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Quad core phone, worth waiting for?

Fire&Blood

Fire&Blood

Platinum Member
My contract expires in March 2012 and I want some feedback whether the members here think a quad core phones will be out by the time my contract expires.

While it's true that something better is always around the corner, I think I've been watching the tech industry long enough. There are rare next gen introductions followed by milking the product lifetime with refreshes, dozens of variations of basically the same thing.

I see 3 major events to support waiting as opposed to snatching the top smartphone the very first day of my upgrade eligibility, die shrink to 28nm, arrival of quad cores with Tegra 3 and the display resolution bump to 1280x720.

I usually keep the phones I buy for the entire length of contract, it's been a while since I was tempted to buy outright.

For me it boils down to delaying a purchase if I know that within a reasonable amount of time, a significant bump in performance will be introduced with a new phone that will justify the wait for it. After all, if I plan on sticking with it for 2 years, it better be worth it.

I followed rumors and news on the HD2 since June 2009, I was eligible for a full discount 3 months but I waited for it because I didn't want to buy any of the inferior devices in the lineup.

Am I silly for expecting to find another phone that will keep it's value over the contract term as well as the HD2?

Today many phones beat the HD2 in all categories but I still feel that it competes admirably, especially for a 2009 phone. I would just hate to buy a phone that ages quickly and is obsolete in it's first year. Even more so when they are all sold at pretty much the same price point.
 
Well, in March 2012, you can look at whats available and whats coming soon. Then, you can make an informed buying decision.
 
No reason to buy now unless you have money to blow.

If you're up for an upgrade though, like myself, I think now is a decent time to upgrade (or in the next few months). Quad cores in phones won't be until Q2-3 of next year.
 
Rick James Astley said:
Today many phones beat the HD2 in all categories but I still feel that it competes admirably, especially for a 2009 phone. I would just hate to buy a phone that ages quickly and is obsolete in it's first year. Even more so when they are all sold at pretty much the same price point.
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Agreed, actually, I think the HD2 was the last time we really saw a big jump in hardware - it brought about the thin, small-bezel 4.3" screen, the snapdragon, etc. Frankly, HTC has been rehashing the HD2 with slightly better processors ever since 2009.

Are you still running Windows Mobile 6.5 on there? XDA has gotten both Windows Phone 7 and Android on the HD2. Last summer (2010) I had a decently-working Android installation on my HD2, I'm sure its flawless by now, and the HD2 has basically the same specs as a 1st-gen WP7 device. If you haven't already, check out XDA...might breath some new life into your phone.
 
Deeko said:
Agreed, actually, I think the HD2 was the last time we really saw a big jump in hardware - it brought about the thin, small-bezel 4.3" screen, the snapdragon, etc. Frankly, HTC has been rehashing the HD2 with slightly better processors ever since 2009.

Are you still running Windows Mobile 6.5 on there? XDA has gotten both Windows Phone 7 and Android on the HD2. Last summer (2010) I had a decently-working Android installation on my HD2, I'm sure its flawless by now, and the HD2 has basically the same specs as a 1st-gen WP7 device. If you haven't already, check out XDA...might breath some new life into your phone.
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That's what I am hoping/waiting for, another phone that takes a leap above others.

I've been an XDA member before the first Android port was made, I actually signed up on XDA because I was hooked on the threads about the Euro version which was the first to roll out.

I run Gingerbread mist of the time and WP7. Just last week I bought Madden 12 and Pro Evolution soccer, they run flawlessly.
 
I am in the same situation as OP, should I wait for quad core phones probably in mid summer (when a lot of phones are usually released) and use my DroidX in the mean time or do I upgrade in march to a dual core phone?
 
I dunno. While I think quads will make a *huge* difference in the tablet space for products like the Transformer 2, I honestly think the smaller phone form factor won't have too many uses that benefit measurably from the third and fourth cores.

28nm and HD look like more significant jumps, but wasn't the HD2 just *before* a die-shrink? T-mo has pretty good HSPA+ speed, so it's not like Verizon/AT&T users who really need low-power LTE as the killer feature.
 
s44 said:
I dunno. While I think quads will make a *huge* difference in the tablet space for products like the Transformer 2, I honestly think the smaller phone form factor won't have too many uses that benefit measurably from the third and fourth cores.

28nm and HD look like more significant jumps, but wasn't the HD2 just *before* a die-shrink? T-mo has pretty good HSPA+ speed, so it's not like Verizon/AT&T users who really need low-power LTE as the killer feature.
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Yeah, quad core will have more of a impact with tablets and given the size of tablet batteries, OEM's have more clocking leeway.

IIRC, The Evo SoC came after the die shrink. Again, IIRC, that die shrink was a minor one, 55nm to 45nm, compared to the upcoming one which is ~40% reduction in transistor's footprint.

