DroidLife Benchmarks: LG Nexus 4 vs. HTC DROID DNA

[Apex]

http://www.droid-life.com/2012/11/15/benchmarks-lg-nexus-4-vs-htc-droid-dna/

The LG Nexus 4 and the HTC DROID DNA are arguably the hottest two phones on the planet, right now. Our coverage of each has certainly been in overdrive, and rightfully so. With quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processors, tons of RAM, and big beautiful screens, these phones are fun to talk about. Beyond being fun to talk about, they are a pleasure to use throughout a day.

And speaking of using – performance on both is about as good as it gets. The 2GB of RAM in each coupled with the latest and greatest processor from Qualcomm leaves little doubt that these are the most powerful phones on the planet. You won’t find stuttering or slow loading times at all with either phone. But how do they stack up against each other? Well, that’s a tricky question because both seem to have few flaws when it comes to performance.

Interesting, I thought the DNA wouldn't do as well with the higher resolution screen.

 

[dguy6789]

I'm becoming more and more underwhelmed by the Nexus 4. Poor battery life and the processor is heavily crippled for some reason. Looks like it isn't the $650 phone for $350 that everyone thought it was; it's more like the $350 phone for $350.

 

[Phobic9]

I'm becoming more and more underwhelmed by the Nexus 4. Poor battery life and the processor is heavily crippled for some reason. Looks like it isn't the $650 phone for $350 that everyone thought it was; it's more like the $350 phone for $350.

Yeah I may have preemptively left Verizon for the N4 and now I'm looking for a phone to replace my Galaxy Nexus with. This Lumia 920 I got isn't cutting it.

 

[gus6464]

Damn the DNA is hitting custom rom Note II scores.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Huh, I guess it's LG that's problem and not the S4Pro?

 

[Dari]

Impressive.

 

[Fire&Blood]

Kernel sorcery. What's the battery life on that thing?

 

[zerocool84]

Huh, I guess it's LG that's problem and not the S4Pro?

The phone the Nexus 4 is based on got higher scores than it.

 

[stormkroe]

Man, I wish that thing wasn't performing so good. It makes my choice of Note 2 over the DNA less sweet, though I haven't made my purchase yet. If there was a Note 2 with s4 Pro in it, I'd buy it before I finished typing this.

 

[magomago]

I'm becoming more and more underwhelmed by the Nexus 4. Poor battery life and the processor is heavily crippled for some reason. Looks like it isn't the $650 phone for $350 that everyone thought it was; it's more like the $350 phone for $350.

LOLOLOL, are you trying to complain the phone is worth what it costs? While I disagree with you entirely (it has features and performs along the lines of much more expensive phones!), I think its a funny claim to make.

Phone benchmarks are mainly about EPEEN. Every single review of the Nexus4 was clear that Android ran buttery smooth on it. They stated that their apps were fluid, and that the only issues we've seen is coming from Anandtech with claims of over heating, where lots of these "tests" were done with pre-release versions of SW, which will no doubt have bugs at launch, just like the Galaxy Nexus had some massive bugs as well.


The Nexus 4, by the benchmark listed above, does extremely well. What is the complaint again for a 350 dollar phone with some of the latest features??? Is isn't over 9000?!?!

By the way where are you claims of crippled battery life? Many reviews, including the verge and androidfactory, show that the phone has great battery life.

 

[Capt Caveman]

LOLOLOL, are you trying to complain the phone is worth what it costs? While I disagree with you entirely (it has features and performs along the lines of much more expensive phones!), I think its a funny claim to make.

Phone benchmarks are mainly about EPEEN. Every single review of the Nexus4 was clear that Android ran buttery smooth on it. They stated that their apps were fluid, and that the only issues we've seen is coming from Anandtech with claims of over heating, where lots of these "tests" were done with pre-release versions of SW, which will no doubt have bugs at launch, just like the Galaxy Nexus had some massive bugs as well.


The Nexus 4, by the benchmark listed above, does extremely well. What is the complaint again for a 350 dollar phone with some of the latest features??? Is isn't over 9000?!?!

By the way where are you claims of crippled battery life? Many reviews, including the verge and androidfactory, show that the phone has great battery life.

Sorry but I don't see why a small incremental update would have so many bugs.

 

[magomago]

Sorry but I don't see why a small incremental update would have so many bugs.

I'm a hw or sw developer for phones, but the phone performs admirably well for its cost.

 

[stormkroe]

LOLOLOL, are you trying to complain the phone is worth what it costs? While I disagree with you entirely (it has features and performs along the lines of much more expensive phones!), I think its a funny claim to make.

He's just saying that it's disappointing that his original hopes of top-tier performance (battery-life, benchmarks, etc) for $350 are seem less and less likely, not that it's bad that a $350 phone performs like a $350 phone.
However, I'd argue that's not the case because I can't find a $350 phone that even comes close to this thing.

 

[magomago]

He's just saying that it's disappointing that his original hopes of top-tier performance (battery-life, benchmarks, etc) for $350 are seem less and less likely, not that it's bad that a $350 phone performs like a $350 phone.
However, I'd argue that's not the case because I can't find a $350 phone that even comes close to this thing.

Ding Ding. I just hope I can order this thing by the end of November. It doesn't seem like it considering people are getting backorders quotes of 3 weeks

 

[Skurge]

It looks to me like Google don't optimise for individual devices. Look at the Note 2 for example. It absoulutely destroys almost everything around it except these S4pro phones. and it's using quad core A9. All that performance is Samsung optimising for Exynos 4. When we see a non nexus A15 tablet I can guarentee you it will destroy the Nexus 10 and anything else for that matter. The iPad 4 might have an edge GPU wise though. Same with the Optimus G and now the HTC DNA.

 

[exdeath]

Have a HTC Droid DNA pre-ordered and keeping my unlimited plan w00t.

 

[Dari]

It looks to me like Google don't optimise for individual devices. Look at the Note 2 for example. It absoulutely destroys almost everything around it except these S4pro phones. and it's using quad core A9. All that performance is Samsung optimising for Exynos 4. When we see a non nexus A15 tablet I can guarentee you it will destroy the Nexus 10 and anything else for that matter. The iPad 4 might have an edge GPU wise though. Same with the Optimus G and now the HTC DNA.

It's not optimized because it's running VANILLA Android. If you optimize it for that particular model, then the OEMs will have to take out the optimization codes in Android when creating their own phones...

 

[stormkroe]

It looks to me like Google don't optimise for individual devices. Look at the Note 2 for example. It absoulutely destroys almost everything around it except these S4pro phones. and it's using quad core A9. All that performance is Samsung optimising for Exynos 4. When we see a non nexus A15 tablet I can guarentee you it will destroy the Nexus 10 and anything else for that matter. The iPad 4 might have an edge GPU wise though. Same with the Optimus G and now the HTC DNA.

Yeah, but quad core A9 is as fast as it gets outside S4pro so that doesn't really point toward optimizations. The Gnex performed competitively with other phones sharing it's SoC, and the Nexus 4's performance disparity vs. LG turned out to be a heat issue.

I don't think the reality of a Nexus4 will upset anyone who buys one, barring defections.

 

[vshah]

i'm 100% confident that the N4 will have a large dev community that will extract more performance out of it.

infact, my conspiracy theory is that qualcom has higher performing binaries that they are not yet willing to let google include in AOSP, and this is the reason for the delay of N4's support in AOSP while google/qualcomm work it out. LG/HTC have access to these binaries for the optimus g and droid dna.