Futuremark Delists Samsung and HTC Android Devices for Cheating 3DMark 188
MojoKid writes "Benchmarks are serious business. Buying decisions are often made based on how well a product scores, which is why the press and analysts spend so much time putting new gadgets through their paces. However, benchmarks are only meaningful when there's a level playing field, and when companies try to 'game' the business of benchmarking, it's not only a form of cheating, it also bamboozles potential buyers who (rightfully) assume the numbers are supposed mean something. 3D graphics benchmark software developer Futuremark just 'delisted' a bunch of devices from its 3DMark benchmark results database because it suspects foul play is at hand. Of the devices listed, it appears Samsung and HTC in particular are indirectly being accused of cheating 3DMark for mobile devices. Delisted devices are stripped of their rank and scores. Futuremark didn't elaborate on which specific rule(s) these devices broke, but a look at the company's benchmarking policies reveals that hardware makers aren't allowed to make optimizations specific to 3DMark, nor are platforms allowed to detect the launch of the benchmark executable unless it's needed to enable multi-GPU and/or there's a known conflict that would prevent it from running."
End the PPI race (Score:3, Interesting)
Part of the problem is that many of the latest 1080p phones are slower in games than their 720p predecessors such as nexus 5 vs nexus 4. When you double the resolution, you need to quadruple the pixels rendered. Consumers want longer battery life and games to run smoothly but the manufactures are pushing for these useless 1080p screens and cheating in benchmarks to make up for loss in performance. On 4" screen 720 is more than enough for normal eyesight.
No end in site. (Score:2)
But we must have MOER 'P'. And with 4K being the new 1080p, you can in fact expect more of them to be here soon.
Incidentally, Skyfall would have been a better movie if it were about a plot to switch all smartphone manufactures to power draining 1080p displays without them realizing until it was too late.
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In a pissing match you always need MOAR P
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Apple - making significant disadvantages of their iDevices sound like good things (tm).
The old "perfect size / one size fits all" 3.5" display comes to mind...
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That's a marketing point for their four inch displays. They didn't need to spin having a 3.5-inch display because until about 2010 it was one of the largest displays you could get on a phone.
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Well it's what happened with the old 3.5 inch screens, with the awkward 3:2 aspect ratio. Don't forget that the iPhone 5 (with the 4" screen) was not released until march 2013.
http://gizmodo.com/5847981/this-is-why-the-iphones-screen-will-always-be-35-inches [gizmodo.com]
This time it's the screen resolution... Apple has always bragged about their high resolution retina displays, and now that they're lacking in that department, all of a sudden high resolution is a bad thing and Apple's retina are the "perfect resolution".
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I don't think that Dustin Curtis counts as "Apple". And I don't think you'll find many remarks from Apple that "high resolution is a bad thing" either.
(Fact is, they're not going to upgrade resolution until they can do an integer multiple or iOS goes resolution-independent. It's not a question of "lacking", it's a question of them making a tradeoff that suits their particular product line, in the same way that Samsung's shipping Pentile displays rather than RGB.)
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Perhaps I should have said Apple fans, but I wanted to avoid offending SuperKendall and the AC he was responding to. They were clearly saying that more pixels is bad, in case you missed it.
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....Which proves my point
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So they basically bragged that they found the perfect pixel density @ 330 ppi... which is even worse.
In reality, they sticked with that pixel density because they have very strict (pixel-based) design constraints for their platform.
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No, you are wrong. As I was talking about the iPhone (which has had 330 ppi ever since 2010), I am completely right. You suddenly include a completely different subject and then claim I was wrong. Way to go!
That chart doesn't really mean anything either, not in the least because we're talking about the low end of the spectrum here, which is near the base of that chart where it gets fuzzy. But let's have a look at something a bit more scientific [displaymate.com], shall we.
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Part of the problem is that many of the latest 1080p phones are slower in games than their 720p predecessors such as nexus 5 vs nexus 4.
Most benchmarks support off-screen rendering at a fixed resolution. Even so this just highlights why benchmarks are pointless - different GPUs will perform differently in a variety of games, and manufacturers have been providing drivers with tweaks for specific games since the late 90s.
Basically benchmarking is a waste of time when trying to make generalizations about a device.
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The whole idea of a benchmark is to provide a transferable baseline; any benefits from "tweaks" (which simply do not exist on mobile devices) would appear over and above that.
