Yeah everyone thought Tegra 3 would be the end-all be-all. Not so much. Now people are starting to see why Sony didn't go with a Tegra 3 solution for the NGP. Sure, there are some nice features in Tegra 3, like the extra low power CPU core. But graphics? NGP is getting an SGX543MP4 with dedicated high-speed VRAM. In terms of graphics performance it'll be at a very minimum twice as powerful as whats in an iPad2, and I suspect 3-4 times as fast.
Not to mention that as a dedicated gaming platform, there are no compatibility concerns, so developers can feel free to code closer to the metal where necessary. With all that said, I still probably won't get an NGP or any other dedicated portable. Phone is good enough for light gaming on the go, and any other time I'm gaming it's in front of a monitor or TV.
The Asus Transformer Prime is out next month, so we'll probably find out then. I'm expecting this quad-core monster to walk all over previous chips. :)
I doubt it. Sure, 4 A9 cores plus the A7 helper core will be nice, but how much multithreading will we on a mobile APU? Also, Tegra 3's GPU is outgunned by Mali and the SGX543, and Tegra3 uses only a single channel memory interface. Too many "ifs" for those extra cores to really impress, IMO. I think Tegra3+ will be more of what Tegra3 should have been at launch.
The Nvidia chip is just beginning to catch up to Apple's GPU. I think Apple's GPU is still a larger piece of silicon, similar amount of cores, and more memory bandwidth.
It's just sad that such a great GPU is on such a fucking crappy phone with such a fucking crappy small screen with fucking Apple standing over you as you "attempt" to use their phone like you want to or should be able to.
Back then PowerVR didn't have the partners or cash to keep pushing forward aggressively enough. They made some nice chips and some key design wins here and there, but they weren't able to beat them in volume or profits.. The last competitive-at-time-of-launch desktop chips they released was Series 3 built by STM (Kyro and Kyro II). I owned one of each at some point, they were quite good for the money at the time.
Anyway, I think they're in a much better position these days in the mobile market, than they ever were in the PC/console markets. They have been taking the mobile market by storm ever since MBX. Series 5 (SGX) is doing awesome and Series 6 looks to continue this trend in the near future.
You realize Apple's 3.5" display uses a "squat"-er aspect ratio at 960x640, and the actual screen area measured in mm^2 is comparable to a 960x540 ~4" display, right?
his post illustrates *one* of the reasons widescreen monitors are the norm: marketing. A 22" widescreen monitor has significantly less area than a 22" 4:3 monitor. In the same way, he's looking at these "bigger" widescreen handsets, and believing they actually are bigger since they have a larger horizontal value, when actual surface area is about the same
Yeah, depending on what phone you have, you can really wait. I have an SGS2 (since it was released in May) and am very content with it. I don't think I'll upgrade until late 2012 when 28nm Quad and 720p+ is there. Or I'll keep the phone and get a 7" tablet to go along with it.
This is the first time I've really been able to see how the Galaxy Nexus's GPU might stack up against those in other top tier phones. Thanks for laying it out in this way - and also for not disparaging the SGX 540 just because it's not the fastest of the bunch. A lot of people act like it's a huge hardware misstep - so it's nice to read that the 540 is a competent GPU.
I really cannot wait for this phone to finally become available. I'm frustrated that it seems to be caught-up in Verizon-launch-schedule-politics. (That's my perception, anyway.)
I think it is a huge hardware misstep, here they have their premier phone for 4.0, one boasting a 720p display and they put in it a GPU that is not even 50% as powerful as the one in the iPhone 4s. They get people want to play games on their phones right.
Will the Galaxy Nexus have frame rate problems playing next years new games at its native resolution that the iPhone 4s and the SGS2 phones wont? I am guessing it's likely.
