iPad A5x vs Tegra 3 - Android Forum's perspective

[MacAttacka]

We have the iPad A5x vs Tegra 3 thread in this forum - Android forum have it too. I thought it would be interesting to report some of their arguments and comments.

1. Tegra 3 has to cope with the transformer prime's half sized 25watt battery so its is performance is hit by its power efficiency.

2. Shadowgun has better real world performance compared to iPad. Actually I read an Anand article and there is some truth to this but its down to your personal preference.

3. Retina optimised games are only 1.4x not 2.0 times resolution because A5x is underpowered for its needs.

4. 4:3 sucks for video and the 90's are asking for their aspect ratio back.

5. A couple of will it blend iPad youtube clips throw in for good measure.

6. We dense iSheep are panicking over heat and battery issues

7. Apple had to quad the resolution, double the battery, make it thicker and fatter just to stay competitive with Tegra

8. A couple of apologies are thrown in about angry comments, Apple's marketing bombardment is making people feel the need to vent.

9. Some concern raised over how Tegra 3 is going to push 1080p when its struggling to push 720p on current designs.

10. Direct quote regarding the iPad battery: "So the battery in the new iPad is twice as big as the Primes... Did anyone making the device consider the consequences of such a battery? it takes 6 hours to charge? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha"

here's another little gem:
"5 hours to fully charge??? Dude, That makes me physically ill. I wouldn't ever buy a device that took that long to fully charge. holy COW that is horrible. 5 hours hahahahahahahhaahahahhahahahahahahahahha.

One more time, 5 hours to fully charge???????? hahahahahahahahah sooooooooo crappy! "

11. Some reality begins to bite:
"BTW, Anandtech also expects the Tegra 3 to lag even further in performance in the Infinity since it already is almost twice as slow as the new iPad and only pushing 1280X800 pixels. Does not take much extrapolation skills to suggest the Infinity might have a hard time. "

 

[GoodToGo]

2 words: Sour grapes. GPU's of tablets have zero impact on their saleability. You do know that A5 (iPad 2's GPU) beat the crap outta Tegra 3? Check out Anandtech results. The A5x will absolutely smash tegra 3. It has to run on higher resolutions AND maintain good battery life.

For the record, I have an android phone right now so I am not anti-android or whatever. Android has zero presence in the tablet field right now. Looking at their pricing makes me laugh. Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 costs $770. That's right folks, it costs the same as an iPad while being smaller and having a ******** resolution. Speaking of Samsung, they have how many tablets again? At least 6 or so right now with more in the pipeline. They cant seem to stop releasing their tablets hoping that one of them challenges the iPad. As it turns out, none do. And as it turns out, the more tablets you release, the lesser resources you can dedicate to them.

Ever seen android tablet apps? They suck ass, PERIOD. And how is that fragmentation working out? People are still sitting on Honeycomb. ICS is pretty much absent from the market. Few tablets have it and fewer apps are there for ICS.

The only competition iOS has coming the next months is Windows 8. I for one will not be holding my breath. It's Microsoft, screwing up is within their genes. Competition is good for consumers, forces everyone to bring their "A" game. The problem is that Apple is and everyone else is asleep at the wheel.

 

[scaredpoet]

We have the iPad A5x vs Tegra 3 thread in this forum - Android forum have it too. I thought it would be interesting to report some of their arguments and comments.

1. Tegra 3 has to cope with the transformer prime's half sized 25watt battery so its is performance is hit by its power efficiency.

Not an excuse. If Apple can fit the battery and electronics into the form factor, so should Android tablet makers.

2. Shadowgun has better real world perfomance compared to iPad. Actually I read an Anand article and there is some truth to this but its down to your personal preference.

If it does perform better, so be it.

3. Retina optimised games ar eonly 1.4x not 2.0 times because A5x is underpowered for its uses.

Okay, so let's bolt a retina-class display on a Tegra platform and see how well it performs.

4. 4:3 sucks for video and the 90's are asking for their aspect ratio back.

Fair enough. When the ASUS Transformer Prime gives 1989 back its WXGA resolution, we can talk.

5. A couple of will it blend iPad youtube clips throw in for good measure.

*yawn*

6. We dense iSheep are panicking over heat and battery issues

Really?

7. Apple had to quad the resolution, double the battery, amke it thicker and fatter just to stay competitve with Tegra

They did, and they brought it. So, now what?

8. A couple of apologies are thrown in about angry comments, Apple's marketing bombardment is making people feel the need to vent.

So it's okay for the likes of Samsung to directly attack iOS users as stereotypical stand-in-line, camp-outside-the-store simpletons, but when Apple throws out a couple videos that only show off a gorgeous screen, that gets their pants in a snit? Sounds ore like sour grapes, really.

9. Some concern raised over how Tegra 3 is going to push 1080p when its struggling to push 720p on current designs.

Poor babies.

10. Direct quote regarding the iPad battery: "So the battery in the new iPad is twice as big as the Primes... Did anyone making the device consider the consequences of such a battery? it takes 6 hours to charge? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha"

here's another little gem:
"5 hours to fully charge??? Dude, That makes me physically ill. I wouldn't ever buy a device that took that long to fully charge. holy COW that is horrible. 5 hours hahahahahahahhaahahahhahahahahahahahahha.

One more time, 5 hours to fully charge???????? hahahahahahahahah sooooooooo crappy! "

I'll admit, that's a lengthy charge time. But, I do have to get some sleep at night. I guess Android Tablet users favor downing energy drinks as they guffaw at the plight of us poor, poor iPad users?

