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How does the Note II hardware stack up today?

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DaveStall said:
I'm not quite sure I follow. There is always a reason to upgrade, but rarely a need to do so.
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Just semantics =P It was supposed to be implied that there's no need.

Honestly, as much as I like my GS4, the only reason I got it was because a mishap destroyed my One X =(



One thing about the Note2 is that it has better battery life than either the One or the GS4. I had hoped the GS4 would have Note2 levels of battery life but alas.
 
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bigystyle84 said:
Its still high end for today's specs

It will probably slow down in future faster than the S4 Pro/ 320 or S600 chipsets though - The Mali GPU is quite a bit weaker and the chipset is aging.

For next couple years though, it will be great.
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I disagree that Mali GPU is weaker, at least as far as GUI performance is concerned.

It posts ~800Mpixel fillrate stock, and 1.2-1.3Gpixel fillrate @ 800mhz (and everyone can pretty much reach at least 733). This puts Mali ~ @ the same fillrate as Adreno 320, but only needs to fill a 1280*720 screen. Overclocked Mali has a significantly higher fillrate.

Its pixel shader performance seems similar to Adreno 320, although geometry performance is ~ 1/5. GUI performance is not be limited by triangle throughput however.

This suggests that for GUI, Mali holds its own against Adreno. To wit, I receive ~ 2450 Vellamo 2 HTML5 (730-750 Metal), running Carbon Rom 1.7 @ 1920mhz CPU/533mhz GPU. Benchmarks aren't the final say, but may be indicative.
 
I'd vote for going with the Note2. I have one myself and absolutely love it, and almost everyone I talk to who tries it loves it too. Very snappy (I have mine on power saver 24x7 just because I don't need the extra performance, and its still awesome), and the battery life is excellent (whether on power saver or not).
 
I wouldn't take fill-rate micro-benchmarks as a measure of anything useful.

The Adreno 320 loses micro-benchmarks to pretty much all comers but consistently posts either competitive or winning scores in actual 3D scenes (i.e., gaming tests).


For example, In GLBenchmark's Fill rate (1080p offscreen) test, the Note2 matches the GS4! But in the T-Rex HD (1080p offscreen) test, the GS4 gets more than 3 times the FPS! Not only that, the GS4 is more than twice as fast at 1080p compared to the Note2 at 720p!
 
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poofyhairguy said:
Because Cortex A9 is 2011 tech. Current A15 designs blow A9 designs out of the water. Add in that older Mali GPU (compared to say a Galaxy S4's GPU) and everything is out of date but the RAM.
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Interestingly enough the A9 in the 4412 hardware performs much better that competing A9 solutions. Stream performance is much higher (Geekbench shows ~800 stream), as is bandwidth (~1700 in Geekbench).

In fact, at 1800mhz-1920mhz, integer is ~25% faster than HTC One's, stream is ~50% faster than HTC One, bandwidth performance is ~40% slower, FP performance ~ 10% slower. Only one benchmark, but not a bad comparison.

Sunspider @ 1920mhz is ~800ms. ~ 870 @ 1800mhz. Note 2 is definitely competitive.
 
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ChronoReverse said:
I wouldn't take fill-rate micro-benchmarks as a measure of anything useful.

The Adreno 320 loses micro-benchmarks to pretty much all comers but consistently posts either competitive or winning scores in actual 3D scenes (i.e., gaming tests).


For example, In GLBenchmark's Fill rate (1080p offscreen) test, the Note2 matches the GS4! But in the T-Rex HD (1080p offscreen) test, the GS4 gets more than 3 times the FPS! Not only that, the GS4 is more than twice as fast at 1080p compared to the Note2 at 720p!
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3D != 2D / GUI workloads. Also, the latest 3D benchmarks are significantly geometry limited.

I can find cases where Mali is within shooting distance of Adreno 320 in 3D Benchmarks as well, after scaling for resolution, but since I don't play games I was focusing on GUI performance.
 
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Oh come on, 2D performance for anything since 2011 isn't anywhere close to limited by the GPU performance. Any time Android dips below 60FPS in the UI, it's because of the framework limitations. Tegra3, with all its limitations, has half the fill-rate of Mali and still runs the UI smoothly.

And in 3D games, I just demonstrated how the Adreno 320 is faster at 1080p than Mali at 720p. Mali has been pretty bad compared to PowerVR and Adreno.
 
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ChronoReverse said:
Oh come on, 2D performance for anything since 2011 isn't anywhere close to limited by the GPU performance. Any time Android dips below 60FPS in the UI, it's because of the framework limitations.

And in 3D games, I just demonstrated how the Adreno 320 is faster at 1080p than Mali at 720p. Mali has been pretty bad compared to PowerVR and Adreno.
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Agreed that in geometry heavy workloads Mali suffers. This is relatively well established. However, it seems that it is still competitive in current titles, although future titles will likely perform poorly compared to Adreno 320.

For example, Epic Citadel, which is probably a good measure for current gen games, runs ~vsync on Mali 400 (56.4fps @ 1800mhz/533mhz GPU on Android 4.2.2, latest Mali drivers).
 
Get the Note 2 if you enjoyed using one. Forget all the latest-greatest syndrome stuff, this is an awesome phone. I replaced my SGS3 with one and am so glad I did.