Android has NO GAMES, so it doesn't need best gpu. SGX 540 is competent enoug to accelerate interface, decode video and has pretty decent performance. Also there isn't a single android video player that can use GPU to accelerate videos non-compatible with default player (like MKVs).
on my sgs2, i can play 1080p AVC videos just fine as it's accelerated - MKV too. i tend to re-encode things i keep on the phone due to file size but other things i just want to watch and delete on a train or whatever - i'll just throw the mkv on there and the default video app works just fine.
mx video player on android also does accelerated decoding for some file types.
There are actually several players that support hardware accelerated video in mkv containers for android. Dice player, mentioned by the poster above me, is probably the best. On a HTC Sensation, I can watch 720p mkv's perfectly. The developer claims that 1080p is also possible, but I haven't had the opportunity to test that yet.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know a hardware accelerated video player for iOS that can play h264-encoded mkv files? I've been looking for one (VLC isn't in the market any longer), but can't find one that works. Thanks.
Trollface.jpg. Infinity Blade aside, I've never been left wanting for Android games, it has more than I could possibly get through, some of quite high quality like Nova 2 and Need for Speed.
Or the games you do play are Wordfeud or Angry Birds?
At what point does it stop being worthwhile to include a SoC that's literally twice as big, potentially using more juice for GPU operations due to the higher complexity of said part?
I can see the allure of top everything in a phone but frankly it's the whole package that matters. Personally I'd consider the lack of microSD-slot and 'meh' camera to be far worse issues than not standing up to the A5 or Exnyos in GPU performance.
It makes sense to wait for 28nm SoCs before pushing significantly improved GPU performance.
....Yet the iToy 4S or even the SGSII both prove that you can have far better GPU's but ALSO have great battery life and in a small and thin form factor. Theres simply no reason not to have a better GPU in this phone, and with a res of 720p it really needs it.
Even the UI will suffer not just games - the Android UI is laggy on Honeycomb tablets with the same res as this phone. One of the things causing this lag is the underpowered Tegra 2 GPU, and this phone has a GPU in the same league as that.
Nope. Laggy UI on Android come from a lack of proper GPU acceleration, not from Tegra II being too slow.
The iPhone 4 (non -S) had a GPU which was HALF as fast as the SGX540, a high resolution retina display, and yet the UI was butter smooth all the time.
ICS seems to run super smooth on the Galaxy Nexus, thanks to the new sw optimizations, without any need for a faster GPU (except for demanding 3d games).
Battery life is mostly dependent upon the usage scenarios. I get 7-10 days out of my Xperia arc but I reckon very few others can say the same.
Point being that not many people actually need a powerful GPU in their smartphones, in which case the larger/more expensive chip makes little sense.
Of course it's a good idea to push for better performance on all levels but that's better off at 28nm, where a more advanced GPU wouldn't come at such a high price.
Personally I'd say the GPU is sufficient as soon as it can handle 1080p60 output and video decoding. But that's me, I still use my phone mostly as a phone.
This argument is like backwards deja-vu. Except instead of the Apple product having the subpar graphics and fanboys defending that against PC users and their SLI'd super machines, its now Android fanboys defending it against the iPhone 4s and its over 200% faster GPU.
Noone is questioning the fact that A5 has a significantly stronger GPU. It's just one of those components where the trade off in die real estate and cost doesn't necessarily make sense, certainly not for all users.
Everyone can immediately benefit from a stronger CPU, the same can't be said of an A5-class GPU.
Of course it would have been awesome with a stronger GPU as well but while the lack of such is s strike against the Galaxy Nexus it's a trivial concern compared to the lack of microSD-slot, for example. IMHO obviously, just pointing out that the GPU isn't a primary concern for /all/ users - as opposed to, say, the CPU or battery.
As for Tegra 3 it's unlikely it's going to be competing with the A5 either, at least as I understand it from what we know today.
For certain users in specific circumstances, yes. I went 4->Nexus S->4S and the battery life for me is the same or better. The Nexus S I used in between was so sad in comparison.