11. Some reality begins to bite:
"BTW, Anandtech also expects the Tegra 3 to lag even further in performance in the Infinity since it already is almost twice as slow as the new iPad and only pushing 1280X800 pixels. Does not take much extrapolation skills to suggest the Infinty might have a hard time. "

I fully expect that Nvidia isn't standing still on this, and there's hopefully better hardware coming down the pipeline, and it will probably trounce the A5X specs on paper. Still, it's a darned shame when a bunch of fanboys who have spent their time obsessing over a bunch of numbers on paper rather than actual usability get beaten at their own game, even if for a little while.

The truth of the matter is, even the original iPad is still a pretty decent tablet, if you care about actually doing things on it rather than how fast the processor is, or how many CPU/GPU cores it has. Granted, the iPad 3 will play 3D games a lot better, and this is probably what a lot of the suers of the Android forums care more about.

 

[KoukiFC3S]

I had the prime for a week.

It was super cool, but the build quality was terrible.
My prime's wifi would slow down considerably when I was connected to Bluetooth. How Asus missed this during testing, I don't know.

So I dont really care which is faster. Both are plenty fast.

I do care about build quality tho. And even though the new iPad has its share of problems too, I know I can just make an appointment with the apple store and get a replacement on the spot. With Asus you have to ship it and it might take weeks to get your replacement.

 

[barkomatic]

I think Android users are fixated on specs--because that's what they are trained to do through advertising. If a completely non-functional desktop chip was soldered to the inside of a Xoom they'd be bragging about how fast chip is.

Once an Android tablet is released that has a chip driving a true HD screen like the iPad, you'll see their batteries get bigger and their cases thicker as well.

They do have a point about the aspect ratio -- but no one is perfect.

 

[Macman45]

My buddy next door has a Tegra....every time he comes in for coffee or a beer he makes a beeline for my iPad....The iconia is a well made device, sturdy and not at all cheap looking, but as he himself says it lags like hell. He got it as a Christmas gift, but spends more time using my iPad....

 

[whtrbt7]

We have the iPad A5x vs Tegra 3 thread in this forum - Android forum have it too. I thought it would be interesting to report some of their arguments and comments.

1. Tegra 3 has to cope with the transformer prime's half sized 25watt battery so its is performance is hit by its power efficiency.

2. Shadowgun has better real world perfomance compared to iPad. Actually I read an Anand article and there is some truth to this but its down to your personal preference.

3. Retina optimised games ar eonly 1.4x not 2.0 times because A5x is underpowered for its uses.

4. 4:3 sucks for video and the 90's are asking for their aspect ratio back.

5. A couple of will it blend iPad youtube clips throw in for good measure.

6. We dense iSheep are panicking over heat and battery issues

7. Apple had to quad the resolution, double the battery, amke it thicker and fatter just to stay competitve with Tegra

8. A couple of apologies are thrown in about angry comments, Apple's marketing bombardment is making people feel the need to vent.

9. Some concern raised over how Tegra 3 is going to push 1080p when its struggling to push 720p on current designs.

10. Direct quote regarding the iPad battery: "So the battery in the new iPad is twice as big as the Primes... Did anyone making the device consider the consequences of such a battery? it takes 6 hours to charge? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha"

here's another little gem:
"5 hours to fully charge??? Dude, That makes me physically ill. I wouldn't ever buy a device that took that long to fully charge. holy COW that is horrible. 5 hours hahahahahahahhaahahahhahahahahahahahahha.

One more time, 5 hours to fully charge???????? hahahahahahahahah sooooooooo crappy! "

11. Some reality begins to bite:
"BTW, Anandtech also expects the Tegra 3 to lag even further in performance in the Infinity since it already is almost twice as slow as the new iPad and only pushing 1280X800 pixels. Does not take much extrapolation skills to suggest the Infinty might have a hard time. "

I think this is a valid thread for discussion. The Tegra 3 is an awesome processor. The 4+1 core design as well as the memory handling is pretty key to its success. I like that Nvidia is cranking out these mobile processors because they have a great chipset hardware design team. So I'll field the responses one by one.

1. The Transformer Prime's smaller battery is one of the limiting factors of the device. The Tegra 3 can be quite energy hungry due to its design and while it does have a power efficiency core, it's kind of like the reverse of Intel's power boost tech where it will draw less power when not in constant load. Not a bad design but if you're playing games, the other 4 cores fire up and battery efficiency either goes or you end up having the game stutter. The A5X design is pretty much the A5 design with the PowerVR quad core graphics integrated. It's a HUGE draw on power so that's why we need the larger battery. 3D games will draw more power and I haven't seen the system stutter. The demand it places on the battery is quite extraordinary and I'm not sure which I would rather have: choppy gameplay or more battery life.

2. Can't say much on shadowgun

3. Not sure what you're talking about in terms of 1.4X or 2x. Are you talking about processing speed or are you talking about rendering? Right now there aren't many Retina games or 3D games that take advantage of the A5X properly. 3D graphics should be sent to the PowerVR chip for hardware acceleration while the CPU is used for computational calcs. A lot of games will still try to push the CPU for graphics even though Retina graphics will require a lot of processing from the GPU. If you're noticing a lot of battery drain during game use, it's probably the game that's not taking advantage of the quad core graphics.

4. I have to agree 4:3 sucks for video. The iPad however isn't designed for just video. That's just one function the iPad serves and it's not too high on the list. The iPad was originally created for content consumption and content creation. It's meant to be a sheet of paper and a pen. If you're looking at it as only a video player, there are MUCH better video players out there. One of my favorites is Archos.

6. iOS people are panicking about the heat because it's probably the first time Apple users have felt any warmth from their device. I've held a blazing OQO 02 in my hands before so the heat is nothing but for people not used to the warmth, it can be quite shocking. Regarding battery life, it's always an issue. The more battery life you have, the more you can do with a device. The other side of the formula is a fast user and while the OS is optimized for fast usage, giving up battery life is always going to be an issue.

