HTC's 1st quad core phone, the Edge?

[poofyhairguy]

I'm just not seeing many scenarios where two extra cores help out.

Two words: Live Wallpaper

 

[Fire&Blood]

Tegra 3 should be able to dynamically turn on and off cores. It also has a 5th core for low power mode. Battery life should be pretty good with the chip despite it having 5 cores. Which is something HTC is not known, long battery life

Exactly. Under 2ms to switch between the low power core and general purpose cores. My phone draws ~5mAh, this will save a lot more, to compensate for battery draw under load.

Looking at roadmaps of all major phone and tablet players, quad core will replace dual core SoC's in the high end segment in 12 months though this 1st quad core won't be king of the hill for long. I don't think this phone is good value but from HTC's perspective, it's not a bad idea to jump on the quad core bandwagon and use Tegra3 to counter the upcoming SGS3. The S3 parts don't cut it anymore so as odd as HTC using Tegra may be, it's just filling the gap til Krait is ready. HTC may drop a Tegra tablet as well but I expect them to goback to Qualcomm once S4 parts are ready.

 

[WelshBloke]

Tegra 3 should be able to dynamically turn on and off cores. It also has a 5th core for low power mode. Battery life should be pretty good with the chip despite it having 5 cores. Which is something HTC is not known, long battery life

HTC phones have crap battery life because they do a crap ton of stuff in the background as standard and a lot of it is unessential network stuff.

I'm in the midst of refurbing a galaxy s2 so my old HTC desire has got an AOSP rom on it and very few apps. Basically its just doing email/text/and phone duty and its just run out of battery at just over 2 days.

 

[Mopetar]

Two words: Live Wallpaper

If it's that processor intensive, why would anyone want to run such an awful battery vampire?

 

[s44]

Tegra 3 should be able to dynamically turn on and off cores. It also has a 5th core for low power mode. Battery life should be pretty good with the chip despite it having 5 cores. Which is something HTC is not known, long battery life

They'll probably use this as an excuse to reduce battery size to 1000mah...

 

[WelshBloke]

If it's that processor intensive, why would anyone want to run such an awful battery vampire?

They generally aren't and they dont unduly hit your battery even with a fairly weak phone.

Waits for someone to find some stupidly CPU intensive live wallpaper

 

[Mopetar]

They generally aren't and they dont unduly hit your battery even with a fairly weak phone.

Then I suppose we should ask Poofy why this is a use case for two additional cores.

 

[Bateluer]

They generally aren't and they dont unduly hit your battery even with a fairly weak phone.

Waits for someone to find some stupidly CPU intensive live wallpaper

Live Wallpapers are all over the map. I've been using a Koi Fish LWP on my Tbolt for a while now without any noticeable hit to battery life or phone performance. But, I've also used some that would suck more RAM than the next 5 apps on the phone combined.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Then I suppose we should ask Poofy why this is a use case for two additional cores.

I was mostly joking (sometimes it would be nice to have a throw-away core to run some of the prettier and more CPU intensive Live Wallpapers though).

Nvidia is going quad-core because it sounds nice. It is a way to shake up the ARM SoC game, and I like it.

 

[Fire&Blood]

Nvidia is going quad-core because it sounds nice.

It's a great marketing bullet point. Mainstream consumers are already familiar with the term "quad core CPU" from laptop/desktop purchases and "1st quad core tablet/phone" makes for easy advertising.

It is a way to shake up the ARM SoC game, and I like it.

Same here. I am not really interested in Tegra3 devices, rather in the impact on market and "shaking up the ARM SoC game" as you put it. Nvidia is about to squeeze the last drop out of the A9 Cortex core (if they don't, OMAP4470 surely will) so others will have to reach for A15 parts.

 

[Bateluer]

I was mostly joking (sometimes it would be nice to have a throw-away core to run some of the prettier and more CPU intensive Live Wallpapers though).

Nvidia is going quad-core because it sounds nice. It is a way to shake up the ARM SoC game, and I like it.

Not like you're going to get a performance benefit in games, HD video, or anything like that.

Quads and their GPUs will allow devs to do much more than they currently can. But, like on the PC, software will lag the hardware. Dev's aren't going to make software that only runs on a single tablet. Once all the players are pushing quad core devices, in 2Q12, then we'll be seeing software start catching up.

Nvidia always pushes the envelope and they aren't about to let TI, Qualcomm, and Samsung push them out of the SoC game. Too much money involved.

 

[Fire&Blood]

Slashgear posted some new details about the phone:
-8.8mm thin
-1800mAh battery
-S-LCD 2 display with optical lamination
-NFC
-micro-SIM card
-no SD slot
-21Mbps HSDPA
-HTC Sense 4.0
-2.3 or 4.0 at launch still to be determined

http://www.slashgear.com/htc-edge-leaks-continue-nfc-iphone-rivaling-hd-display-08193941/

 

[kyrax12]

Screen is too big for most, including me. 4"-4.3" is the ideal size for a "big" smartphone. This is an HTC phone, so I'm expecting the battery life to suck because of (Non)Sense.

agreed.

I even think 4.5 is too much. 4.3 is my ideal.

 

[MrX8503]

I don't get it, why does HTC keep spitting up design after design. They had a sexy design with the HD1, they should just re-release that but with some refinements. All their new phones are meh.

 

[Fire&Blood]

I don't get it, why does HTC keep spitting up design after design. They had a sexy design with the HD1, they should just re-release that but with some refinements. All their new phones are meh.

Put that in your signature so you don't have to troll threads about phones you don't have the slightest intention of even considering.

 

[kyrax12]

Anyone noticing the 1 gig of ram that is in the phone?

I think that would be the bottleneck for the most part.

 

[Fire&Blood]

1GB should be sufficient, 512MB phones run Gingerbread just fine. Some of the phones confirmed to receive ICS have 768MB RAM.
Galaxy Nexus has 1GB RAM as well.

 

[MrX8503]

Put that in your signature so you don't have to troll threads about phones you don't have the slightest intention of even considering.

Taking things a bit personal there buddy? I like the HD1 design and I don't like the current HTC phone designs. I originally owned the EVO 4G, which closely resembles the HD1.

 

[Blueychan]

Why would anyone needs a quad core on a mobile device. Overkill.

 

[MrX8503]

I'd like a quad core even if the software isn't there yet. Advance hardware facilitates advance software.

 

[Fire&Blood]

Taking things a bit personal there buddy? I like the HD1 design and I don't like the current HTC phone designs. I originally owned the EVO 4G, which closely resembles the HD1.

Who cares about what you owned, your personal device history is completely irrelevant.

Why would anyone needs a quad core on a mobile device. Overkill.

Same was said about dual core phones. Like it or not, take a look at roadmaps. Qualcomm's S4(late 2012 models), TI's OMAP5, Apple's A6 and Samsung's Exynos 5250, all quad core SoC's.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Why would anyone needs a quad core on a mobile device. Overkill.

I can't wait for a quadcore tablet. Tegra 2 just wasn't enough for tablet resolution.

 

[kyrax12]

What are people going to use quad cores for?

Like most of what everyone has said, it is overkill.

 

[MrX8503]

Who cares about what you owned, your personal device history is completely irrelevant.

Looks like you have a bigger problem with it more than I do. Enjoy your device instead of getting all bent outta shape, I know I enjoy the devices I own.

What are people going to use quad cores for?
Like most of what everyone has said, it is overkill.

Which came first? The chicken or the egg? You can't advance tech if you don't advance.

 

[Red Storm]

Every HTC phone looks similar to me (with an obvious exception or two).