It's not a misstep. It's a baseline device. Every other manufacturer now has an idea how an average ICS phone should look like. Historically it's been the case with Nexus launches - it's the baseline for Android devices. Nexus One - baseline for 2010. Nexus S - baseline for 2011. Galaxy Nexus - baseline for 2012.
I disagree completely, stm1185. The SGX 540 in the Galaxy Nexus is a GPU that has long been hobbled by the slow memory it's been paired with on a single-channel memory controller, as well as feature size limitations that prevented it being clocked as high as it could be.
The SGX 543MP2 in the iPhone 4S is basically a tweaked, dual-core version of the SGX 540, and isn't anything revolutionary, it just eats up more power, costs more money, and requires more die space.
The Mali-400 MP4 in the SGS2 is performing better than the SGX 540 in benchmarks because of fill rate. Read this article by Anand, it explains some of the differences between the GPUs: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4686/samsung-galaxy-...
When it comes to handling polygon counts though, the SGX 540 is actually much more capable. Next year's games will be very poly-intensive and this is where the SGX 540 can actually start outperforming the Mali-400 in the SGS2.
Regardless, it's basically a moot point. The 304 MHz SGX 540 in the Galaxy Nexus still performs better overall than Qualcomm's Adreno 220 and the NVIDIA GeForce ULP currently in Tegra 2 phones. There are still high-end phones launching with those GPUs and if we should be worrying about any phones struggling with games next year, we should be worrying about those.
Nvidia is such a big disappointment. They should be the leader of dedicated graphics.
Let's see if the Tegra 3 gets a bigger improvement, I don't think it will be that big of a jump since Nvidia tends to rush things out the door than getting it right.
Which means that the GPU performance in 3D games will be awesome! \o/
On a more serious note—are those 920k pixels on a pentile display also rendered as such or are they effectively less? Or, alternatively, would rendering a smaller resolution and upscaling it be that much worse on such a display?
Indeed, they are all tested at 720p offscreen, it's mentioned under the title of the benchmark. So the GPU of the iPhone 4S is more than twice as fast, which isn't surprising considering that it's an evolution of the one in the Nexus, with twice the processing units.
It's 2x as fast in raw performance, but in more down to earth scenarios (Egypt) it's not that far ahead. I blame the memory interface in A5 for the lower scores.
I was very interested in the Nexus until it was delayed beyond my required time frame... Now I'll just hold out for Tegra 3 smartphones like the HTC Edge. I should learn to program for Tegra anyway :)
You are incorrect about that. Both phones were tested rendering Graphics at 1024x768 which also happens to be the same native screen resolution as the Galaxy Nexus. Essentially the iPhone 4S beats the Galaxy Nexus at it's own game(s) (Pun slightly intended). The iPhone 4S perform even better once bench marked at it's own native resolution. FYI the Graphic chip that's in the Galaxy Nexus is 2 years old and interestingly enough is the same GPU as the original iPhone4... so it's a bit behind. Nice phone though, just lacking on cutting edge performance in some areas.
Not true. The iPhone 4 used the 535, not the 540, and the 540 in the Galaxy Nexus is clocked higher than the 540 in the Nexus S you're probably thinking of, and looking at the benchmarks you can see its easily double the speed of the original 540, don't be fooled by a name. Not as fast as the 543MP2 of course, but its not the same old 540 either.
Mac faithful Josh Topolsky of The Verge(hot new tech site) had very good words about this device in his review. And coming from him it must really be good. He rated with 10 both the performance and hardware aspects of this device.
Josh is hardly a Mac guy, more Windows guy. Since he sees an average 3-4 Android devices on a given month. It's hard to give any device a 10 and this is the 1st device to earn that mark.
Josh is a Windows guy? Sorry, you clearly don't know Josh. He once said "Windows 7 is like poison to me, seriously... what's so great about Windows, come on, tell me one thing it does better than Mac OS X?". But, he's not a fanboy, he said in the same day "No, no, I'm talking about Windows Desktop, Windows Phone 7 is great, and Windows 8 could be great".