7. Meh, the 2012 iPad wasn't designed to "stay ahead" of Tegra 3. Apple devices have always been about functionality and the added experience of a high pixel density display in this size range is quite an experience. While a lot of people may disagree, to people that are reading text or want less eye-strain, this is a HUGE feature. In terms of raw processing capability, the Tegra 3 will win out. The A5X is not a "power" processor. It's a balance. It's about just enough to power the Retina display.

8. Apple's marketing is FIERCE. It's important to Apple to have strong marketing to market what they believe is the market leader. I would have to agree with them on their marketing practices. Since their motto is "Think Different" they are trying to get people to see why the device is a different take on technology and it's always about what the device can do for you and not raw benchmarks or things that you can't relate to. Not many other companies take this kind of approach to marketing because they just pump out raw stats and expect people to buy on comparison of specs. I used to shop that way and then figured out that it's not the specs I'm after, it's the performance which is completely separated from the specs.

9. The Tegra 3 is capable of "brute force" decoding of 1080p content. The problem is the allowed battery drain on the device. A5X struggles with decoding 1080p content that isn't done in MP4 H.264. The Tegra 3 is fully capable of MKV 1080p with brute force but it may halve the battery life or worse. I think 720p is good enough for most mobile tablets right now because the human eye can't really discern between 1080p and 720p on a 9 inch display very well. Also with the amount of storage on these things, 720p is good enough for most people. Why waste space?

10. The charge time of the battery doesn't affect me much. I charge overnight and I normally get a full day of use from the iPad. While 5 hours is decently long, I'm hoping we have mobile fuel cells sooner than later because li-ion is not a great tech for mobile gadgetry.

11. The Tegra 3 was never intended to drive a huge display and it shows. It's not that it's a problem but for manufacturers, it means that they have to have other methods to drive larger displays. To me the A5X seems to be a bit experimental. Apple is trying to see if sandwiching a quad core graphics processor will help drive the display and be good for usage. If more apps supported the quad-core graphics, I think we could have great battery life while playing games. I also think the iPad can drive much better 3D graphics in these cases.

 

[psonice]

1. Tegra 3 has to cope with the transformer prime's half sized 25watt battery so its is performance is hit by its power efficiency.

It's not that it's under clocked to save battery life - it's a slow GPU. The CPU is way faster than the iPad, so it's not a battery saving measure.

2. Shadowgun has better real world perfomance compared to iPad. Actually I read an Anand article and there is some truth to this but its down to your personal preference.

Nvidia pay the developers (and give them extra support) to optimise for tegra. I.e. if it looks better on tegra they get free money and marketing. This is what the 'tegra zone' is all about.

In theory that game should look better on the iPad, in reality it's better on tegra devices because nvidia is paying to make that happen. Look at non-tegra zone games and you'll see the opposite in most cases.

3. Retina optimised games ar eonly 1.4x not 2.0 times because A5x is underpowered for its uses.

There's some truth to this - the A5X is 2x faster, but has 4x more pixels to draw. A 3D game doesn't need 4x more power to draw 4x more pixels usually though, so this is a bit of a grey area. Worst case, games will have the most effects etc. on the iPad 2, will have almost the same graphics but slightly less effects on the iPad 3 - but at amazingly high resolution - and the tegra 3 devices will have the worst graphics because it has the slowest GPU. Unless nvidia has a deal with the developers

4. 4:3 sucks for video and the 90's are asking for their aspect ratio back.

Yep, if you buy a tablet purely for video you want 16:9. On the other hand, 4:3 is better for reading, internet, and many apps. Notice that there's no demand for wide-aspect paper? There's a reason for that. Which is better depends on what you use it for most.

5. A couple of will it blend iPad youtube clips throw in for good measure.

6. We dense iSheep are panicking over heat and battery issues

...fanboy crap...

7. Apple had to quad the resolution, double the battery, amke it thicker and fatter just to stay competitve with Tegra

They had to double the battery and make it thicker to support the quad resolution. But what's the display got to do with the CPU/GPU chip? If they wanted to compete with tegra, they'd have made the A5X quad-core and left the GPU as it was, and not doubled resolution. Then it would have outperformed tegra on both CPU and GPU.

But why would they do that? They don't need to compete with tegra, tegra-based tablets (it's the tablets that compete, not the SOCs) need to compete with the iPad. And they're not doing that.

Saying the iPad needs to compete with tegra is like saying the USA has to make huge changes to compete with greece

8. A couple of apologies are thrown in about angry comments, Apple's marketing bombardment is making people feel the need to vent.

9. Some concern raised over how Tegra 3 is going to push 1080p when its struggling to push 720p on current designs.

It won't handle it well. As I said before (and countless benchmarks have demonstrated), nvidia haven't made a fast mobile GPU. It was much slower than the SGX543MP2 in the A5. Trying to drive a very high res screen with it is a big mistake - the OS might run ok, but games are going to run badly or at low resolution.

10. Direct quote regarding the iPad battery: "So the battery in the new iPad is twice as big as the Primes... Did anyone making the device consider the consequences of such a battery? it takes 6 hours to charge? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha"

here's another little gem:
"5 hours to fully charge??? Dude, That makes me physically ill. I wouldn't ever buy a device that took that long to fully charge. holy COW that is horrible. 5 hours hahahahahahahhaahahahhahahahahahahahahha.

One more time, 5 hours to fully charge???????? hahahahahahahahah sooooooooo crappy! "

...more fanboy crap. There's no perfect tablet with a retina screen, quad core CPU, super fast GPU, ultra thin yet still with 10 hour battery. You have to accept some kind of compromise. Apple's compromise was an amazing screen, a power-hungry GPU to feed it at acceptable speed, and a huge battery to power it all. The downside is that it has to be thicker, and it takes longer to charge. Considering what they achieved, they kept that downside very minimal.

