5 ms·

Device specs have become meaningless

40 points by owlmusic 15y ago

ZeroGravitas 15y ago
Strangely, I saw the the exact opposite reviews of the devices (i.e. Nook Color Tablet was slick, Kindle Fire was choppy). I guess that's why people throw in the stats, at least they are objective on some level. Engadget: "the Fire never delivers smooth, seamless performance." http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/14/amazon-kindle-fire-review/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/14/amazon-kindle-fire-review... Verge: "There’s nothing worse in a tablet than a choppy interface, and the Fire seems to be completely chop-free." http://gizmodo.com/5844623/amazon-kindle-fire-tablet-will-cost-a-shocking-199 http://gizmodo.com/5844623/amazon-kindle-fire-tablet-will-co...
- camtarn 15y ago
  The two publications were reviewing different things, if you slightly expand the Engadget quote: "...the Fire never delivers smooth, seamless performance. While Amazon's own carousel of recently used items is slick and smooth, we had inconsistent results with APKs we sideloaded on here. Amazon's own media players work well, but third party ones that offered better compatibility with file formats universally did not. That said, 2D games like the omnipresent Angry Birds ran without issue, and simple 3D games like Fruit Ninja had no problems either."
  - smackfu 15y ago
    Well, Engadget is using an interesting definition for "never" there.
  - ZeroGravitas 15y ago
    "never" vs. "completely" seem to suggest that they were talking about the same thing i.e. the device holistically. The fact that they partly contradict themselves just reinforces the point about subjective reviews, particularly from websites that are pageviews led.
- falling 15y ago
  Yes, numbers are objective, that's why some 1GHz dual-core Android devices still can't scroll a web page as smoothly as the 1st gen 400MHz iPhone.
  - vetinari 15y ago
    If you like to scroll checker board, then yes, the 1st gen iPhone is very smooth.
    - falling 15y ago
      You are right. Make that 600MHz iPhone 3G S.
Udo 15y ago
Devices, at least contained devices, are obsolete. New products can’t be built or reviewed without human context, the messier the better. Performance can no longer be measured with instruments, only with humans, which makes both engineering and reviews particularly tricky. It's easy to get carried away with thoughts like these, forgetting that this wonderful "new" paradigm is based on some huge tradeoffs. I think it's dangerous to turn your back on actual technical improvement in favor of papering over insufficient capability with an internet link and some proprietary services.
geori 15y ago
There's a clear reason for the death of the spec. The NYT mentioned a few months ago, that software has improved the speed of calculations much more dramatically than hardware did. Is anyone surprised that the closed systems are winning!? "the White House advisory report cited research, including a study of progress over a 15-year span on a benchmark production-planning task. Over that time, the speed of completing the calculations improved by a factor of 43 million. Of the total, a factor of roughly 1,000 was attributable to faster processor speeds, according to the research by Martin Grotschel, a German scientist and mathematician. Yet a factor of 43,000 was due to improvements in the efficiency of software algorithms"
- camtarn 15y ago
  And at the same time, our computers and other devices don't have significantly faster interactive response times. I find it a little depressing that my Android phone - which has a faster processor and more RAM than my first three PCs - still has interface lag. Just like cupboard space, computation expands to fit the available capacity.
JulianMorrison 15y ago
You need specs to handle the churn of incoming and outgoing data, multitask your apps, draw the local part of games, etc etc. Even devices that amount to mere terminals, are not dumb terminals.
joakleaf 15y ago
Please. They have always been meaningless. In the 80s we were trying to compare Amigas, PCs and Macs. Well the PC had faster scrolling in its word processors, because it used text-mode graphics (the entire screen was 4KB, so it could scroll fast). The Amiga and Mac had wysiwyg, but rendered slower because of that. You picked what you felt was important; UX or compatibility. What was the point of comparing 80x86s with 68000s. What was the point of comparing RAM when the software using the ram was different. Or how about screen resolutions? I had a PC with 1024x768 pixels which was more than the Amigas, but hardly any software used the resolution or supported it. My friends' amigas had tonnes of software -- That all ran of floppies. In the 90s it was PowerPC vs. Pentium debate. We never found out which was faster, and we didn't really care. Specs are useful if the software/system running on it is identical. They didn't become any more meaningless or meaningful than they were 20 years ago. What we want now is the same thing we wanted 20 years ago. Responsive software! The specs will not tell you if it is responsive or not, but it can often give you a hint as to which of two devices with identical software is more responsive. It is just that you cannot easily compare apples and androids, just as you couldn't compare Macs and PCs, or even cars from different brands using specs. ... This is nothing new! But perhaps people are just realizing it... again!
- mikeleeorg 15y ago
  I was just about to say the same thing. If you look outside the innovator & early adopter markets - to the early & late majority markets - you'll find a lot of confusion over specs. They'll glance them over, then make a choice by: 1) The brand 2) The price 3) The look & feel of it 4) A friend's recommendation 5) A salesperson's recommendation They might glance at specs, not to make a hard analytical comparison, but to rule out what they fear might not be a good machine. Then, with their top choices, it's other factors that influence their purchase decision.
brudgers 15y ago
Specs have always been somewhat meaningless for consumer oriented products...e.g., "You buy horsepower but you drive torque."
udp 15y ago
I don't agree - You look at the CPU and GPU specs to see how fast a game will run, not something like Siri. You look at the storage to see how many MP3s you can fit on there, not how many calendar entries. Sure, a lot of the applications are moving to the cloud, but I never really expected the specs to make much difference to the speed of simple applications anyway (well, if they do in this day and age, something is seriously wrong).
- Terretta 15y ago
  I don't agree. Consumers will be mostly web browsing, checking email, and consuming media, with web browsing having the most noticeable lag between intent and rendered result. Consumers hope the CPU spec correlates to that use, because e spec tables don't usually show amusing else. Consumers are really dumb about spec lists. How else would the computer industry get away with marketing laptops or monitors by inches instead of megapixels?
ctdonath 15y ago
Spec sheets are an excuse, at least insofar as they're used as advertising. They're a presumptive admission the product is inadequate, rattling off a bunch of numbers in the hopes the customer will overlook the factual inadequacy. If the product does what the customer wants, the customer doesn't need (or want) specs.
JoshTriplett 15y ago
If you want an appliance, then sure, you don't need to bother with specs; you shouldn't have to care about the processor speed of a dedicated music player any more than the microprocessor in a microwave. If you want a computer, however, then specs matter quite a bit, because they determine how fast arbitrary general-purpose programs will run, and whether they can run at all. Personally, when I buy a smartphone, I want a computer, not an appliance. If I wanted an appliance, I'd buy a non-smartphone, and I indeed wouldn't bother checking the performance specs.
arjn 15y ago
IMO - there is something here, at least with respect to handhelds/mobile devices the user experience is what counts. However things such as battery life still matter since they directly tie in with user experience. Also processor specs could indicate potential video performance or some some such thing that people care about. Slightly off-topic but the OP left out this portion of the same gizmodo article referenced : "After the event, I got a chance to play with the Nook Tablet some more. Maybe the first device was glitching or running too many apps in the background, but the second unit was much more fluid and responsive. It still had some lagginess, and web browsing wasn't amazing, but it was definitely better. eBooks and magazines especially. Long story short, it was much more in line for what's expected in a $250 device."