I'm not a big gamer - if I wanted to play shoot 'em up games, that's what XBOX, etc are for. What I am more interested in is CPU - and it sounds like this is (for now) the best choice. I agree - would curious to see how the Qualcomm 1.5 Dual (I believe) in the Rezound performs, but thanks for the chart, Anand. I am just hopeful that Verizon at Brier Creek will be giving these phones out tomorrow - my OG Droid is on its last legs.
In terms of hardware it looks like it could be the best phone. Anandtech had a hands on review a week ago and then dropped the ball on a full one. WTF guys?
When are we going to add a Windows Phone model or two to the mix? Because they sure feel a lot faster than Android models, and it would be interesting to see the numbers.
ICS supports HW acceleration, just like WP7. Launching Apps and other task intensive activities are faster on current android phones running gingerbread (i.e. SGS II) because they leveled the lack of HW acceleration by having better hardware, the two mixed are simply going to blow current WP7 out of the water.
I have a Droid 3 with an alpha build of CM7 from Hashcode and scored slightly better than the iPhone 4S. Kinda sad since this phone is already well over 6 months old.
Why do you guys think they didn't opt to use the 4470? According to the schedule I saw, it should've been in production around the time as the 4430/4460, unless I misread what I saw.
I'm still amazed they didn't wait for Krait for the 2nd gen LTE modem. About to pickup the Nexus but might hold off until January; have a trip coming up in December :(
The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is the first smartphone with the latest Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) operating system. Except for the tiny amount of bezel on the top and bottom and a slender sliver on either side, the front of this phone is almost all screen. Samsung google GALAXY Nexus Prime Experience video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bd73fvDyfU
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slaughter111 - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Nice phone, but for some reason I want to hold out for something based on the new Nvidia quadcore. But still, very nice phone.uwndrd - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
That would be SO nice to see Tegra 3 benchmark results, especially GPU. Especially, in comparison with Ipad 2's one.djdiff - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Here you go (in swedish though, but the charts are self-explanatory):http://www.nordichardware.se/nyheter/476-tablets/4...
Guspaz - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
For those who don't want to bother to click through, the Tegra 3's GPU is a bit faster than a Mali400, but way slower than an SGX543MP2.Somewhat disappointing that it's not even beating current GPUs, but at least the performance is decent.
Alexvrb - Sunday, November 27, 2011 - link
Yeah everyone thought Tegra 3 would be the end-all be-all. Not so much. Now people are starting to see why Sony didn't go with a Tegra 3 solution for the NGP. Sure, there are some nice features in Tegra 3, like the extra low power CPU core. But graphics? NGP is getting an SGX543MP4 with dedicated high-speed VRAM. In terms of graphics performance it'll be at a very minimum twice as powerful as whats in an iPad2, and I suspect 3-4 times as fast.Not to mention that as a dedicated gaming platform, there are no compatibility concerns, so developers can feel free to code closer to the metal where necessary. With all that said, I still probably won't get an NGP or any other dedicated portable. Phone is good enough for light gaming on the go, and any other time I'm gaming it's in front of a monitor or TV.
TareX - Monday, November 28, 2011 - link
That is the sad truth regarding Vita's inevitable demise.... I barely find time for gaming on my Tegra 2 phone.r3loaded - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
The Asus Transformer Prime is out next month, so we'll probably find out then. I'm expecting this quad-core monster to walk all over previous chips. :)MonkeyPaw - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
I doubt it. Sure, 4 A9 cores plus the A7 helper core will be nice, but how much multithreading will we on a mobile APU? Also, Tegra 3's GPU is outgunned by Mali and the SGX543, and Tegra3 uses only a single channel memory interface. Too many "ifs" for those extra cores to really impress, IMO. I think Tegra3+ will be more of what Tegra3 should have been at launch.sigmatau - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
The Nvidia chip is just beginning to catch up to Apple's GPU. I think Apple's GPU is still a larger piece of silicon, similar amount of cores, and more memory bandwidth.It's just sad that such a great GPU is on such a fucking crappy phone with such a fucking crappy small screen with fucking Apple standing over you as you "attempt" to use their phone like you want to or should be able to.
vision33r - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
Apple does not make or design the GPU, it's a SG PowerVR GPU.Right now it is like 1996 all over with the PowerVR kicking Nividia's TNT2.