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There are games that include tweaks for specific hardware - iOS apps will typically turn off/on antialiasing and the like in response to the device they're running on - but there are no reported examples of hardware drivers including app-specific tweaks like you see on a PC. (With the exception of benchmarks, where the tweaks help no-one, and less than ten preinstalled Samsung utilities.)
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Part of the problem is that many of the latest 1080p phones are slower in games than their 720p predecessors such as nexus 5 vs nexus 4
I wonder why arent they rendering to smaller resolution window and then rescaling? M$ does this in X180 rendering games in 720p and upscaling to pretend its a next gen full HD console.
Just went over this in the Texas anti-evolution BS (Score:4, Interesting)
Buying decisions are often made based on how well a product scores,
That is an unproven hypothesis. Null hypothesis: Buying decisions are often NOT made based on how well a product scores on benchmarks. Evidence: iDevices. The burden of proof is on the claimant to provide GREATER evidence than the null hypothesis, otherwise the claim can be dismissed as confirmation bias, even if you find evidence in support of the orginal hypothesis: Stepping on cracks does not break backs, even if you observe it happening a couple of times. Nerds checking benchmarks before buying gadgets happens. Is this frequent enough to warant use of the word "often"? If so, where's the evidence? You haven't any.
Try this on for size: The niche market segment of geeks who care enough about benchmark scores and use Futuremark as a source for statistics occasionally purchase products based on those scores. It's hypocritical to hold Creationists to a higher standard of evidence than you do yourself.
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Then these phone companies are wasting perfectly good time and money by cheating on the benchmarks, and there's no harm in 3DMark delisting these phones.
(I'd say that if nothing else, these benchmarks generate news stories promoting the new, allegedly-faster device [google.com].)
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All phones are slow when they have been on the market for 6 months, there is no special magic pixie dust in the iPhones that makes them faster. But people still buy them, same with Androids..
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Apple's devices have consistently had the fastest available PowerVR GPUs at launch*. Funnily enough for games performance, this makes rather more of a difference than having additional CPU cores.
*In their device class, anyway. The 4S launched against the Vita with the same part, but had half as many GPU cores.
Buying decision? (Score:2)
Benchmarks on buying decisions are for CPUs and GPUs. They are for people building high end machines, or people trying to get the best processing bang for buck.
These are phones. What sells is screen size, phone style, and feature list. No one cares how many points a phone has in benchmarks except for some reviewers. People want to know if it takes good photos, how well the hover features work, if it's 3G or 4G, hell most recently buyers have been more interested in if it comes in white or black rather than
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Apparently Samsung and HTC disagree.
Benchmarks (Score:5, Insightful)
A benchmark measures the performance of a machine while under that particular benchmark.
Otherwise, it's pretty useless. No benchmark has been able to be used for comparison purposes for more than a few months after release (and things like this are re-released once a year or more). Even back in the days of Dhrystones and Whetstones and all that crap - at best it benchmarks one particular run of code, and that's it. And in terms of general performance, it can do no better than guess.
Fact is, if anyone buys because of a 10% increase in a certain benchmark they are an idiot, unless the code they want to run *IS* that benchmark (to all intents and purposes). This is why the best "benchmarks" are things like how many FPS you get in the game you want to play. Because then you'll know exactly how many FPS you'll get in the game you want to play...
We haven't had highly-determinstic computer systems in our PC's for many, many, many years. Caches, bus speeds, interactions, multi-processors, etc. all throw benchmarks in the bin. And everyone's use case is different. Personally, I'd prefer 8 2GHz cores to any other configuration you could imagine at the moment, other people will have different ideas.
Benchmarks are a waste of time. It's like having stupid logic questions on a job interview. All that gets you is people good at answering those stupid logic questions, not at the job, or at worst someone who *appears* good at answering those logic questions.
Benchmarks on smartphones? It makes even less sense. I'm more shocked that Samsung think that anyone gives a shit.
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That's why you perform use-case-specific benchmarking. 3DMark, for instance, is closely modelled on the kinds of calculations actually involved in 3D graphics on mobiles. You'd use an entirely different benchmark protocol for something like a server, or a scientific supercomputer.
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I don't get the point of downloadable benchmarks for mobiles anyways. the only point of it is for 3dmark to sell sw to review sites.
