the beginning of the end for ARM? Galaxy Tab 3 uses atom

[OBLAMA2009]

if atom performance is much higher than arm isnt everyone going to have to start using intel?

http://www.slashgear.com/galaxy-tab...-sources-as-intel-ramps-mobile-push-31284370/

 

[Aganazer]

It was inevitable.

 

[Eug]

ARM is not dead yet, but competition is good.

It should be noted that Atom is already present in other Android phones. In some aspects, it's better and in others it's worse.

 

[Dari]

So will it run any Android software...sorry, apps? Or do they have to be ported?

 

[poofyhairguy]

I bet this won't be for the US market. It seems that Samsung is having trouble yielding its own designs:

That’s why Samsung Electronics has recently been diversifying its procurement channel in processor chips as a strategy to stabilize production yields of its in-house Exynos-branded processors.

I don't think they want to let Qualcomm get too much leverage over them, so Intel will sneak in markets like India.

I just don't see Samsung as the one who takes the inevitable brand hit that comes for selling the first major Intel Android device in America, as many apps simply won't work (like higher end games for example).

 

[poofyhairguy]

So will it run any Android software...sorry, apps? Or do they have to be ported?

Android being built on Java means that in theory the apps should run on x86 as well as ARM. In reality many apps (like games) use ARM-specific tweaks to get a performance boost so Intel Android devices so far have had compatibility issues.

 

[Dari]

Android being built on Java means that in theory the apps should run on x86 as well as ARM. In reality many apps (like games) use ARM-specific tweaks to get a performance boost so Intel Android devices so far have had compatibility issues.

Then this is terrible. The last thing Android needs is more fragmentation.

 

[Roland00Address]

Then this is terrible. The last thing Android needs is more fragmentation.

*Expletive* that, I want haswell and silvermount on android, it is better to be ported now rather than later.

Intel should have been working with android in 2010 instead of a meego

 

[ChronoReverse]

I wouldn't mind x86 to be de facto standard for Android eventually.

ARM has some serious limitations that x86 has no problems with. Now that Intel has gotten their power envelope down to ARM levels, I'm truly eager to ditch ARM as long as the price is similar.

 

[krumme]

Samsung putting Atom in an low end non amoled device.
Intel is practically giving those away for free. Its a shitty product, and expensive to produce at the same time. The world is not going to x86 standard, - its going the opposite direction. Very fast.
Probably we will see s800 in note 3, then Intel can take the low end garbage profit market, so qualcomm get pressed a little by samsung, that seems to sell more and more like apple.
Intel will loose in mobile market, - their capex can not be feed by the low margins. And we will see them allocate their ressources and new high end fabs to server and b2b segment.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I wouldn't mind x86 to be de facto standard for Android eventually.

ARM has some serious limitations that x86 has no problems with. Now that Intel has gotten their power envelope down to ARM levels, I'm truly eager to ditch ARM as long as the price is similar.

What do you dislike about ARM inherently? I mean sure its a little slower than i5 stuff, but at the same power envelope they are comparable.

I hate how Intel has fricked up their GPUs for a decade. I hate that Intel left Atom to rot.

 

[ChronoReverse]

What do you dislike about ARM inherently? I mean sure its a little slower than i5 stuff, but at the same power envelope they are comparable.

I hate how Intel has fricked up their GPUs for a decade. I hate that Intel left Atom to rot.

I'm not programming on bare metal on ARM so it doesn't affect me directly but here's one comment from Torvalds:

http://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=133089&curpostid=133428

The topic was about big.LITTLE but it mentions some of the inherent problems in ARM.



Another issue that I'm not involved in directly but does affect me is the issue of emulation. Look under the entry for Dynarec (which is expensive under ARM).

http://jeffq.com/blog/nds4droid-faq/

 

[poofyhairguy]

I am a big fan of ARM because I hate the x86 licensing situation. Its so restrictive that no one will ever compete with Intel again. If Samsung or Apple could buy an x86 license then maybe I would like it more.

I love how competitive the ARM market is.

 

[Ravynmagi]

I'm kinda surprised Samsung is putting Atom's in this Galaxy tablet. Isn't the ARM GPU a bit weak still? All Windows 8 Atom tablets seem to be restricted to 1366x768 because of the Atom and the Z2760 sure wasn't that good playing back HD videos either. Not sure how much improved, if any the Clover Trail+ is.

Seems like it's a bit early. Baytrail looks like it may be awesome (though ARM isn't sitting still doing nothing in the meantime). Intel must have given Samsung a nice deal to push this into their tablets. And sadly the tablet itself looks pretty disappointing. Not sure how Samsung manages to do so with with these mediocre and somewhat overpriced tablets.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I feel like half the hype behind "Intel" is the name. How many people here actually care for technical aspects of x86 and ARM for mobile products? What feature right now do you want on your Nexus 4 or Galaxy S4 that you cannot get because you are stuck on ARM?