Alexvrb - Sunday, November 27, 2011 - link
Back then PowerVR didn't have the partners or cash to keep pushing forward aggressively enough. They made some nice chips and some key design wins here and there, but they weren't able to beat them in volume or profits.. The last competitive-at-time-of-launch desktop chips they released was Series 3 built by STM (Kyro and Kyro II). I owned one of each at some point, they were quite good for the money at the time.Anyway, I think they're in a much better position these days in the mobile market, than they ever were in the PC/console markets. They have been taking the mobile market by storm ever since MBX. Series 5 (SGX) is doing awesome and Series 6 looks to continue this trend in the near future.
jeremyshaw - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
You realize Apple's 3.5" display uses a "squat"-er aspect ratio at 960x640, and the actual screen area measured in mm^2 is comparable to a 960x540 ~4" display, right?MamiyaOtaru - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
his post illustrates *one* of the reasons widescreen monitors are the norm: marketing. A 22" widescreen monitor has significantly less area than a 22" 4:3 monitor. In the same way, he's looking at these "bigger" widescreen handsets, and believing they actually are bigger since they have a larger horizontal value, when actual surface area is about the samekebab77 - Thursday, December 8, 2011 - link
Quad-core A9's may well be slower than dual-core A15's:http://www.bestsmartphone.com/2011/12/08/samsung-w...
Death666Angel - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Yeah, depending on what phone you have, you can really wait.I have an SGS2 (since it was released in May) and am very content with it. I don't think I'll upgrade until late 2012 when 28nm Quad and 720p+ is there. Or I'll keep the phone and get a 7" tablet to go along with it.
ProfessionalGun - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
This is the first time I've really been able to see how the Galaxy Nexus's GPU might stack up against those in other top tier phones. Thanks for laying it out in this way - and also for not disparaging the SGX 540 just because it's not the fastest of the bunch. A lot of people act like it's a huge hardware misstep - so it's nice to read that the 540 is a competent GPU.I really cannot wait for this phone to finally become available. I'm frustrated that it seems to be caught-up in Verizon-launch-schedule-politics. (That's my perception, anyway.)
stm1185 - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
I think it is a huge hardware misstep, here they have their premier phone for 4.0, one boasting a 720p display and they put in it a GPU that is not even 50% as powerful as the one in the iPhone 4s. They get people want to play games on their phones right.Will the Galaxy Nexus have frame rate problems playing next years new games at its native resolution that the iPhone 4s and the SGS2 phones wont? I am guessing it's likely.
Herp Derpson - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Android has NO GAMES, so it doesn't need best gpu. SGX 540 is competent enoug to accelerate interface, decode video and has pretty decent performance. Also there isn't a single android video player that can use GPU to accelerate videos non-compatible with default player (like MKVs).uwndrd - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
There is one video player with HW acceleration - DicePlayer. Go check it out, it has lite version or something.Herp Derpson - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
That's pretty awesome, thanks!tommo123 - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
on my sgs2, i can play 1080p AVC videos just fine as it's accelerated - MKV too. i tend to re-encode things i keep on the phone due to file size but other things i just want to watch and delete on a train or whatever - i'll just throw the mkv on there and the default video app works just fine.mx video player on android also does accelerated decoding for some file types.
iuqiddis - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
There are actually several players that support hardware accelerated video in mkv containers for android. Dice player, mentioned by the poster above me, is probably the best. On a HTC Sensation, I can watch 720p mkv's perfectly. The developer claims that 1080p is also possible, but I haven't had the opportunity to test that yet.Out of curiosity, does anyone know a hardware accelerated video player for iOS that can play h264-encoded mkv files? I've been looking for one (VLC isn't in the market any longer), but can't find one that works. Thanks.