I'm not a gamer, but I have a few 3D games and they run perfectly on the N2. I guess if I were to obsess and run benchmarks against more powerful hardware I might cry myself to sleep over the loss of 2fps or something... but back in reality I don't see any problem with the N2's performance on any level.

I would assume part of the point of buying third-party is that you're not stuck with the phone for two years if you don't want to be. The Note 2's will likely hold their values as well as any other phone- so if something better comes along you gotta have then just sell the N2 and get the newer.
 
pakotlar said:
For example, Epic Citadel, which is probably a good measure for current gen games, runs ~vsync on Mali 400 (56.4fps @ 1800mhz/533mhz GPU on Android 4.2.2, latest Mali drivers).
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Epic Citadel runs at native resolution no? Adreno 320 and PowerVR SGX544MP3 both practically run it nailed to vsync 60FPS at 1080p.


It's not that the Note2 is slow anyway (and it's a great phone). The new stuff is just faster.
 
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ChronoReverse said:
Epic Citadel runs at native resolution no? Adreno 320 and PowerVR SGX544MP3 both practically run it nailed to vsync 60FPS at 1080p.


It's not that the Note2 is slow anyway (and it's a great phone). The new stuff is just faster.
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Yes you're right, but since games will generally run at native resolution, that's a valid comparison. In any case, Adreno is definitely faster than Mali, even at native resolutions. Anywhere between 50-100% in geometry heavy workloads probably.

I was just trying to make a case that there are certain workloads (namely GUI, browsing, video, 2D) that Mali will perform equally with Adreno 320, due to its very competitive fillrate, pixel shaders.
 
I'm just making the case that in those 2D workloads, it's all capped at 60FPS anyway =P

Tegra3 with half the fillrate of Mali still gets 60FPS in the UI after all 😉
 
Note II still has one of the best battery lifes of any phone out there, the rare SD card expansion, NFC, 2GB RAM and a competitive processor. It also has a very nice (albeit not spec heavy) screen. The camera is still very good and it's a mature, stable device.

Android phones are always going to have "something better" 6 months out. How much better is really up to you. I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it. For me phones are more RAM crippled and even the newest ones coming out are still shipping 2GB. It's still got a lot of life left in it.

Verizon won't likely get the Note III until December if their release history has been any indicator. Do you want to wait another 7 months for a phone?
 
As a gamer, there is not a single game that cannot run smooth as butter on the Note 2.
Unlimited 4g lte on the Note 2 is awesome. Streaming Netflix in HD on the go is beautiful.
Seriously. I am a total tech geek & the Note 2 has satisfied every itch. Plus, the battery life is just astronomical. Add in the s-pen & you have a device that can do things no other can.
The Note 2 in everyday use, be it gaming, watching hd content, web browsing, you name it, goes toe to toe with the S4 & One. I dare anyone to prove otherwise.

Just as I always say with computers- synthetic benchmarks are bs, don't mean a damn thing. As long as I cannot see a problem, one does not exist
 
I went from a Iphone 4 to a Note 2 about a month ago. Best move I have made in a long time. The screen and battery life are far superior. The apps have "almost caught up" with Apple apps. In some apps I actually like the android version. Best thing is that I don't feel a need to root the phone and put another rom on there. Touchwiz is great out of the box.

Do yourself a favor get the note 2. There is a reason why they cost so much on CL.
 
Thanks for the input everyone. I think I will probably make the switch once I come to terms with changing ecosystems.
 
There are large phones but none are like the Note as a whole. The Note2 is a great phone anyway and there will be little that will target only the super high end in the next year at least anyway so you'll be fine with the Note2.
 
poofyhairguy said:
Exactly why its important to buy the newest hardware you can afford.
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Sorry that you feel the need to constantly be bleeding edge. He can continue putting up with the small screen and studdering on his current phone over the next 6 or 7 months waiting or upgrade now to a phone that is still better than 99% of all hardware out there and put up with who knows what (if any) issues at some point much later down the road.
 
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poofyhairguy said:
Exactly why its important to buy the newest hardware you can afford.
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I disagree, the fact that there are new phones every 6 months means that you can get away with buying an older phone. Software doesn't change that quickly in that you always need the newest phone. Without apps programmed to take advantage of the extra power then the extra power isn't much of a benefit.

With saying that, if you want a faster phone then go ahead and get it, but picking up a great phone from last year is still a good choice.
 
DaveStall said:
I can't disagree with that. In this case however there isn't really anything out that directly competes with the Note is there?
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The Optimus G Pro is the only thing that comes to mind, but it lacks a pen if you need that and it might be a slight wait for a CDMA version.
 
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vi edit said:
Sorry that you feel the need to constantly be bleeding edge. He can continue putting up with the small screen and studdering on his current phone over the next 6 or 7 months waiting or upgrade now to a phone that is still better than 99% of all hardware out there and put up with who knows what (if any) issues at some point much later down the road.
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No reason he has to wait. Other completely modern smartphones exist on the market. The S4, The HTC One, the Optimus G Pro all are at the start of their "six month cycle." The S4 just hit Verizon for the same price as the Note 2.

And if he wants a Note 2 that is fine as well. It is still a better phone than most out there. I just personally believe you should get max value for a tech purchase, but I know I am a nutcase about that sometimes. Like when I lost my shit last week when a family member wanted to buy an iPhone 5 this late in its cycle.
 
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