40 points by owlmusic 15y ago

Strangely, I saw the the exact opposite reviews of the devices (i.e. Nook Color Tablet was slick, Kindle Fire was choppy). I guess that's why people throw in the stats, at least they are objective on some level. Engadget: "the Fire never delivers smooth, seamless performance." http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/14/amazon-kindle-fire-review/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/14/amazon-kindle-fire-review... Verge: "There’s nothing worse in a tablet than a choppy interface, and the Fire seems to be completely chop-free." http://gizmodo.com/5844623/amazon-kindle-fire-tablet-will-cost-a-shocking-199 http://gizmodo.com/5844623/amazon-kindle-fire-tablet-will-co...

camtarn 15y ago
The two publications were reviewing different things, if you slightly expand the Engadget quote: "...the Fire never delivers smooth, seamless performance. While Amazon's own carousel of recently used items is slick and smooth, we had inconsistent results with APKs we sideloaded on here. Amazon's own media players work well, but third party ones that offered better compatibility with file formats universally did not. That said, 2D games like the omnipresent Angry Birds ran without issue, and simple 3D games like Fruit Ninja had no problems either."
- smackfu 15y ago
  Well, Engadget is using an interesting definition for "never" there.
- ZeroGravitas 15y ago
  "never" vs. "completely" seem to suggest that they were talking about the same thing i.e. the device holistically. The fact that they partly contradict themselves just reinforces the point about subjective reviews, particularly from websites that are pageviews led.
falling 15y ago
Yes, numbers are objective, that's why some 1GHz dual-core Android devices still can't scroll a web page as smoothly as the 1st gen 400MHz iPhone.
- vetinari 15y ago
  If you like to scroll checker board, then yes, the 1st gen iPhone is very smooth.
  - falling 15y ago
    You are right. Make that 600MHz iPhone 3G S.