piiman - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
"Android has NO GAMES"Say what? Perhaps you meant games you like because it certainly does have games.
augustofretes - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
The game selection is crap compared to iOS selection (SGS II owner, waiting anxiously for ICS).jalexoid - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Dungeon Defenders game developer will disagree with NO GAMES statement.tipoo - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
"Android has NO GAMES"Trollface.jpg. Infinity Blade aside, I've never been left wanting for Android games, it has more than I could possibly get through, some of quite high quality like Nova 2 and Need for Speed.
steven75 - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
Those games are quite old hat for iOS though.Exodite - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
And if you don't play games on your phone?Or the games you do play are Wordfeud or Angry Birds?
At what point does it stop being worthwhile to include a SoC that's literally twice as big, potentially using more juice for GPU operations due to the higher complexity of said part?
I can see the allure of top everything in a phone but frankly it's the whole package that matters. Personally I'd consider the lack of microSD-slot and 'meh' camera to be far worse issues than not standing up to the A5 or Exnyos in GPU performance.
It makes sense to wait for 28nm SoCs before pushing significantly improved GPU performance.
B3an - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
....Yet the iToy 4S or even the SGSII both prove that you can have far better GPU's but ALSO have great battery life and in a small and thin form factor. Theres simply no reason not to have a better GPU in this phone, and with a res of 720p it really needs it.Even the UI will suffer not just games - the Android UI is laggy on Honeycomb tablets with the same res as this phone. One of the things causing this lag is the underpowered Tegra 2 GPU, and this phone has a GPU in the same league as that.
Pipperox - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Nope.Laggy UI on Android come from a lack of proper GPU acceleration, not from Tegra II being too slow.
The iPhone 4 (non -S) had a GPU which was HALF as fast as the SGX540, a high resolution retina display, and yet the UI was butter smooth all the time.
ICS seems to run super smooth on the Galaxy Nexus, thanks to the new sw optimizations, without any need for a faster GPU (except for demanding 3d games).
jalexoid - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Actually UI in ICS is H/W accelerated by default.eallan - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 - link
There is a whole lot of justification going around for picking a sub par GPU.The thing is, if they had included the 4S GPU or something more powerful, there wouldn't be a single complaint on any tech site.
They skimped, period. For cost savings or driver support, who knows. They did skimp though.
Exodite - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Battery life is mostly dependent upon the usage scenarios. I get 7-10 days out of my Xperia arc but I reckon very few others can say the same.Point being that not many people actually need a powerful GPU in their smartphones, in which case the larger/more expensive chip makes little sense.
Of course it's a good idea to push for better performance on all levels but that's better off at 28nm, where a more advanced GPU wouldn't come at such a high price.
Personally I'd say the GPU is sufficient as soon as it can handle 1080p60 output and video decoding. But that's me, I still use my phone mostly as a phone.
piiman - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
"Battery life is mostly dependent upon the usage scenarios. I get 7-10 days out of my Xperia arc but I reckon very few others can say the same."Come on! Do you ever turn it on and use it?
Exodite - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Oh it's always on, I'm just not a compulsive user.stm1185 - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
This argument is like backwards deja-vu. Except instead of the Apple product having the subpar graphics and fanboys defending that against PC users and their SLI'd super machines, its now Android fanboys defending it against the iPhone 4s and its over 200% faster GPU.Android phones need some Tegra 3 love already.
Exodite - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
Why does it always have to be defensive?Noone is questioning the fact that A5 has a significantly stronger GPU. It's just one of those components where the trade off in die real estate and cost doesn't necessarily make sense, certainly not for all users.
Everyone can immediately benefit from a stronger CPU, the same can't be said of an A5-class GPU.