I mean, if they really wanted to bench these puppies they would just bench them. it's not like someone is going to pop in an extra dram comb or two since the hw isn't customizable...
instead of delisting they could just have ran the benches with binary that had the recognized part changed... that's what they should do. but there is no business in doing that.
um... (Score:3)
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No, they're not (Score:2, Insightful)
Benchmarks are serious business.
For a tiny segment of the population, maybe. For the rest of the world, raw benchmarks don't matter at all. It's all perception and other features over raw framerate. Normal humans can't really detect anything above 50 or 60 FPS. So if you are proud your phone gets 150FPS, congratulations! You got that going for you, which is nice. I guess.
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Actually the retina does have a "sensitivity rate" akin to a refresh rate, but it varies among individuals. When it comes to light level decay from a scanned phosphor in a picture tube, the retinal response is markedly different than it is for gated systems like LED panels. Some people don't see stroboscopic flicker at a 50Hz refresh rate, and some people see flicker at anything less than a 100Hz refresh rate. But as you point out, the vision system is much more complicated than just the retina, and many o
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Martial arts flow is much more complicated than increased visual sensitivity to high speed motion. And I assure you that a properly trained martial artist, in Flow, is NOT experiencing 'tunnel vision.' Peripheral awareness from ALL sensory inputs are fully engaged and heightened, sensations of pain and other discomforts are usually muted or 'switched off.'
The Flow increases situational awareness, reduces latency from perception to action, and may also decrease reflexive latency. Being in Flow does some
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And why do you think they are? (Score:3, Insightful)
On iOS benchmark scores do not change when you change the executable name...
When you ship with a fast enough system you don't need to cheat to look good on benchmarks.
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Because under iOS, all binaries are encrypted and cannot be changed without creating a non executable.
The name is irrelavant
The combination of DRM key and code identifies to the OS the precise application and whether or not it's allowed to run, not the mere executable's name. While samsung have been caught with their pants down by listing using executable/task names, Apple need only boost applications according to a mathematical model that surprise surprise only includes benchmark apps.
Funny how iPhone batt
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Funny how a Slashdot article on Samsung and HTC attracts Apple haters like yourself. You might want to seek professional help for your rage.
Re: And why do you think they are? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And why do you think they are? (Score:5, Interesting)
The name is irrelevant
Not to Samsung phones! Which was kind of my point.
The combination of DRM key and code identifies to the OS the precise application and whether or not it's allowed to run
And anyone who has jailbroken a phone can easily re-sign an application bundle if they chose, renaming it or doing whatever else they like with it.
Or if you are compiling the benchmark yourself you just change what you like.
Apple need only boost applications according to a mathematical model
Yeah, you see that's called "compiler optimization" and applies to all applications, not just benchmarks.
Again, when you ship with a fast enough processor you don't need to waste time scanning for benchmarks.
Funny how iPhone battery falls 20-30% faster and the phone runs substantially hotter when running 'official' benchmark apps
Funny how I've never noticed that at all in my own testing. And in fact sometimes the system will get hot when playing commercial games.
Oh wait, it's not funny at all - you're an Apple-Hater AC so we know not to believe anything you post.
Apple betrayed by the only thing they can't control, the laws of physics.
That's funny because Apple seems to be the only smartphone maker paying attention to such laws, not building needlessly dense displays that suck power like a kid with a juice box.
1080P Phones (Score:5, Insightful)
That's funny because Apple seems to be the only smartphone maker paying attention to such laws, not building needlessly dense displays that suck power like a kid with a juice box.
I bought the Nexus 5 which comes with premium 5" 1080P screen and is half the price of the bottom end iPhone. There are phones that come with similar screens to the iPhone like the Moto G for instance which is a sixth of the price of the iPhone.
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The Nexus is an outlier, as comes with a near-zero profit margin for Google; that's not sustainable. The Moto G is much, much more interesting because Motorola's devices are still supposed to turn a profit.
Re:1080P Phones (Score:5, Insightful)
The Nexus is an outlier, as comes with a near-zero profit margin for Google; that's not sustainable. The Moto G is much, much more interesting because Motorola's devices are still supposed to turn a profit.
The Moto G sells for $179 unlocked with no contract. It might not be as powerful as the Nexus 5 but it is 95% of the way there for most people. Chinese devices with similar specs are in the $140-$170 range on Aliexpress. I don't see how Motorola is making much of a profit on the G either. I don't see it as being "much more interesting".