Now take a look at the compromises some of the competing tablets make. Shorter battery life, slower GPU, low-res screen, huge battery/slow charging... a selection of those should cover it

11. Some reality begins to bite:
"BTW, Anandtech also expects the Tegra 3 to lag even further in performance in the Infinity since it already is almost twice as slow as the new iPad and only pushing 1280X800 pixels. Does not take much extrapolation skills to suggest the Infinty might have a hard time. "

That's 2x more pixels with the same GPU. Where the GPU is the bottleneck it's going to run at half the speed, or not far off that. Games will be unacceptably slow, or will run at the old resolution. Everywhere else, the GPU should just about cope - maybe a little slower - but it'll be working much harder to keep things running. That's going to hit battery life.

Expect it to be fatter and slower charging because of the bigger battery, or expect it to run out of battery much sooner. You can't argue with the laws of physics unfortunately.

 

[ReallyBigFeet]

I keep seeing this "Shadowgun looks/performs better on the Tegra 3 than on the new iPad" argument.

Did I miss something and Shadowgun released an updated version that was optimized for Retina display? Mine says it was last update in January of 2012, prior to iPad 3 introduction.

By contrast, Shadowgun was specifically optimized for the Tegra 3 chipset as quoted here:

"The Tegra 3-optimized version of Shadowgun features console-quality water, enhanced rag-doll physics, particle effects, enhanced shaders and dynamic textures. These are only possible using Tegra 3’s multi-core capabilities, and they make for a truly immersive and realistic gaming experience."

Wouldn't a better comparison be an A5X optimized app versus identical app optimized for Tegra 3? Does such an animal even exist yet?

 

[mcdj]

an entirely new thread with basically the identical title?

 

[DodgeV83]

I keep seeing this "Shadowgun looks/performs better on the Tegra 3 than on the new iPad" argument.

Did I miss something and Shadowgun released an updated version that was optimized for Retina display? Mine says it was last update in January of 2012, prior to iPad 3 introduction.

By contrast, Shadowgun was specifically optimized for the Tegra 3 chipset as quoted here:

"The Tegra 3-optimized version of Shadowgun features console-quality water, enhanced rag-doll physics, particle effects, enhanced shaders and dynamic textures. These are only possible using Tegra 3’s multi-core capabilities, and they make for a truly immersive and realistic gaming experience."

Wouldn't a better comparison be an A5X optimized app versus identical app optimized for Tegra 3? Does such an animal even exist yet?

Nvidia worked with the ShadowGun dev to make some Tegra specific graphical updates to the app. It's not that the iPad 2 couldn't handle those changes, it's that the dev didn't update the iPad app as well.

When outputting to the same resolution, both the iPad 2 and the 3rd generation iPad beat the Tegra 3 in all GPU benchmarks. Since the new iPad has the ability to render at any resolution up to 2048x1536, there is no situation where the Tegra 3 has more power, the native resolution of the device is irrelevant.

Considering the new iPad beats Tegra 3 in benchmarks, even when running at 2048x1536, vs the Prime's 1280x800, I struggle to see how this can even be debatable.

That's a fact, and no perspective can change that

 

[otis123]

Before pulling the trigger on my new iPad, I took a long look at an android tablet, while the grass may seem greener, it really didn't look that great for android. OS fragmentation is frankly retarded, google needs to take the reins on this one, brand new devices not running the latest OS is just asinine, and leaving OS updates to manufacturers has never panned out well. Android devices never stay current, the press is always talking up the next phone or tablet on a weekly basis, what if you bought a transformer prime around Christmas, and they just announced another with a 1080p display? you would have legions of pissed off customers. i still think iOS could use a modern shot in the arm, but it still seems to be the best mobile OS out there, period.

 

[dell who?]

People complaining/commenting on the iPad's aspect ratio are not seeing the bigger picture. While video playback makes the most sense in 16:9 that doesn't mean it makes sense for reading ebooks/pdfs, composing documents, viewing photos, or plenty of other examples on a screen that size. Apple has created a device for unlimited uses, not just a mobile video viewer or gaming device. Android enthusiasts of all ages have yet to describe doing more than one or two things on an Android tablet. Even when someone buys an iPad from me and they claim to only need it for a few purposes they still come back a week or two later and tell me about the 50 million other things they found out it does so well. Millions of people have already traded out their laptops for iPads, and the device doesn't even support flash natively. People will seek workarounds on an iPad LONG before they will contemplate an Android product. Ouch...

 

[ReallyBigFeet]

BTW which "Android Forum" is being referenced? There's like five of them.

Their community is as fragmented as their OS.

 

[MacAttacka]

The truth of the matter is, even the original iPad is still a pretty decent tablet, if you care about actually doing things on it rather than how fast the processor is, or how many CPU/GPU cores it has. Granted, the iPad 3 will play 3D games a lot better, and this is probably what a lot of the suers of the Android forums care more about.

That's the irony. Android sells itself on the basis of its specs and iPad doesnt. 95% of people using the device appreciate its usability, apps support and its pretty screen. They dont know or care what's underneath. They would love nothing better than get ICS or Banana Custard or whatever the this month's Android build is on to it.

One of the nicest aspects of jumping into the iOS ecosystem is that you can stop caring about specs because once you've put down your cash and bought the device, the vast iOS universe takes care of your needs. No need to worry about your device becoming obsolete next week or finding app support and execution lacking. I mean im geeky enough to frequent these forums but 99% of my iOS time is spent enjoying the device for what it does not fantasising about what it could do. Tegra 3 is all very well but the fact of the matter is you're not just buying a chip, you're buying into an eco system. in that respect iPad 1 is arguably superior to Tegra 3 platforms.

 

[aneftp]

Like to chime in.

iPad is a finished product.