Of course it would have been awesome with a stronger GPU as well but while the lack of such is s strike against the Galaxy Nexus it's a trivial concern compared to the lack of microSD-slot, for example. IMHO obviously, just pointing out that the GPU isn't a primary concern for /all/ users - as opposed to, say, the CPU or battery.
As for Tegra 3 it's unlikely it's going to be competing with the A5 either, at least as I understand it from what we know today.
jalexoid - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
iPhone4s has been plagued on battery ever since it launch, compared to iPhone4 or even SGS2.Tegeril - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
For certain users in specific circumstances, yes. I went 4->Nexus S->4S and the battery life for me is the same or better. The Nexus S I used in between was so sad in comparison.jalexoid - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
It's not a misstep. It's a baseline device. Every other manufacturer now has an idea how an average ICS phone should look like. Historically it's been the case with Nexus launches - it's the baseline for Android devices.Nexus One - baseline for 2010.
Nexus S - baseline for 2011.
Galaxy Nexus - baseline for 2012.
Electrofreak - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
I disagree completely, stm1185. The SGX 540 in the Galaxy Nexus is a GPU that has long been hobbled by the slow memory it's been paired with on a single-channel memory controller, as well as feature size limitations that prevented it being clocked as high as it could be.The SGX 543MP2 in the iPhone 4S is basically a tweaked, dual-core version of the SGX 540, and isn't anything revolutionary, it just eats up more power, costs more money, and requires more die space.
The Mali-400 MP4 in the SGS2 is performing better than the SGX 540 in benchmarks because of fill rate. Read this article by Anand, it explains some of the differences between the GPUs: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4686/samsung-galaxy-...
When it comes to handling polygon counts though, the SGX 540 is actually much more capable. Next year's games will be very poly-intensive and this is where the SGX 540 can actually start outperforming the Mali-400 in the SGS2.
Regardless, it's basically a moot point. The 304 MHz SGX 540 in the Galaxy Nexus still performs better overall than Qualcomm's Adreno 220 and the NVIDIA GeForce ULP currently in Tegra 2 phones. There are still high-end phones launching with those GPUs and if we should be worrying about any phones struggling with games next year, we should be worrying about those.
vision33r - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
Nvidia is such a big disappointment. They should be the leader of dedicated graphics.Let's see if the Tegra 3 gets a bigger improvement, I don't think it will be that big of a jump since Nvidia tends to rush things out the door than getting it right.
thunng8 - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Huh yourself ..All the phones were tested at the same resolution to gauge the performance of the GPU.
xype - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Which means that the GPU performance in 3D games will be awesome! \o/On a more serious note—are those 920k pixels on a pentile display also rendered as such or are they effectively less? Or, alternatively, would rendering a smaller resolution and upscaling it be that much worse on such a display?
melgross - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Effectively less, as they have been for all PenTile displays.eallan - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
For all intents and purpose they are treated the same. Regardless of each pixel being 2 subpixels instead of 3, it's still a "pixel."ZoZo - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Indeed, they are all tested at 720p offscreen, it's mentioned under the title of the benchmark. So the GPU of the iPhone 4S is more than twice as fast, which isn't surprising considering that it's an evolution of the one in the Nexus, with twice the processing units.jalexoid - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
It's 2x as fast in raw performance, but in more down to earth scenarios (Egypt) it's not that far ahead. I blame the memory interface in A5 for the lower scores.thunng8 - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
Not quite sure what you are talking about.In Egypt the iphone4S is 2.5x faster than the Nexus Galaxy and in Pro it is 2.7x faster. In both benchmarks to is significantly faster than 2X.