Android phones are based on a high volume, low profit model. Apple is working under a high profit model. Neither is wrong but if I want a phone that isn't overpriced, I'm not going to buy the Apple one.
Re: 1080P Phones (Score:4, Insightful)
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Damn, I wish I'd known about the Moto G (and how soon it was going to be available) before I bought the Nexus.
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This is like saying that consoles don't make money because they are sold at cost. Phones continue to make businesses a lot of money long after they have been bought. Ebooks, music, shows, netflix, games, and normal phone services are some great money makers. Anything on the play store makes money for Google.
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That's not a business model anyone else can fall back on, though. The whole appeal of Android is that it's not just The Originator pumping out phones to its own whims. (Saying this as an unrepentant iPhone owner looking for greener pastures.)
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I think the custom phone thing is hit or miss because of updating. It seems like a lot of carriers miss the old days where you released a phone and never touched it again. Android (base) is constantly improving and being refined. If the phone manufacturer or carrier of your phone doesn't push new updates to your phone you can feel left behind and unsupported. This makes people gravitate to the source of the updates : /
You are right though, phones should be profitable on their own. But the extra income
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The Nexus is an outlier, as comes with a near-zero profit margin for Google; that's not sustainable.
Of course it is, it's just that the profit is not made on the hardware. Why do you think Google spend so much money developing Android?
Re:1080P Phones (Score:5, Informative)
16GB iPhone 5C: $549
16GB Nexus 5: $349
Re: 1080P Phones (Score:2, Insightful)
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Well I get unlimited data for buying an unlocked phone. That works out to saving about $60 a month.
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T-Mobile USA effectively gives such a discount, because "unlocked" also means that the phone is "unsubsidized".
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I'm paying $30/month for 5GB of 4G data with T-Mobile* on a bring-your-own-device plan (whereas even just 4GB on a Verizon plan with a subsidized phone would cost $110/month)... so yes, that's a pretty damn big discount!
(*The plans are not entirely comparable since T-Mobile's does not include unlimited voice minutes -- but having to use VoIP is worth saving eighty bucks a month, don't you think?)
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Fandroid Reality Distortion field, meet reality: a retail 16 gig Nexus 5 has the exact same price as a 16 gig iPhone 5C.
I would be very interested to see the sources of this assertion.
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That's funny because Apple seems to be the only smartphone maker paying attention to such laws, not building needlessly dense displays that suck power like a kid with a juice box.
Hm. Who came up with the Retina display again? Honestly, you sound like an Apple astroturfer rather than someone holding an enlightened argument... no matter how valid your other points are.
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Name one.
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but the phone isn't a supercomputer for crying out loud.
Real good argument there for cheating on phone performance tests.
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That's what I'm talking about: the author is a right wing troll, and anyone who touts his book is a troll as well, or a fuckwit dumber than pond scum. You might as well cite a work by Baghdad Bob, [wikipedia.org] the level of credibility is the same.
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That's what I'm talking about: the author is a right wing troll, and anyone who touts his book is a troll as well, or a fuckwit dumber than pond scum. You might as well cite a work by Baghdad Bob, [wikipedia.org] the level of credibility is the same.
Your argument--"the author is an idiot, because I said so, please disregard everything he says"--is pretty timid. A more enlightened person might notice that you are the shitbag internet troll, while Jonah Goldberg is successful beyond your wildest dreams.
Anon forgot to read TIA: Samsung cheats (Score:4, Insightful)
Samsung cheats at benchmarks by changing the hardware behavior when it detects certain apps with specific names are running. Change the name, and the cheating stops.
That's the fundamental difference between Samsung and most of the rest of the Android devices. The name is the key to the cheat.
Funny how you're ignoring lots of detailed information about that. This has nothing to do with Apple, this has everything to do with Samsung/HTC/Android.
Great attempt to troll, though!
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How do you know how hard "xcode apps by lone developers" are hitting the hardware? Benchmarks are designed to push the device to its limit. Apps are designed to provided other purposes that may, at times, stress the device. It's too very different scenarios. I would fully expect a benchmark to cause the device to work to it's maximum and generate the strongest battery draw and the most heat.