Udo 15y ago

Devices, at least contained devices, are obsolete. New products can’t be built or reviewed without human context, the messier the better. Performance can no longer be measured with instruments, only with humans, which makes both engineering and reviews particularly tricky. It's easy to get carried away with thoughts like these, forgetting that this wonderful "new" paradigm is based on some huge tradeoffs. I think it's dangerous to turn your back on actual technical improvement in favor of papering over insufficient capability with an internet link and some proprietary services.

geori 15y ago

There's a clear reason for the death of the spec. The NYT mentioned a few months ago, that software has improved the speed of calculations much more dramatically than hardware did. Is anyone surprised that the closed systems are winning!? "the White House advisory report cited research, including a study of progress over a 15-year span on a benchmark production-planning task. Over that time, the speed of completing the calculations improved by a factor of 43 million. Of the total, a factor of roughly 1,000 was attributable to faster processor speeds, according to the research by Martin Grotschel, a German scientist and mathematician. Yet a factor of 43,000 was due to improvements in the efficiency of software algorithms"

camtarn 15y ago
And at the same time, our computers and other devices don't have significantly faster interactive response times. I find it a little depressing that my Android phone - which has a faster processor and more RAM than my first three PCs - still has interface lag. Just like cupboard space, computation expands to fit the available capacity.

JulianMorrison 15y ago

You need specs to handle the churn of incoming and outgoing data, multitask your apps, draw the local part of games, etc etc. Even devices that amount to mere terminals, are not dumb terminals.

joakleaf 15y ago

Please. They have always been meaningless. In the 80s we were trying to compare Amigas, PCs and Macs. Well the PC had faster scrolling in its word processors, because it used text-mode graphics (the entire screen was 4KB, so it could scroll fast). The Amiga and Mac had wysiwyg, but rendered slower because of that. You picked what you felt was important; UX or compatibility. What was the point of comparing 80x86s with 68000s. What was the point of comparing RAM when the software using the ram was different. Or how about screen resolutions? I had a PC with 1024x768 pixels which was more than the Amigas, but hardly any software used the resolution or supported it. My friends' amigas had tonnes of software -- That all ran of floppies. In the 90s it was PowerPC vs. Pentium debate. We never found out which was faster, and we didn't really care. Specs are useful if the software/system running on it is identical. They didn't become any more meaningless or meaningful than they were 20 years ago. What we want now is the same thing we wanted 20 years ago. Responsive software! The specs will not tell you if it is responsive or not, but it can often give you a hint as to which of two devices with identical software is more responsive. It is just that you cannot easily compare apples and androids, just as you couldn't compare Macs and PCs, or even cars from different brands using specs. ... This is nothing new! But perhaps people are just realizing it... again!

mikeleeorg 15y ago
I was just about to say the same thing. If you look outside the innovator & early adopter markets - to the early & late majority markets - you'll find a lot of confusion over specs. They'll glance them over, then make a choice by: 1) The brand 2) The price 3) The look & feel of it 4) A friend's recommendation 5) A salesperson's recommendation They might glance at specs, not to make a hard analytical comparison, but to rule out what they fear might not be a good machine. Then, with their top choices, it's other factors that influence their purchase decision.

brudgers 15y ago

Specs have always been somewhat meaningless for consumer oriented products...e.g., "You buy horsepower but you drive torque."

udp 15y ago

I don't agree - You look at the CPU and GPU specs to see how fast a game will run, not something like Siri. You look at the storage to see how many MP3s you can fit on there, not how many calendar entries. Sure, a lot of the applications are moving to the cloud, but I never really expected the specs to make much difference to the speed of simple applications anyway (well, if they do in this day and age, something is seriously wrong).

Terretta 15y ago
I don't agree. Consumers will be mostly web browsing, checking email, and consuming media, with web browsing having the most noticeable lag between intent and rendered result. Consumers hope the CPU spec correlates to that use, because e spec tables don't usually show amusing else. Consumers are really dumb about spec lists. How else would the computer industry get away with marketing laptops or monitors by inches instead of megapixels?

ctdonath 15y ago

Spec sheets are an excuse, at least insofar as they're used as advertising. They're a presumptive admission the product is inadequate, rattling off a bunch of numbers in the hopes the customer will overlook the factual inadequacy. If the product does what the customer wants, the customer doesn't need (or want) specs.

JoshTriplett 15y ago

If you want an appliance, then sure, you don't need to bother with specs; you shouldn't have to care about the processor speed of a dedicated music player any more than the microprocessor in a microwave. If you want a computer, however, then specs matter quite a bit, because they determine how fast arbitrary general-purpose programs will run, and whether they can run at all. Personally, when I buy a smartphone, I want a computer, not an appliance. If I wanted an appliance, I'd buy a non-smartphone, and I indeed wouldn't bother checking the performance specs.

arjn 15y ago

IMO - there is something here, at least with respect to handhelds/mobile devices the user experience is what counts. However things such as battery life still matter since they directly tie in with user experience. Also processor specs could indicate potential video performance or some some such thing that people care about. Slightly off-topic but the OP left out this portion of the same gizmodo article referenced : "After the event, I got a chance to play with the Nook Tablet some more. Maybe the first device was glitching or running too many apps in the background, but the second unit was much more fluid and responsive. It still had some lagginess, and web browsing wasn't amazing, but it was definitely better. eBooks and magazines especially. Long story short, it was much more in line for what's expected in a $250 device."