iPhone 5 performance

[Eug]

They CAN tell, they just don't care to when upgrading. However, you show an iPhone 4 user an iPhone 3G they used 3 years ago and they'll think it's slow as molasses. Same with a 4S user and the 3GS.

I'm not sure what you mean. There are a fair amount of people out there who aren't über geeks like us who want to upgrade their iPhone 4 to the 5, partially because of speed. I've heard it from a few people now.

I haven't heard the same from the 4S owners, although a few want to upgrade anyway, more for screen size, etc. though.

 

[ITHURTSWHENIP]

And this is where Apple is leading and why I think Apple will ultimately win. Games are huge market and it's like Windows vs Mac battle except in reverse.

Microsoft has recently started up a few game developer studios just for mobile gaming. Add in all the XBLA developers who can now cater to a bigger market and i think you will see a much tougher battle here than what Google has brought to the table

 

[jpeyton]

And this is where Apple is leading and why I think Apple will ultimately win. Games are huge market and it's like Windows vs Mac battle except in reverse.

Except it's not in reverse. Developers will be coding cross-platform or Android.

Android worldwide market share is at 68% and growing. Do you think developers like Rovio would be happy coding for iOS exclusively and cutting out almost 70% of the worldwide smartphone install base?

 

[ControlD]

Just about anyone can tell the difference in speed between an iPhone 3GS and 4S. Even the 4 vs. 4S is pretty easy to tell.

I don't know. I guess it depends on what you are doing with the phone. I have a couple of friends that opted for the $99 iPhone 4 when the 4S came out. I have used their phones on numerous occasions and for normal phone activities (texting, dialing, browsing, words with friends, etc.) the two phones are pretty much indistinguishable. Now if we were comparing Infinity Blade or something really heavy I'm sure the difference would be readily apparent. But, I have also found that most people (not counting geeks like us that post in tech forums) use their phones as phones and not small computers.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

I agree and honestly the only people that are going to care that much about processor and GPU specs are tech oriented people. Most of my friends with iPhones can't even tell me what version of phone they have. The 4 and 4S are the same thing to them. If I start talking about retina graphics and dual core processors their eyes start to glaze over and I can tell they don't know and don't care what that means. As soon as something on the phone doesn't work correctly however (maps for example) then those same people will quickly take notice and start wondering what the hell is going on.

I get the same impression too, though it seems a bit bizarre to me. Even just using it casually, I can tell there are differences in speed between a 4 and a 4S, and straight off the bat I can tell the 4 is slower than my GS3 (I'd probably have to spend more time to tell if there's a noticeable difference between 4S and GS3 though).

 

[buckshot24]

Yeah, my wife's iP5 is fast, very fast. I can tell a difference between it and my GSIII, it's noticeably quicker at pretty much everything. So far, it seems like a very nice phone.

I'm sure the 5 is super quick but there just isn't as much going on in the background with iOS so that should be expected. Also, did you load up the iphone with apps and compared? and, is your GSIII on stock?

 

[shortylickens]

I'm sure the 5 is super quick but there just isn't as much going on in the background with iOS so that should be expected. Also, did you load up the iphone with apps and compared? and, is your GSIII on stock?

Most androids these days come with tons of bloatware that cant be uninstalled unless you root.

Yes, you can make android faster by putting an efficient ROM in, but realistically how many users are gonna do that?
Gramma?
No way man.

 

[dagamer34]

I'm not sure what you mean. There are a fair amount of people out there who aren't über geeks like us who want to upgrade their iPhone 4 to the 5, partially because of speed. I've heard it from a few people now.

I haven't heard the same from the 4S owners, although a few want to upgrade anyway, more for screen size, etc. though.

It's a lot easier to notice something is slower than faster, especially since the iPhone 3G and 3GS used a lot of visual tricks to hide the less than powerful GPU.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Except it's not in reverse. Developers will be coding cross-platform or Android.

Android worldwide market share is at 68% and growing. Do you think developers like Rovio would be happy coding for iOS exclusively and cutting out almost 70% of the worldwide smartphone install base?

Rovio doesn't represent developers who are pushing graphically intensive games, though.

Try Gameloft, or EA... they also make ports for Android, but not all of their games are available on Android... and not all devices have access to those games. The main reason, I think, is because some of their games are not doable on Android due to the way the OS is structured.

I also think there is a legitimate reason why most awesome Unreal Engine games are still exclusive on iOS... despite the fact that most modern Android phones should be able to handle them.

And that's to say nothing about the state of Android tablets.

 

[Eug]

I don't understand why Android makers feel the need to install bloatware. It's just as annoying on phones as it is on computers. On computers I spend a good hour uninstalling that crap, but at least it can be done. On custom skinned Android phones, it's much harder to do, and you risk your warranty.

I don't know. I guess it depends on what you are doing with the phone. I have a couple of friends that opted for the $99 iPhone 4 when the 4S came out. I have used their phones on numerous occasions and for normal phone activities (texting, dialing, browsing, words with friends, etc.) the two phones are pretty much indistinguishable. Now if we were comparing Infinity Blade or something really heavy I'm sure the difference would be readily apparent. But, I have also found that most people (not counting geeks like us that post in tech forums) use their phones as phones and not small computers.

Just browsing around the OS, there was a noticeable slowdown in the iPhone 4 going from iOS 4 to iOS 5. Going from iOS 5 to iOS 6 it's less noticeable, but I think there is a slight slowdown again, although browsing in some situations may be a tad quicker.

 

[runawayprisoner]

From iOS 4 to iOS 5, the extra slow down on the iPhone 4 is due to the notification center taking up another good chunk of what little RAM the device had left...