Android tablets seem like a "work in progress". iPad is still one year ahead of android in its developement.

Remember it took google 2 1/2 years to produce a functional android software (2.2 froyo). Seems like android tablet development is heading down the same path except this time there are no cell phone carrier to subsidize most of the android tablets because people don't want to have another cell phone data plan.

I'll give android until jellybean if they can make a real dent into the iPads dominance.

 

[Mrg02d]

BTW which "Android Forum" is being referenced? There's like five of them.

Their community is as fragmented as their OS.

Let's not forget that android requires amateur devs and chefs to get that device working the way you were lead to believe it worked. I have an android phone and HATE having to go ask a question on XDA. Most of the time, dorks yell at you for not searching enough or being a noob. How irritating! And if you DARE ask about when something is to be released, you will get a HOST of people telling you that you didn't pay for their help and how awful you are for asking...

Apple makes it work RIGHT from the minutes you boot it up. They make sure that the hardware is utilised by the software. Andorid is lawless and unfair. Devs retunitely leave without finishing what they started.

If we pay a butt load of money one device, it better work right NOW. Not some BS promise to work later. How many android people here like waiting a year for an update?

Matt

 

[kdoug]

We have the iPad A5x vs Tegra 3 thread in this forum - Android forum have it too. I thought it would be interesting to report some of their arguments and comments.

1. Tegra 3 has to cope with the transformer prime's half sized 25watt battery so its is performance is hit by its power efficiency.

2. Shadowgun has better real world performance compared to iPad. Actually I read an Anand article and there is some truth to this but its down to your personal preference.

3. Retina optimised games are only 1.4x not 2.0 times resolution because A5x is underpowered for its needs.

4. 4:3 sucks for video and the 90's are asking for their aspect ratio back.

5. A couple of will it blend iPad youtube clips throw in for good measure.

6. We dense iSheep are panicking over heat and battery issues

7. Apple had to quad the resolution, double the battery, make it thicker and fatter just to stay competitive with Tegra

8. A couple of apologies are thrown in about angry comments, Apple's marketing bombardment is making people feel the need to vent.

9. Some concern raised over how Tegra 3 is going to push 1080p when its struggling to push 720p on current designs.

10. Direct quote regarding the iPad battery: "So the battery in the new iPad is twice as big as the Primes... Did anyone making the device consider the consequences of such a battery? it takes 6 hours to charge? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha"

here's another little gem:
"5 hours to fully charge??? Dude, That makes me physically ill. I wouldn't ever buy a device that took that long to fully charge. holy COW that is horrible. 5 hours hahahahahahahhaahahahhahahahahahahahahha.

One more time, 5 hours to fully charge???????? hahahahahahahahah sooooooooo crappy! "

11. Some reality begins to bite:
"BTW, Anandtech also expects the Tegra 3 to lag even further in performance in the Infinity since it already is almost twice as slow as the new iPad and only pushing 1280X800 pixels. Does not take much extrapolation skills to suggest the Infinity might have a hard time. "

I purchased the almighty ASUS Prime last week at BB and returned it the following day. I've owned many Android tablets and I quite frankly like Android file system and the new ICS. It's the hardware that's crap. The glass on the screen was higher on one side than the other, I thought I was going to cut my finger like a meat slicer if I mis-swiped. The wi-fi would only get 4 solid bars if I we're in the same room with the router. Downstairs it dropped to 1 bar. The battery was dropping faster than RIM shares
The text on the browser was something from a Marvel Comic Book.
The BB salesperson said he owned the Prime and loved it. He said the Pixel density on the screen was higher than the iPad 3. WTF I said, 149 vs 264? How is 149 better than 264? Then the best part, nVidia Quad Core is so much faster than the A5X.
Faster at what? Exactly which application on this 1/2 baked tablet is faster?
Crickets........

 

[waynep]

nvmd . . . i dont see a delete button.

 

[DodgeV83]

I purchased the almighty ASUS Prime last week at BB and returned it the following day. I've owned many Android tablets and I quite frankly like Android file system and the new ICS. It's the hardware that's crap. The glass on the screen was higher on one side than the other, I thought I was going to cut my finger like a meat slicer if I mis-swiped. The wi-fi would only get 4 solid bars if I we're in the same room with the router. Downstairs it dropped to 1 bar. The battery was dropping faster than RIM shares
The text on the browser was something from a Marvel Comic Book.
The BB salesperson said he owned the Prime and loved it. He said the Pixel density on the screen was higher than the iPad 3. WTF I said, 149 vs 264? How is 149 better than 264? Then the best part, nVidia Quad Core is so much faster than the A5X.
Faster at what? Exactly which application on this 1/2 baked tablet is faster?
Crickets........

They are all trained to lie to their customers. I still remember when the iPad 2 just came out, and I happened to check out a Xoom at the Verizon kiosk at Costco...

He told me the iPad 2 wasn't dual core and the Xoom was faster.
He told me the Xoom had 4G RIGHT NOW (at the time it didn't)
He told me the SD card was working (at the time Motorola hadn't enabled the SD card)
Finally, he told me the Xoom he better graphics. I asked him to show me, "because I've seen graphics similar to Xbox360 on the iPad 2" (I owned one), and he showed me some asteroid hunter game that looked like the arcade games from the old days.

It's always interesting to see what the salesmen say, I like to plead ignorance just to hear their latest stories...

It's not that Android tablets don't have advantages...it's that the salesmen don't know them.

 

[MacAttacka]

Here are some more points they make with direct quotes.

1. Regarding the A5X Specs:
"Apple said that the new Apple A5X DUAL core processor was four times faster than the NVIDIA Tegra3 quad core processor. Challenge accepted.

Apple tried several times to say the words quad core to escape the fact that the A5X is actually a dual core chip. When they said quad core, they were speaking in reference to the graphics processor in the A5X which is quad core. Bravo Apple.

