4 ms·

It's been fun watching this line be repeated for 30 years without getting more correct. Normal users need good performance too, but the bottom end of the marke

It's been fun watching this line be repeated for 30 years without getting more correct. Normal users need good performance too, but the bottom end of the market is always saturated with completely unsuitable crap. A safe way to look at it is that most users need roughly the power of a 2 year old flagship device. That has been true for many years as well.

VibrantClarity 7y ago
There aren't many benchmarks yet, but the Snapdragon 670's performance is roughly between the Snapdragon 821 and 835, which were the flagships just 3 and 2 years ago.
creato 7y ago
> It's been fun watching this line be repeated for 30 years without getting more correct. It absolutely is getting more correct. I used to update my desktop every year or two. I'm now still on a Core i5 2500 from 2011 and have zero reason to upgrade again, even despite some gaming use. For phones, it's a bit different because they're back on the part of the performance curve where desktops were years ago and power efficiency is still improving rapidly but I think they're getting close to that crossover point.
- bluedino 7y ago
  It seems like for every desktop user who's still on a Sandy Bridge or whatever, there's a user asking for N*2 RAM where N is the maximum currently amount of memory available in a laptop.
  - leereeves 7y ago
    I find that both statements are correct. 10-year old processors are still fast enough (I'm using one) but we need more RAM in 2019 than we needed in 2010.
sumedh 7y ago
> It's been fun watching this line be repeated for 30 years without getting more correct. The average user can comfortably use a 5 year old pc even today, ofcourse with an SSD upgrade.
- km3k 7y ago
  Even a 10 year old PC (assuming it wasn't low-end at time of purchase), with a SSD, is still good enough for most people. For me, I'm planning on getting a Pixel 3a. The talk of it being like a "2 year old flagship" sounds great to me, not a detriment at all. I'm upgrading from a Honor 8, which is an almost 3 year old mid-range phone, so the Pixel 3a will be a decent upgrade, even though the performance of my Honor 8 is still perfectly good. I'm mainly upgrading for the camera, 3 years of software updates and because my Honor 8's Bluetooth is becoming less reliable over time.

VibrantClarity 7y ago

There aren't many benchmarks yet, but the Snapdragon 670's performance is roughly between the Snapdragon 821 and 835, which were the flagships just 3 and 2 years ago.

creato 7y ago

> It's been fun watching this line be repeated for 30 years without getting more correct. It absolutely is getting more correct. I used to update my desktop every year or two. I'm now still on a Core i5 2500 from 2011 and have zero reason to upgrade again, even despite some gaming use. For phones, it's a bit different because they're back on the part of the performance curve where desktops were years ago and power efficiency is still improving rapidly but I think they're getting close to that crossover point.

bluedino 7y ago
It seems like for every desktop user who's still on a Sandy Bridge or whatever, there's a user asking for N*2 RAM where N is the maximum currently amount of memory available in a laptop.
- leereeves 7y ago
  I find that both statements are correct. 10-year old processors are still fast enough (I'm using one) but we need more RAM in 2019 than we needed in 2010.

sumedh 7y ago

> It's been fun watching this line be repeated for 30 years without getting more correct. The average user can comfortably use a 5 year old pc even today, ofcourse with an SSD upgrade.

km3k 7y ago
Even a 10 year old PC (assuming it wasn't low-end at time of purchase), with a SSD, is still good enough for most people. For me, I'm planning on getting a Pixel 3a. The talk of it being like a "2 year old flagship" sounds great to me, not a detriment at all. I'm upgrading from a Honor 8, which is an almost 3 year old mid-range phone, so the Pixel 3a will be a decent upgrade, even though the performance of my Honor 8 is still perfectly good. I'm mainly upgrading for the camera, 3 years of software updates and because my Honor 8's Bluetooth is becoming less reliable over time.