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Nokia: Multi-core phones hurt customers, are seldom useful

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Multi-core CPUs will run efficient multi-threaded code (or multiple programs on desktops) faster and more efficiently. The problem is that on a smartphone, how often does that really happen? Besides games, when do apps really need to use multiple threads to perform well? The only tasks that come to mind is video editing, photo editing, and heavy number crunching.

And we should remind ourselves of the very simple fact that a multi-core CPU pegged at 100% will always use more power than a single core at 100%, though the task will take less time. But few apps ever exemplify this point (no one is rendering feature films on their phone).
 
Let me guess... the same is true for 256MB RAM? Or who needs a fast graphics core? Hell - since you're mostly calling people, what's the point in a touch screen, let alone a ~4"!

Ehh Nokia Nokia... welcome to the 21st century, please read up on progress before spouting crap. Last time I checked a quad-core Tegra 3 runs as long as a Tegra 2 in the Transformer line... in a thinner, lighter package no less! Ignorant attitude like that is what caused you to be on the brink of death.

EDIT: Also, a friend of mine has the Lumia 800. That thing eats through its battery faster than my 4S. And has everything crappier... So yea Mr. Elop... No.
 
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dagamer34 said:
Multi-core CPUs will run efficient multi-threaded code (or multiple programs on desktops) faster and more efficiently. The problem is that on a smartphone, how often does that really happen? Besides games, when do apps really need to use multiple threads to perform well? The only tasks that come to mind is video editing, photo editing, and heavy number crunching.

And we should remind ourselves of the very simple fact that a multi-core CPU pegged at 100% will always use more power than a single core at 100%, though the task will take less time. But few apps ever exemplify this point (no one is rendering feature films on their phone).
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Multi core cpus allow equal performance at lower clock speeds and power consumption. IE, two 800mhz cpus will beat or equal a 1.2ghz single core while consuming less power.

P=V^2I, when voltage is raised so a cpu can hit higher clock speeds, power usage goes up significantly. It's much better to power up two cores, finish the task, and get back to low power operation, than to use less power in any given moment but take longer to complete the task.
 
Qbah said:
EDIT: Also, a friend of mine has the Lumia 800. That thing eats through its battery faster than my 4S. And has everything crappier... So yea Mr. Elop... No.
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The Lumia 800 had battery issues that has been fixed in the last couple of weeks.
 
Jodell88 said:
The Lumia 800 had battery issues that has been fixed in the last couple of weeks.
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You mean still crap? He has that "fix" installed.

I'd rant more about the ignorance of the statement from the article, but Mr. Elop is just trolling. So I won't feed the troll 😉
 
Moar cores= moar fun.

2 cores with frequency scaling don't use much more power than a single core, I think
 
Wait. Nokia? Weren't they really big once when cell phones first became popular and then got their ass completely kicked by just about every other maker out there? Who gives a shit what they think? My dual core Atrix 2 runs all day on a charge, and does more for me than I'll likely ever need.
 
Fox5 said:
P=V^2I, when voltage is raised so a cpu can hit higher clock speeds, power usage goes up significantly.
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That's only true when a higher clocked part differs from a lower clocked part by not just in frequency, but voltage.

It doesn't always happen because there are variations between chips in a wafer and often quite true the top part does not need the extra voltage to clock even higher. There's also the part about the manufacturer playing conservatively.

Also its a balance between battery life and performance. I guess you can do what you described but the quad core might not end up faster than the dual core. It's like "I got a quad core superphone to save battery life, its not faster in anything than dual core at all!". Awesome!
 
Dual cores does very little for gaming. You want a powerful GPU for that. What a dual core cpu will give you is multi task and faster general tasks.

I'm not sure why people are so caught up on specs, Android was and is possibly the sluggish mobile OS from the lot of them. If the performance is top notch, that's all that really matters. WP7 seems to be pretty quick to me, even if its simple UI allows it to be a speedster.

However having a dual core would sound good on paper and may get people to buy more WP7 devices. I'm not sure what Nokia means by hurting the consumer, but WP7 should adopt dual core to increase sales, but most importantly update that freaking screen!
 