The encryption is for security purposes. But of course you can come up with a conspiracy theory that they put it
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Because under iOS, all binaries are encrypted and cannot be changed without creating a non executable.
The name is irrelavant
The combination of DRM key and code identifies to the OS the precise application and whether or not it's allowed to run, not the mere executable's name. While samsung have been caught with their pants down by listing using executable/task names, Apple need only boost applications according to a mathematical model that surprise surprise only includes benchmark apps.
Oh boy...
- The name and the DRM key are linked. New name = new DRM key.
- As a developer, you can also assign multiple DRM keys to the same name.
And neither one changes the outcome of benchmarks. Even if you change the DRM key, nothing changes. And, in case you don't remember, developers don't have to go through the iOS store to run apps. Non-app store benchmark matches app store benchmark matches entirely unsigned un-DRMed benchmark on a jailbroken phone. Which implies no cheating.
And just in case that's no
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Funny how iPhone battery falls 20-30% faster and the phone runs substantially hotter when running 'official' benchmark apps, but xcode apps by lone developers that try to hit the hardware as hard don't have anywhere near the effect. Apple betrayed by the only thing they can't control, the laws of physics.
Can you source any of that? I would like to know more.
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Tell you what, AC. How about you take a traditional benchmarking, stress tool, such as Prime95 and compare it with just about any other application you can name... oh say Blender std renderer, for example.(which only uses CPU) Run a test render for a few minutes and watch your CPU temps... might get a bit toasty, but not too bad. Now run Prime95 and watch it peg your cooling system to max RPM in a few minutes. Why is that?
Highly optimized code (Prime95) keeps a much higher proportion of transisto
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The Jilted Lover (Score:3, Funny)
If you believe Apple aren't doing precisely the same thing
You sing the sad song of so many other jilted lovers, who did not believe they were being cheated on... Because you knew other partners were stable and trustworthy you thought yours was too. And now you are aware of the transgressions of your chosen one, you think everyone must be cheating because how else could it be that *you* were the one cheated upon?
Hint: when your partner said they wanted an open relationship it wasn't because they wanted to
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Apple doesn't need to cheat because the last phone that was slower than its predecessor was the iPhone 4. Ever since then, every successor has had a faster gpu while rendering the same number pixels and therefore outperforms on the benchmarks and battery life. Above 300 PPI, you are just wasting battery life and hurting performance to display pixels the human eye can't even resolve. I wish more android manufactures had the guts to follow Apple's engineering wisdom here.
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Above 300 PPI, you are just wasting battery life and hurting performance to display pixels the human eye can't even resolve. I wish more android manufactures had the guts to follow Apple's engineering wisdom here.
Yeah right, and then when they do the cries turn into, "But AMOLED's pentile display doesn't represent *true* resolution so Apple is so much better yadda yadda yadda." Which is incidentally exactly the complaints that were made a few years ago.
Some people are just never happy.
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You've got the same computational overhead drawing to a 1080p Pentile matrix as a 1080p RGB matrix, because the graphics hardware addresses whole pixels rather than subpixels. The only difference is that one's cheaper to make and looks worse.
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Yet it gets around the real limitations of OLED decay, hence the use of a pentile display to begin with. It's not price, it's longevity in the display thanks to allowing for a large blue pixel than red or green.
So since it looks worse they up the resolution, and now they get yet another complaint. One thing is certain, I won't ever consider buying anything other than OLED screens for mobile devices ever again, and I can't wait for the screen size to increase and become affordable.
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It's not about decay: you can change the subpixel sizes while retaining an RGB matrix, as the current Galaxy Note does.
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This suffers from the same problem as a pentile display. The complaints are that the edges of certain colours are fuzzy. When one pixel is disproportionately larger than the others you will end up with e.g. a blue line down the edge of your white square.
Never mind, there's an easy work around for that. Just raise the resolution.... oh wait.
Here's the RDF at work. (Score:5, Insightful)
When Apple brought out Retina Display, that was 100% FAN BLOODY TASTIC according to Apple fans. Absolutely the best thing EVAR, and PROOF Apple are "innovative" by making displays finer in resolution than any other smartphone.
Nokia didn't count, since they were ~12ppi lower resolution! SHUT UP!
But now resolution is higher than Retina Display, higher resolution and better pixel count is BAD. Which, yet again, PROVES Apple are BEST EVAR because they don't waste time trying to get uselessly higher resolutions!