Now the NVIDIA Tegra3 has a 12 core graphics processor with a quad core system processor which is what will be in the HTC One X. I can not wait till the New iPad comes out so NVIDIA can test the heck out of it and then we can see if there is any truth to back up Apple's "Bold" comments."

2. Regarding revealing the specs:
"No, they don't want to release specs, because when comparing their specs to the specs of other devices, it would be a sure fire way to sell less devices. The iPad 2 with its .7 pixel camera, 512 mb ram, rear facing camera of .9?

No, they don't release most specs because of how sad they would sound.

They hide the specs they don't want anyone to see (like the CPU clock, or that the CPU is dual core. Instead they direct attention to specs that sound good, like a quad core gpu, or new screen res"

3.Apple reaction to criticism:
"I do agree with apple being very good at misdirection at times though.

Take the iphone 4 antennae issue where they decided instead of admitting a problem to blame every other phone manufacturer under the sun and say they all had the same issue... then offer a free bumper case to actually make it better."

4. Reaction to Anandtech's benchmarks:
"the “4x the graphics performance of Tegra 3″ is extremely suspicious – to say the least. Nvidia believes so, too. But we didn’t really need Nvidia to tell us that. We can think for ourselves, too. It’s true that the A5 GPU tested in benchmarks to be about 30% faster than Tegra 3, but those are only some rather simple tests, and they don’t test the actual performance of a chip in a game.

5. iPad's features are held back to prevent macbooks being canibalised:
"Who knows what they will come up with. Maybe the next one will be more like the iScroll with a bendable display. I know they aren't going to start adding USB ports, HDMI and all the other things some people have complained it doesn't have. If they did that, why would someone pay for a Macbook when they could get an iPad for half the price? I don't know why everyone is so insistent on making an all in one type devices. Smart business have different models that attract different buyers. Someone saying Apple should load the iPad up with more expensive features found on a Macbook would be like saying Mercedes should drop a 500hp AMG tuned engine into their base model C350 thats half the price of an E class. No business is dumb enough to do such things. People who want a fully loaded mobile device and want an Apple product buy a Macbook Pro, not an iPad"

6: Explanation for Why all Tegra 3 + ICS combo tablets still lag - Apple's patents:
"The "lag" you experienced is called apple got a patent on each of those functions and forced Android to take a non-optimized method of doing it, because they don't license their tech. Then apple started a lawsuit over gootorola and their patent licensing policies..."

 

[DodgeV83]

Here are some more points they make with direct quotes.

1. Regarding the A5X Specs:
"Apple said that the new Apple A5X DUAL core processor was four times faster than the NVIDIA Tegra3 quad core processor. Challenge accepted.

Apple tried several times to say the words quad core to escape the fact that the A5X is actually a dual core chip. When they said quad core, they were speaking in reference to the graphics processor in the A5X which is quad core. Bravo Apple.

Now the NVIDIA Tegra3 has a 12 core graphics processor with a quad core system processor which is what will be in the HTC One X. I can not wait till the New iPad comes out so NVIDIA can test the heck out of it and then we can see if there is any truth to back up Apple's "Bold" comments."

2. Regarding revealing the specs:
"No, they don't want to release specs, because when comparing their specs to the specs of other devices, it would be a sure fire way to sell less devices. The iPad 2 with its .7 pixel camera, 512 mb ram, rear facing camera of .9?

No, they don't release most specs because of how sad they would sound.

They hide the specs they don't want anyone to see (like the CPU clock, or that the CPU is dual core. Instead they direct attention to specs that sound good, like a quad core gpu, or new screen res"

3.Apple reaction to criticism:
"I do agree with apple being very good at misdirection at times though.

Take the iphone 4 antennae issue where they decided instead of admitting a problem to blame every other phone manufacturer under the sun and say they all had the same issue... then offer a free bumper case to actually make it better."

4. Reaction to Anandtech's benchmarks:
"the “4x the graphics performance of Tegra 3″ is extremely suspicious – to say the least. Nvidia believes so, too. But we didn’t really need Nvidia to tell us that. We can think for ourselves, too. It’s true that the A5 GPU tested in benchmarks to be about 30% faster than Tegra 3, but those are only some rather simple tests, and they don’t test the actual performance of a chip in a game.

5. iPad's features are held back to prevent macbooks being canibalised:
"Who knows what they will come up with. Maybe the next one will be more like the iScroll with a bendable display. I know they aren't going to start adding USB ports, HDMI and all the other things some people have complained it doesn't have. If they did that, why would someone pay for a Macbook when they could get an iPad for half the price? I don't know why everyone is so insistent on making an all in one type devices. Smart business have different models that attract different buyers. Someone saying Apple should load the iPad up with more expensive features found on a Macbook would be like saying Mercedes should drop a 500hp AMG tuned engine into their base model C350 thats half the price of an E class. No business is dumb enough to do such things. People who want a fully loaded mobile device and want an Apple product buy a Macbook Pro, not an iPad"

6: Explanation for Why all Tegra 3 + ICS combo tablets still lag - Apple's patents:
"The "lag" you experienced is called apple got a patent on each of those functions and forced Android to take a non-optimized method of doing it, because they don't license their tech. Then apple started a lawsuit over gootorola and their patent licensing policies..."

Why are you posting this? It's like you're trying to troll without taking the credit.

This thread title says "A5X and Tegra 3". This has nothing to do with the iPhone 4 antenna, HDMI ports or how many megapixels are in the iPad 2's camera.

Based on every measurable metric, the Tegra 3 loses. What's the point of this thread?

 

[Pressure]

Way to stay classy.

You could at least have taken the high road and pat yourself on the shoulder and simply ignored it.

 

[psonice]

Here are some more points they make with direct quotes.