2 things I would say to Mr Elop:

1. The ....quad core...Tegra 3 would like a word with you. Especially about battery life. I have a PS Vita...and that thing has amazing standby battery life. I have an AT&T data plan too, so I'm not sitting there on Wifi 24/7.

I think that 5th core is doing as advertized. Would like to see battery life results when other quad cores come out on phones.

2. I would show him Anandtech battery life results of the Lumia 900. If multi cores hurt so much...why the big differences?

If there was a 90nm, 65nm, 45nm single core cpu and a 28nm dual or quad core cpu....I would put my money on the multi core chips...
 
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I can't tell much of a difference between my friends Thunderbolt and my Rezound. Both have awful battery life though!

The most taxing thing I do on my phone is watch netflix and sc2 streaming... I assume a single core can handle both of those.
 
jmcb said:
Whats even more head scratching....the Rezound has a dual core running at 1.5 Ghz...according to Mr. Elop ...shouldnt it be at the bottom of the charts? How many other dual core phones are running at 1.5Ghz?

That was only web browsing. The overall battery life picture didnt look too good for the 900 in those battery results.
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Granted, there are plenty of factors going on. Most web browsing takes place on white backgrounds, which are take up more power than average on AMOLED displays. Meanwhile the HTC Rezound is using a SLCD display so it "wins" there. It's not strictly the CPU that causes the issue.
 
dagamer34 said:
Granted, there are plenty of factors going on. Most web browsing takes place on white backgrounds, which are take up more power than average on AMOLED displays. Meanwhile the HTC Rezound is using a SLCD display so it "wins" there. It's not strictly the CPU that causes the issue.
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The Razr, Razr Maxx, galaxy nexus and Galaxy S2 all have AMOLED screens and many of them have no problem beating the Lumia 900 when it comes to battery life.
 
zerocool84 said:
If WP7 could handle anything substantial like real multitasking you'd see the need for it.
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What real multitasking are you doing on a smartphone?

WP7.5 added the ability to quickly suspend and resume apps. Even 3D games resume almost immediately. A few services (e.g. audio) are allowed to run in the background but that's it. What more could you want from smartphone multitasking?

Elop's statement is BS, but it's true in the narrow sense that Windows Phone runs beautifully on a single core. It feels far smoother and faster than Android does on a dual-core, even (especially) when doing cpu-intensive things like scrolling through pictures, zooming in on large images, etc.
 
It's PR. Nokia simply wants to explain to average Joe that even if a phone only has a single core that, in most usage cases, it really isn't a big deal. Which I'd agree with, even if the technical details here aren't 100% sound.

I do think it is kind of ironic how general computing consumption is seeing this push for "good enough" performance because such a large majority of users don't do anything but browse/check email/IM on their normal computers and yet there's this push in the opposite direction for "more cores, more speed!" on phones when most people are just doing those same trivial tasks. Mobile gaming does come into play somewhat, but even then I think that's more on the GPU than CPU like always.

I think dual core on phones is certainly a good thing (though much like desktops as cores increase the number of use cases they actually matter will decrease substantially), but Nokia is currently restrained from doing anything more with their Windows phones by the strict hardware guidelines set forth by Microsoft anyway, they're just fighting the mindshare battle.
 
smartpatrol said:
What real multitasking are you doing on a smartphone
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I like being on an instant messaging client, an irc chat, Chrome, and text messaging at the same time if I'm somewhere where I only have my phone and need to kill a lot of time. I've tried doing this kind of usage on my 1st gen iPad and it's terrible compared to how well it works on my Galaxy Nexus.
 
dguy6789 said:
I like being on an instant messaging client, an irc chat, Chrome, and text messaging at the same time if I'm somewhere where I only have my phone and need to kill a lot of time. I've tried doing this kind of usage on my 1st gen iPad and it's terrible compared to how well it works on my Galaxy Nexus.
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That doesn't even seem like "true" multitasking. You're just switching between a handful of different apps. It would work just as well if those apps were suspended (which they probably are) rather than running in the background. The only thing you really need is the ability for apps to receive push notifications, which just about every smartphone platform can do.
 
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