7" tablets were too small when the iPad was only 10".
But when the iPad mini comes out at 7", it's the best size for many many tasks!
Phones were too big if they had a 4.3" screen. Until Apple brought out a bigger screen, then they had many uses!
And so on.
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To be fair, apple doesn't have a 7" tablet, it has a 7.9" tablet with a very different aspect ratio. It's a lot bigger than my nexus 7 and i actually like both sizes.
Re:And Apple are still listed why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Above 300 PPI, you are just wasting battery life and hurting performance to display pixels the human eye can't even resolve.
This is a myth often repeated by Apple fans, but Apple themselves offer you proof that it is not true. Find some screenshots taken from Retina displays and zoom in on the text. Notice how it is still anti-aliased? If the resolution was high enough to be impossible for the human eye to resolve there would be no need for anti-aliasing. I don't think you can turn it off in iOS but you can make an image on your computer with both and try viewing it on the phone.
The simple fact is that the human eye does not work the way you think it does. It is particularly good at picking out edges and uses spatial and temporal over-sampling to increase the effective resolution. It is an analogue sensor, not digital. I can see the different between a Retina display and a similarly sized 1080p display, even if you claim you can't. Then again I'm one of those super-human freaks who can see a difference between 1080 and 4k, despite needing to get another prescription in the next few months.
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Then again I'm one of those super-human freaks who can see a difference between 1080 and 4k
Yet somehow you ignore the fact that that statement is utterly meaningless without specifying the PPI and viewing distance (not to mention the type of display, ie pixel layout). If it's on a 3.5" screen then you almost certainly can't at any viewing distance, if you're 2 feet away from a 50" screen then just about anybody would be hard pressed not to be able to tell teh difference.
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Above 300 PPI, you are just wasting battery life and hurting performance to display pixels the human eye can't even resolve. I wish more android manufactures had the guts to follow Apple's engineering wisdom here.
Says who? When people tell you that 300 PPI is the most that the human eye can resolve at 12 inches do you just accept it or do you question whether it is based on scientific fact? Some quick research indicates that this oft quoted "fact" is actually incorrect. It's closer to 1000 PPI.
http://www.cultofmac.com/173702/why-retina-isnt-enough-feature/ [cultofmac.com]
http://wolfcrow.com/blog/notes-by-dr-optoglass-the-resolution-of-the-human-eye/ [wolfcrow.com]
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Only by interpolation.
The resolution of the eye is NOT constant. In fact, the highes
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Anyhow, ppi relates more to visual acuity which is a function of distance and density - and unless you're holding your phone to your nose, there aren't very many people complaining that a "retina" display has very noticeable pixels. Hell, the most common "retina" display one has is the humble HDTV - most people sit way too far back that 20/20 vision cannot resolve individual pixels, making even the low-dpi 1080p screen "retina" by definition. (Of course there are eagle eyes out there with 20/40+ vision who can benefit from being able to buy a cheaper smaller HDTV and still enjoy the high-resolution image).
Yes, the resolution of our eyes depends on distance. Most people hold their phones about 12 inches away from their faces, which is why Apple uses this measure. The rest of the comment is interesting, but has no bearing on how we look at phones nor does it invalidate any of the conclusions reached by the linked articles that around 1000 PPI is the physical limit of our eyes at, or around, 12 inches.
Re:And Apple are still listed why? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you believe Apple aren't doing precisely the same thing, then I have a shiny white featureless brick to sell you
That is only speculation. Prove me that Apple does cheating. For Samsung and HTC their cheating has been proven.
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That's a "no" then.
Re:And Apple are still listed why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then you'll have no problems naming many examples, then. No, showing benchmarks that show your product to be superior while...not publishing those that don't, does not count. When and where has Apple actively cheated.
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So your post is a non sequitur. Jobs was also a dick for screwing Woz out of royalties way back in the day - but that doesn't have anything to do with benchmarks.
Re: Actually, Apple is not cheating ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well I certainly wouldn't check back on this story or you'll be gone for five.
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Indeed.
The Apple fans are out in full force. They've been quiet since the TouchID fiasco. There isn't much sanity left here.
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Here you go [slashdot.org]
Browse at -1
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Nothing about a fiasco there. Just a lot of credulous Android fans that will believe anything.