jacknhut - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Would like to see how HTC Rezound perform against this Nexus S since it is after all the biggest rival to the Nexus S at the moment.jacknhut - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Edit: Oops not Nexus S, I mean Galaxy Nexus my bad.staryoshi - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
I was very interested in the Nexus until it was delayed beyond my required time frame... Now I'll just hold out for Tegra 3 smartphones like the HTC Edge. I should learn to program for Tegra anyway :)stsh0502 - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
I would hold my breath on any HTC phone having a Tegra 3 or any processor not made by Qualcommitpromike - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
You are incorrect about that. Both phones were tested rendering Graphics at 1024x768 which also happens to be the same native screen resolution as the Galaxy Nexus. Essentially the iPhone 4S beats the Galaxy Nexus at it's own game(s) (Pun slightly intended). The iPhone 4S perform even better once bench marked at it's own native resolution. FYI the Graphic chip that's in the Galaxy Nexus is 2 years old and interestingly enough is the same GPU as the original iPhone4... so it's a bit behind. Nice phone though, just lacking on cutting edge performance in some areas.eallan - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
How do you figure that's the nexus's native resolution?tipoo - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
Not true. The iPhone 4 used the 535, not the 540, and the 540 in the Galaxy Nexus is clocked higher than the 540 in the Nexus S you're probably thinking of, and looking at the benchmarks you can see its easily double the speed of the original 540, don't be fooled by a name. Not as fast as the 543MP2 of course, but its not the same old 540 either.ananduser - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
Mac faithful Josh Topolsky of The Verge(hot new tech site) had very good words about this device in his review. And coming from him it must really be good. He rated with 10 both the performance and hardware aspects of this device.vision33r - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
Josh is hardly a Mac guy, more Windows guy. Since he sees an average 3-4 Android devices on a given month. It's hard to give any device a 10 and this is the 1st device to earn that mark.augustofretes - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
Josh is a Windows guy? Sorry, you clearly don't know Josh. He once said "Windows 7 is like poison to me, seriously... what's so great about Windows, come on, tell me one thing it does better than Mac OS X?". But, he's not a fanboy, he said in the same day "No, no, I'm talking about Windows Desktop, Windows Phone 7 is great, and Windows 8 could be great".jbwhite99 - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
I'm not a big gamer - if I wanted to play shoot 'em up games, that's what XBOX, etc are for. What I am more interested in is CPU - and it sounds like this is (for now) the best choice. I agree - would curious to see how the Qualcomm 1.5 Dual (I believe) in the Rezound performs, but thanks for the chart, Anand. I am just hopeful that Verizon at Brier Creek will be giving these phones out tomorrow - my OG Droid is on its last legs.Rummaged - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
In terms of hardware it looks like it could be the best phone. Anandtech had a hands on review a week ago and then dropped the ball on a full one. WTF guys?solipsism - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
ICS is looking pretty good all around. I guess Jobs was right that competition was 5 years behind Apple.doubledeej - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
When are we going to add a Windows Phone model or two to the mix? Because they sure feel a lot faster than Android models, and it would be interesting to see the numbers.augustofretes - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
ICS supports HW acceleration, just like WP7. Launching Apps and other task intensive activities are faster on current android phones running gingerbread (i.e. SGS II) because they leveled the lack of HW acceleration by having better hardware, the two mixed are simply going to blow current WP7 out of the water.bmaz - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
It would be nice, for comparison purposes, to have the only available Meego device benchmarked as well.phantom505 - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
On phones are horribly unreliable.I have a Droid 3 with an alpha build of CM7 from Hashcode and scored slightly better than the iPhone 4S. Kinda sad since this phone is already well over 6 months old.
steven75 - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
You're also running a completely unsupported OS. Why you think that comparison is fair is the question.Omid.M - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
Anand/Brian,Why do you guys think they didn't opt to use the 4470? According to the schedule I saw, it should've been in production around the time as the 4430/4460, unless I misread what I saw.
I'm still amazed they didn't wait for Krait for the 2nd gen LTE modem. About to pickup the Nexus but might hold off until January; have a trip coming up in December :(
@moids
watch phone - Friday, November 25, 2011 - link
The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is the first smartphone with the latest Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) operating system. Except for the tiny amount of bezel on the top and bottom and a slender sliver on either side, the front of this phone is almost all screen.Samsung google GALAXY Nexus Prime Experience video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bd73fvDyfU