I guess the reason why I tend to hold out for them is that quad core brings new GPU's along, I don't think we'll see any new GPU's with the existing dual core platforms. Nor does it make sense to rework an entire SoC only to fit a new GPU in, that's saved for upcoming platforms. While the CPU improvements won't be game-changing, the next gen GPU's are very promising, at least on paper, bound to tame any flash content thrown at them.


Last but certainly not least, there is gaming. Phones are now way past PS1 games, stuff like Real Racing 2 indicates PS2 is next.

I'll probably end up waiting to see the summer line up.
 
s44 said:
I dunno. While I think quads will make a *huge* difference in the tablet space for products like the Transformer 2, I honestly think the smaller phone form factor won't have too many uses that benefit measurably from the third and fourth cores.

28nm and HD look like more significant jumps, but wasn't the HD2 just *before* a die-shrink? T-mo has pretty good HSPA+ speed, so it's not like Verizon/AT&T users who really need low-power LTE as the killer feature.
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Really? I'm not convinced they make that much difference on the desktop for most usage patterns. I cant imagine what sort of mobile app will leverage a quad core.
 
The issue isn't how amazing the extra two cores will be. The issue is that the quad core generation will be a big improvement because the current dual core generation (in Androidland) kinda sucks.

Tegra 2 for example lacks NEON support (which MANY Android apps utilize) and its GPU is far behind the iPad 2's GPU which makes ports difficult. Quad-core generation Tegra brings the two extra cores, AND NEON support, AND a 5x bump in GPU power, AND virtualization support, AND high profile x264 support (hello 1080p vids). It will be worth it because the next gen is when Nvidia gets serious.

All of TI's current dual-core OMAP CPUs have most of these benefits already (Neon support, high profile x264), but is held back by what is basically a last generation GPU. They all have the SGX540 that the SGS1 had bumped up in speed a little. TI seems to like to cheap out on GPUs (the Droid X last year had a worse GPU than the 3GS) because they probably rightly believe that applications take a while to catch up. But that makes it so that TI's top-end is exactly two steps down from the iPad2's GPU (and probably the iPhone 5's GPU), which doesn't bode well long-term for ports. If only TIs had the SGX543 (which I really think the iPhone 5 might have).

Qualcomm's current Snapdragon dual-core CPUs are a disappointment all around. Worse clock-for-clock CPU performance than all the rest that they try to mask with a higher clock speed. Whats worse is that some benchmarks show their top-end Adreno 220 GPU to be behind the old clocked up SGX540 in TI's OMAP. It has NEON support and a little better x264 support than Tegra 2, which is great because otherwise Tegra 2 would have made these CPU obsolete six months before they hit the market. Qualcomm needs another generation to fix these issues.

Samsung's Exynos is the best dual core SOC so far: NEON support, high profile x264 support that already competes with the upcoming quad-cores, a GPU that handily beats TI's OMAP or Tegra 2, and the same clock-for-clock CPU performance of the Tegra 2/OMAP CPUs clocked up to 1.2GHz standard making it the fastest dual-core SOC period. The main problem will Exynos is that it only comes in one phone that will only have it on two carriers in America- Sprint and AT&T. There are no LTE Exynos products on the horizon from what we know. No Exynos tablets. ETC. The other issue is that the GPU is the first of its kind (basically a pure ARM GPU to make Samsung less dependent outside companies) and it lacks key features (texture compression for one) that many Android games rely on. Enough will be sold that many games will be reworked, but many won't and therefore this awesome GPU might go to waste if Samsung gives up and goes back to SGX the next generation. Buying Exynos is a gamble.

So in all cases, waiting for the quad-cores might be a great idea.
 
alent1234 said:
nvidia?

what software out there will make use of quad core?
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Soccerman06 said:
Android 2.1+
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Correct. Android is Linux based, its multi-threaded from the get go. Always has been. Whether the user will do anything that makes use of a quad core, thats the question. A developer isn't going to write an app that only 5% of the market can use, and that will take 2 years for the crop of people to upgrade from their current single core phones. Also, few people actually upgrade as soon as they're eligible. Most actually hold onto their phones until the phone dies, gets lost, etc.
 
I think quad cores will open the gates for things that companies are just now flirting with, such as a viable laptop-style dock. Battery life should be increased (performance/watt), and the 720p screen we all want will really need the horsepower. The jump from 480x800 to 540x960 gave quite a hit, and the jump up to 720x1280 will be quite a bit bigger of a difference.
With the Gs2 and Sensation level of phones out now, you will be happy for a long time, but they'll be left in the dust by mid next year.
 
zerocool84 said:
Issue as in good. Android phones have only been getting better in battery life. 4G is the only killer in battery life nowadays.
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Really they have? Maybe the low end one have. My Tmo Vibrant had to be charged throughout the day until I picked up an extended battery and then it would make it through the day.
I know have an HTC Sensation and with the stock battery and ROM it would make it maybe half the day. I got a 1900mah battery for it and if I'm lucky I can make it 12hours without having to charge it. With the stock battery I was charing it every 6 hours. That's not progress.
 
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