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Posting an off topic comment in the top thread without reading TFA / TFS ?
You'll feel right at home :)
I also feel the need to point out that your last post was from 2011-01-09, so it's not been 3 years yet :)
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I'm here. Obviously everything is better with me around. Examples include: /.
1.
2. Sex
3. Candy
4. Magick
5. Magic
6. Your sexual organs
7. Your SO's sexual organs (and/or the person who you wish was your SO)
Re:3DMark cheats, so no wonder it is cheated (Score:4, Insightful)
Creators of 3DMark do not have a clue how to test modern multicore smartphones, but they do not care and release their product.
The real problem? People use this shitty benchmark and judge product basing on the meaningless score it produces.
Why should Samsung LOSE customers because 3DMark lied to them?
It's better to 'cheat' this crappy software into being at least a bit more FAIR in judging their products.
Sigh ... if a phone identifies that its running a benchmark application and changes its behaviour then the benchmark is of the maximum hardware performance rather than that available to a normal application. In doing so its not giving a real world measurement of the performance of the device.
By your argument all of the single threaded apps that run slowly on the S4 are at fault for slow performance because the programmer hasn't optimised their application for the S4 instead preferring to be compatible with all Android phones out there.
So, whilst the rigged S4 may be faster in raw power, its not what the end user is going to see. Which is cheating?
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OK, I take 8-cored Galaxy S4 and other dual-core phone, both 1.6GHz, then I get exactly same score in 3DMark.
Now, how stupid I was I paid like 3 times more for the galaxy S4!
I could get the cheaper phone that works exactly the same (at least 3DMark says so).
Well, it depends on how actual games behave. If they are programmed similarly and do not make use of the additional cores (which I guess might very well be the case, since devs usually do not spend much time on optimizing apps for hardware which is not widely in use yet), then yes - you COULD have just bought the cheapo phone and gotten the same performance in those games. Or the other phone which costs a bit more than the cheapo phone (but still less than the S4), which also has a dual-core CPU but a sligh
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Given the tests 3DMark runs, if they're unable to effectively run on "modern multicore smartphones" then no other app is able to either. Rather raises the question of why you'd bother buying one.
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3DMark does not understand what it it measuring, gives scores out of thin air, and blames companies for trying not to LOSE points.
Imagine this situation:
Samsung Galaxy S4 with 8 cores 1.6GHz each: to say it simply: it has algorithms to suppress usage of all of them for 'normal' applications to save battery.
Note that the 8 core version [wikipedia.org] has 4 cores at 1.6 GHz and another processor with 4 cores at 1.2 GHz. The quad core version has one processor at 1.9 GHz. The 8 core version only runs one of its CPU's at a time. When running a single-threaded benchmark it would be appropriate to only use one core. Other factors being the same, the one with the highest GHz should win that benchmark. If you use this one benchmark as the sole method to evaluate which phone is "better" then you don't really understand benchmar
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And a ShittyPhone with a dual-core 1.8GHz each and no optimisations for battery life whatsoever.
That is an incredibly ignorant statement. iOS has been since the beginning chock full of battery life optimizations, with many API's oriented to help developers get the best battery life possible from the system, including very advanced battery consumption measurement tools shipped with XCode...
He obviously wasn't talking about iOS, firstly because of the clear battery life optimizations that have always been in iOS and secondly the fact that no iPhone ever used a dual core 1.8GHz CPU so your only link between them is that ShittyPhone somehow equals iPhone, why would you make that link? Does he specifically have to call out that the second device is Android or Meego or Windows Phone or something just so you don't take offence to it by automatically assuming that because he is criticizing something
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"He had a different name for it; he mentioned it frequently."
Really? Sounds more like you misunderstanding what he meant.
"You just aren't up on reading comprehension for the stupidest of the Apple Haters."
Apple hater? Sounds more like your own reading comprehension skills could use a bit of attention.
Android vs Apple....Android Won (Score:2)
POS $89 Chinese tablets or something
Ironically for you the iPad is a POS $89 Chinese tablet with a massive mark-up. Although seriously Apples sales are not only destroyed by Android, they are flat(actually dropping) despite explsive market growth. Perhaps they should compete on price.
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well, that is until the octa from allwinner.
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Because it is so much better to buy a device based on the numbers that the developer pulled out of a black box.