1. Regarding the A5X Specs:
"Apple said that the new Apple A5X DUAL core processor was four times faster than the NVIDIA Tegra3 quad core processor. Challenge accepted.

Apple tried several times to say the words quad core to escape the fact that the A5X is actually a dual core chip. When they said quad core, they were speaking in reference to the graphics processor in the A5X which is quad core. Bravo Apple.

Now the NVIDIA Tegra3 has a 12 core graphics processor with a quad core system processor which is what will be in the HTC One X. I can not wait till the New iPad comes out so NVIDIA can test the heck out of it and then we can see if there is any truth to back up Apple's "Bold" comments."

This is pretty meaningless - the tegra 3 has a quad core CPU and a single core GPU (it does have 12 "core-like" units inside the GPU, but this isn't the same thing). The A5X has a dual core CPU, and a quad-core GPU (each core having a number of processing units inside it too), although apps see the GPU as a single unit so that's irrelevant anyway. Also, never believe nvidia's core counts - they claimed the tegra 1 was "7-core", by counting things like the audio processor and power management as cores.

It simply comes down to this: the tegra has a much more powerful CPU (quad core vs. dual core, and the cores are pretty similar). Best case, it's roughly 2x faster than the ipad. The A5X has a much more powerful GPU - and no matter what nvidia says about standard benchmarks done by unbiased 3rd parties being doubtful, it really is much faster. Take a look at some of the X-ray images of the chips too - the A5X is huge, and it's mostly GPU.

Actually the tegra is possibly *faster* in the simpler benchmarks, because of the design differences - it's in complex 3D games that the powervr 'tiled' architecture really pushes it ahead so much.

So which is better? Depends on what you want to use it for. If you're driving a retina-class screen and playing games, the a5x. If you're doing anything CPU heavy like watching videos (that aren't in a format that the chip can handle in hardware at least) then the tegra has more power.

2. Regarding revealing the specs:
"No, they don't want to release specs, because when comparing their specs to the specs of other devices, it would be a sure fire way to sell less devices. The iPad 2 with its .7 pixel camera, 512 mb ram, rear facing camera of .9?

No, they don't release most specs because of how sad they would sound.

They hide the specs they don't want anyone to see (like the CPU clock, or that the CPU is dual core. Instead they direct attention to specs that sound good, like a quad core gpu, or new screen res"

Apple compete on the basis of a complete product, not individual parts. Who cares which has the fastest CPU or the most memory, when you can compare the tablet and see which one works best? The things that matter on a tablet are the screen quality, smoothness of operation, battery life, and quality of software.

Now, how competitive is nvidia on those things? It isn't, because it doesn't make tablets, it makes a single part for them. Nvidia has to compete on the specs of its parts - it has to get high benchmark scores while using minimal power, because it's competing against qualcomm, nvidia and the other SOC makers.

When apple do reveal specs, it's almost always to show how much better it is than the previous iPad. The mention of the tegra was a bit of a one-off, and I'm not sure why they did that... maybe to counter nvidia's marketing?

3.Apple reaction to criticism:
"I do agree with apple being very good at misdirection at times though.

Take the iphone 4 antennae issue where they decided instead of admitting a problem to blame every other phone manufacturer under the sun and say they all had the same issue... then offer a free bumper case to actually make it better."

Yep, very true. Other phones have antenna issues for sure, just as apple said - but on nothing like the same scale. I found my iPhone 4 really annoying without a case.

4. Reaction to Anandtech's benchmarks:
"the “4x the graphics performance of Tegra 3″ is extremely suspicious – to say the least. Nvidia believes so, too. But we didn’t really need Nvidia to tell us that. We can think for ourselves, too. It’s true that the A5 GPU tested in benchmarks to be about 30% faster than Tegra 3, but those are only some rather simple tests, and they don’t test the actual performance of a chip in a game.

It's not suspicious, it's a pretty basic and standard benchmark. I can say as a dev specialising in GPU work that it's widely known that Imagination's SGX architecture is way ahead of nvidia's for mobile. On the desktop, where power isn't such an issue, it might go the other way, but on mobile nvidia isn't really competitive.

Nvidia are obviously going to dispute benchmarks proving their GPU is slower - they're a company well known for producing the best GPUs on desktops, and they don't want to admit that they're behind the curve. But ask the devs and you'll get pretty straight answers - the benchmarks tell the truth.

The explanation of why tegra is slow is a little complex, but basically in a complex 3D scene the tegra is generally drawing 2-3x more pixels than the SGX. It draws something, then draws something else over the top, then something else over the top of that. The SGX just draws the top layer, so it does a lot less work. That means either better battery life, or higher performance. And the A5X version doubles the available power.

5. iPad's features are held back to prevent macbooks being canibalised:
"Who knows what they will come up with. Maybe the next one will be more like the iScroll with a bendable display. I know they aren't going to start adding USB ports, HDMI and all the other things some people have complained it doesn't have. If they did that, why would someone pay for a Macbook when they could get an iPad for half the price? I don't know why everyone is so insistent on making an all in one type devices. Smart business have different models that attract different buyers. Someone saying Apple should load the iPad up with more expensive features found on a Macbook would be like saying Mercedes should drop a 500hp AMG tuned engine into their base model C350 thats half the price of an E class. No business is dumb enough to do such things. People who want a fully loaded mobile device and want an Apple product buy a Macbook Pro, not an iPad"

They could add ports, a keyboard and the rest - and probably take a massive chunk of the PC market. But they'd have to make it more like a desktop OS to handle all that, with all the downsides that come with that. It'd be a macbook air lite. Or just a macbook air with a touchscreen. And a macbook air with a touchscreen - sorry, but it would suck. Macbook air: nice machine for doing desktop type stuff. iPad: nice machine for doing tablet stuff. They don't mix.