It's like the whole hype around nVidia getting into mobile chipsets and Tegra. People thought that would mean playing Crysis 3 on their phones or something. Yet Tegra 1, 2, 3 have been underwhelming. And if anything the iPad is still king of gaming.

Hype is overrated.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I feel like half the hype behind "Intel" is the name. How many people here actually care for technical aspects of x86 and ARM for mobile products? What feature right now do you want on your Nexus 4 or Galaxy S4 that you cannot get because you are stuck on ARM?

For a tablet I can see the want for Windows x86 to run legacy apps. My next tablet/laptop will be the first one that gets Windows and x86 in my Prime's form factor.

But for a phone? Photoshop isn't going to work well on there.

 

[Jodell88]

I feel like half the hype behind "Intel" is the name. How many people here actually care for technical aspects of x86 and ARM for mobile products? What feature right now do you want on your Nexus 4 or Galaxy S4 that you cannot get because you are stuck on ARM?

Better performance?

It's like the whole hype around nVidia getting into mobile chipsets and Tegra. People thought that would mean playing Crysis 3 on their phones or something. Yet Tegra 1, 2, 3 have been underwhelming. And if anything the iPad is still king of gaming.

Hype is overrated.

The iPad has higher framerates but the tegra has better graphics.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Better performance?

The iPad has higher framerates but the tegra has better graphics.

I'm using a quad A7 Android phone and everything is already blazing fast. You really think the masses are going to care about performance when they already have way better hardware? These are also the same people that spent tons of $$$ on upgrading phones when all they did was mobile calls and SMS.

 

[lopri]

One tablet with sh*tty specs.. (1200x800?) Yes, ARM is doomed.

P.S. Does Samsung make any tablet with resolution higher than 1200x800? Except for the N10, of course.

Edit: And except for whatever Windows tablets they make.

 

[tommo123]

is this really going to be 12x8? what's the point in that? will samsung make a premium one with something better than 1080p?

 

[StrangerGuy]

One tablet with sh*tty specs.. (1200x800?) Yes, ARM is doomed.

P.S. Does Samsung make any tablet with resolution higher than 1200x800? Except for the N10, of course.

Edit: And except for whatever Windows tablets they make.

Nexus 10 aside, Android tablet space has become where vendors dump their crap hardware on.

 

[Crono]

Nexus 10 aside, Android tablet space has become where vendors dump their crap hardware on.

Yup. It's an easy thing to do when you manufacture panels.
And CPUs. And memory. And just about everything else.
Samsung can afford to gamble on a whole bunch of things because of their vertical integration.
Bigger leap for their competitors, which is why HTC (thankfully) cancelled their 12" Windows RT tablet when they realized that the price would be too high and there isn't enough demand for one. There are 7" RT tablets in the pipeline still, though.

I would love a cheap 7" RT tablet with Atom. I don't care which manufacturer does it if it's comparable to the Surface physical construction and has at a decent 720p or 1080p screen. Android doesn't do much for me in the tablet space... I like Android on smartphones, but I think the iPads and now the Surfaces both have real benefits over the Android tablets. Better tablet optimized apps on iOS, better multitasking/windowed environment (desktop) on RT (not even mentioning Pro/8).

If Samsung could do an IPS panel in a VaporMg case, even at the same price as the iPad mini, I would buy that in a second.

 

[dagamer34]

Why do you people keep putting up with such troll bait thread titles? :whiste:

 

[OBLAMA2009]

theres been a lot of android on atom stuff announced in the last week or so by companies like acer and asus. it really looks like intel is going to start grabbing market share pretty quickly, at least with tablets and phablets

 

[Fox5]

I'm not programming on bare metal on ARM so it doesn't affect me directly but here's one comment from Torvalds:

http://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=133089&curpostid=133428

The topic was about big.LITTLE but it mentions some of the inherent problems in ARM.



Another issue that I'm not involved in directly but does affect me is the issue of emulation. Look under the entry for Dynarec (which is expensive under ARM).

http://jeffq.com/blog/nds4droid-faq/

That dynarec problem would apply to Dalvik just in time compilation too. Thankfully, it's not a very common operation, Android seems to compile apps at install time and then just use the compiled byte code. I don't really see a need to continually do dynarec IF you have the storage space to save off the compiled code you generated, although these code blocks are probably smaller when you're using machine code as your byte code.

But why is emulation even necessary? The ARM code used on the DS should be almost identical to the ARM code used on modern phones, I'd imagine a hackish virtualization layer (ala the early vmware and virtualbox software pre virtualization extensions) would be better performing. IE, full speed on instructions you don't have to trap, followed by a massive penalty when you do trap, but hopefully you can replace those instructions by scanning the binary.