apple now offers modern (at least relatively) hardware on an aging platform. The only thing that hasn't changed is that you always get less functionality than the competition and you can't change the battery or add memory...
Re:funny thing is (Score:4, Interesting)
Faster in some senses.. the dual core did better in some areas than the quad-core (due to the faster clock speed even if it isn't a massive clock-speed jump). I have a Quad-Core international (since my wireless carrier doesn't have LTE and is going HSPA+ instead) vs some of the people I know who have the dual-core US one.. (one of which said they thought the screen on my international seemed clearer than their US one although I think that was in their head)