On the iPhone 4S, there isn't that performance impact even though RAM capacity remained the same. The reason is because iPhone 4S has faster RAM bandwidth, and an extra CPU core, so the extra CPU core can be used to "clean" RAM faster than with the iPhone 4 and its single-core implementation... on limited RAM bandwidth.

But with 1GB of RAM and dual super fast CPU cores, I don't think the iPhone 5 will run into any slow down problem for a while to come.

 

[buckshot24]

Most androids these days come with tons of bloatware that cant be uninstalled unless you root.

Yes, you can make android faster by putting an efficient ROM in, but realistically how many users are gonna do that?
Gramma?
No way man.

Yeah, but do you think Granny is gonna be able to tell the difference anyway? So what Gramma does or does not do is irrelevant.

 

[Yuriman]

From iOS 4 to iOS 5, the extra slow down on the iPhone 4 is due to the notification center taking up another good chunk of what little RAM the device had left...

On the iPhone 4S, there isn't that performance impact even though RAM capacity remained the same. The reason is because iPhone 4S has faster RAM bandwidth, and an extra CPU core, so the extra CPU core can be used to "clean" RAM faster than with the iPhone 4 and its single-core implementation... on limited RAM bandwidth.

But with 1GB of RAM and dual super fast CPU cores, I don't think the iPhone 5 will run into any slow down problem for a while to come.

This makes next to no sense to me. Either RAM is used or it isn't, and it takes no time or processing power to clear it.

 

[Mopetar]

Most androids these days come with tons of bloatware that cant be uninstalled unless you root.

And this is why a lot of people on this form tend to buy the Nexus line of phones. Generally they also come with some of the nicest hardware when they launch, so outside of availability, I'm not really sure why anyone bothers with anything else.

 

[Yuriman]

And this is why a lot of people on this form tend to buy the Nexus line of phones. Generally they also come with some of the nicest hardware when they launch, so outside of availability, I'm not really sure why anyone bothers with anything else.

I'd say that if you aren't going to install a custom ROM, a Nexus is the only way to go. Right now the Nexus is getting somewhat close to the end of its product lifetime and the GS3 offers a large hardware advantage, but the Nexus is still unquestionably more smooth unless you flash a ROM on the GS3.

 

[runawayprisoner]

This makes next to no sense to me. Either RAM is used or it isn't, and it takes no time or processing power to clear it.

It DOES take time and processing power to clear RAM. It's not like RAM can clear itself automagically.

If you believe otherwise, please contact Google directly and tell them that the Garbage Collector in Android should not slow your device down.

 

[mosco]

It DOES take time and processing power to clear RAM. It's not like RAM can clear itself automagically.

If you believe otherwise, please contact Google directly and tell them that the Garbage Collector in Android should not slow your device down.

The iPhone doesn't have garbage collection so I am not sure what you are talking about above regarding "cleaning" ram.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

The A6 is an impressive CPU, but not much more than the 6 month old Snapdragon S4. And the GPU, an SGX543MP3, is powerful, but clearly in last generations hardware. The real battleground is going to be in Q4/Q1-2013 when S4Pro/320 devices are more common, OMAP5/Rogue, Exynos5/Mali6xx, and possible Tegra 4 show up in the market.

Good times.

These are 800mhz A6 CPUs versus 1.5 ghz S4s. What does that tell you?

 

[dguy6789]

These are 1.2Ghz A6 CPUs versus 1.5 ghz S4s. What does that tell you?

fixed

 

[Mopetar]

These are 800mhz A6 CPUs versus 1.5 ghz S4s. What does that tell you?

I believe that they clock up to 1.2 GHz under load so it's a little disingenuous to say that it's 800 MHz vs. 1.5 GHz. Still fairly impressive results though.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

These are 800mhz A6 CPUs versus 1.5 ghz S4s. What does that tell you?

Implying that Apple could clock them much higher later on doesn't work, because it's Apple, and that's the only version of the hardware that's going to be out for the next few months at the very least. With hardware on the Android side, saying it's low-clocked is useful because there's the possibility that next month someone else is going to release a phone with a higher-clocked version. With Apple's hardware, this possibility doesn't exist. If you want better hardware in an Apple phone, you'll have to wait most likely for a year.

 

[lothar]

These are 1.2ghz A6 CPUs versus 1.5ghz S4s. What does that tell you?

Absolutely nothing.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Sorry. 1.2ghz vs 1.5ghz. If the 1.2ghz is already winning, then it's at a minimum 25% faster clock for clock.

I've heard #s about an A15 being anywhere from 10%-40% faster than an S4. An A6 being 25% faster than an S4 to me is pretty impressive. For Bateluer to go on his typical bias about the A6 being nothing really meaningful is pretty pathetic IMO.

 

[Aikouka]

The iPhone doesn't have garbage collection so I am not sure what you are talking about above regarding "cleaning" ram.

When an app is closed, but has multi-tasking capability, it will leave portions of itself in RAM to facilitate a faster opening. Also, within an app (such as a browser), there may be a need to clear existing data to make way for more for the current page.

 

[shortylickens]

Yeah, but do you think Granny is gonna be able to tell the difference anyway? So what Gramma does or does not do is irrelevant.

WRONG! Wrong gramma does is very relevant.

Old people are buying more smartphones than ever before, cuz they get easier with each generation. Most of them are flocking to the iphone since its the simplest to use right out of the box. All the junk on average Android phones bogs it down and gives them features they dont care about anyway. And the person setting up their phone for them doesnt wanna have to keep working on it and customizing it and fixing their problems.