6: Explanation for Why all Tegra 3 + ICS combo tablets still lag - Apple's patents:
"The "lag" you experienced is called apple got a patent on each of those functions and forced Android to take a non-optimized method of doing it, because they don't license their tech. Then apple started a lawsuit over gootorola and their patent licensing policies..."

I follow the patent battles closely, and this isn't true. There have been a few changes to android because of patents - notably the slide-to-unlock being removed, and the nice "bounce when you scroll past the bottom of a webpage" thing. But nothing that would cause lag outside of those 2 situations.

I suspect the lag is caused by a mixture of:

- Google not hardware accelerating everything in the UI (especially in older OS versions)

- The GPU not being fast enough to handle complex UI animations at times

- Hardware makers adding their own crappy, unoptimised software

- GPU drivers being generally crappy (I'd guess nvidia should be on top of this, but I've seen android devices before with a GPU but *no GPU driver* making it utterly useless!)

- Poorly written apps. And java. Java is great for some stuff, but it can cripple performance for even simple tasks in some situations. There are poor apps on iOS too, but at least the bar is set a lot higher (you have to learn low(er) level obj-c and C rather than high-level java meaning more understanding of the system, and there's a review process for apps that gets rid of the very worst offenders).

- I seem to remember something about the android OS design causing lag too, but can't remember the details.

 

[DodgeV83]

This is pretty meaningless - the tegra 3 has a quad core CPU and a single core GPU (it does have 12 "core-like" units inside the GPU, but this isn't the same thing). The A5X has a dual core CPU, and a quad-core GPU (each core having a number of processing units inside it too), although apps see the GPU as a single unit so that's irrelevant anyway. Also, never believe nvidia's core counts - they claimed the tegra 1 was "7-core", by counting things like the audio processor and power management as cores.

It simply comes down to this: the tegra has a much more powerful CPU (quad core vs. dual core, and the cores are pretty similar). Best case, it's roughly 2x faster than the ipad. The A5X has a much more powerful GPU - and no matter what nvidia says about standard benchmarks done by unbiased 3rd parties being doubtful, it really is much faster. Take a look at some of the X-ray images of the chips too - the A5X is huge, and it's mostly GPU.

Actually the tegra is possibly *faster* in the simpler benchmarks, because of the design differences - it's in complex 3D games that the powervr 'tiled' architecture really pushes it ahead so much.

So which is better? Depends on what you want to use it for. If you're driving a retina-class screen and playing games, the a5x. If you're doing anything CPU heavy like watching videos (that aren't in a format that the chip can handle in hardware at least) then the tegra has more power.



Apple compete on the basis of a complete product, not individual parts. Who cares which has the fastest CPU or the most memory, when you can compare the tablet and see which one works best? The things that matter on a tablet are the screen quality, smoothness of operation, battery life, and quality of software.

Now, how competitive is nvidia on those things? It isn't, because it doesn't make tablets, it makes a single part for them. Nvidia has to compete on the specs of its parts - it has to get high benchmark scores while using minimal power, because it's competing against qualcomm, nvidia and the other SOC makers.

When apple do reveal specs, it's almost always to show how much better it is than the previous iPad. The mention of the tegra was a bit of a one-off, and I'm not sure why they did that... maybe to counter nvidia's marketing?



Yep, very true. Other phones have antenna issues for sure, just as apple said - but on nothing like the same scale. I found my iPhone 4 really annoying without a case.



It's not suspicious, it's a pretty basic and standard benchmark. I can say as a dev specialising in GPU work that it's widely known that Imagination's SGX architecture is way ahead of nvidia's for mobile. On the desktop, where power isn't such an issue, it might go the other way, but on mobile nvidia isn't really competitive.

Nvidia are obviously going to dispute benchmarks proving their GPU is slower - they're a company well known for producing the best GPUs on desktops, and they don't want to admit that they're behind the curve. But ask the devs and you'll get pretty straight answers - the benchmarks tell the truth.

The explanation of why tegra is slow is a little complex, but basically in a complex 3D scene the tegra is generally drawing 2-3x more pixels than the SGX. It draws something, then draws something else over the top, then something else over the top of that. The SGX just draws the top layer, so it does a lot less work. That means either better battery life, or higher performance. And the A5X version doubles the available power.



They could add ports, a keyboard and the rest - and probably take a massive chunk of the PC market. But they'd have to make it more like a desktop OS to handle all that, with all the downsides that come with that. It'd be a macbook air lite. Or just a macbook air with a touchscreen. And a macbook air with a touchscreen - sorry, but it would suck. Macbook air: nice machine for doing desktop type stuff. iPad: nice machine for doing tablet stuff. They don't mix.



I follow the patent battles closely, and this isn't true. There have been a few changes to android because of patents - notably the slide-to-unlock being removed, and the nice "bounce when you scroll past the bottom of a webpage" thing. But nothing that would cause lag outside of those 2 situations.

I suspect the lag is caused by a mixture of:

- Google not hardware accelerating everything in the UI (especially in older OS versions)

- The GPU not being fast enough to handle complex UI animations at times

- Hardware makers adding their own crappy, unoptimised software

- GPU drivers being generally crappy (I'd guess nvidia should be on top of this, but I've seen android devices before with a GPU but *no GPU driver* making it utterly useless!)

- Poorly written apps. And java. Java is great for some stuff, but it can cripple performance for even simple tasks in some situations. There are poor apps on iOS too, but at least the bar is set a lot higher (you have to learn low(er) level obj-c and C rather than high-level java meaning more understanding of the system, and there's a review process for apps that gets rid of the very worst offenders).

- I seem to remember something about the android OS design causing lag too, but can't remember the details.

Hey psonice, love your nightcap update

Back to the topic, the A5X does on board Z-buffering? Where can I read more about this?