3 ms·

Very interesting analysis. I am in no part discouting what you say, but i for one would like to see the OEM's push this increase in efficiency. Obviously when

Very interesting analysis. I am in no part discouting what you say, but i for one would like to see the OEM's push this increase in efficiency. Obviously when it comes to battery life there are a million and one different factors, but considering a mobile devices usefulness is directly related to its ability to run(have battery) you would think this would be a more focused area. I mean i know most people are happy with a full days charge but i dont think it would be outlandish to say that the majority of phones limp in one 1 days use. Battery life has decreased over the years not increased. My comment of "1/6 the battery usage" was more to if it has 6x the power does it use 6x the energy?

polshaw 14y ago
Basically, we are seeing devices with an increased dynamic range WRT power. They are going to idle at similar power, and they will have better performance-per-watt, but at 100%, they will use more. IMO, this isn't so bad. Take it to it's ultimate end, and you get a device that you can plug in and will perform like your laptop[1], but can still last a day, less fast, in your pocket. Would you prefer not to have this option of 'overpowering'? If you give both devices the exact same task, the more powerful one will use less power. The risk of course is developers-- given all this extra power is available-- may be temptated to write lazily, or include superfluous 'sugar' (OTT animations etc), which could lead to worse battery life than the basic last-gen apps. If you take the cutting edge gaming, then it would seem that you will get less playing time on the go with the tegra4 than the tegra3; there is no way that at full-tilt they use close to the same power.. but it can't be 6x either[2] But there seems to be a growing rift between the 'mobile' games and the cutting edge 3d ones.. perhaps we will see more 'low power/graphics' options available for OTG playing? 1. and we are really 'there' with chips like (quad core A15) tegra 4; the dual core A15s in the chromebook are already matching DC atoms. 2. you do have to wonder; how many watts can you pack into a smartphone without burning someone's hands off-- so there is a limit, and it can't be too far from today's devices! Having said that, tegra4 may well be tablet targeted anyway? or feature lower clocks in a phone; we don't really know much about it yet. EDIT: also, i really don't think we will see much from the OEMs on this front, unless it becomes an in thing at some point. It is hard to successfully push anything that doesn't have a well understood metric to it (like screen resolution, cores, clock speed) The issue is really one for the SOC guys (samsung, nvidia, qualcomm etc) and CPU designers (ARM, qualcomm, apple); we may see some movement if apple makes good progress and starts to use the fact heavily in marketing. Just look at the razr max; not efficiency exactly-- but battery life. And that didn't have much of an impact.

polshaw 14y ago

Basically, we are seeing devices with an increased dynamic range WRT power. They are going to idle at similar power, and they will have better performance-per-watt, but at 100%, they will use more. IMO, this isn't so bad. Take it to it's ultimate end, and you get a device that you can plug in and will perform like your laptop[1], but can still last a day, less fast, in your pocket. Would you prefer not to have this option of 'overpowering'? If you give both devices the exact same task, the more powerful one will use less power. The risk of course is developers-- given all this extra power is available-- may be temptated to write lazily, or include superfluous 'sugar' (OTT animations etc), which could lead to worse battery life than the basic last-gen apps. If you take the cutting edge gaming, then it would seem that you will get less playing time on the go with the tegra4 than the tegra3; there is no way that at full-tilt they use close to the same power.. but it can't be 6x either[2] But there seems to be a growing rift between the 'mobile' games and the cutting edge 3d ones.. perhaps we will see more 'low power/graphics' options available for OTG playing? 1. and we are really 'there' with chips like (quad core A15) tegra 4; the dual core A15s in the chromebook are already matching DC atoms. 2. you do have to wonder; how many watts can you pack into a smartphone without burning someone's hands off-- so there is a limit, and it can't be too far from today's devices! Having said that, tegra4 may well be tablet targeted anyway? or feature lower clocks in a phone; we don't really know much about it yet. EDIT: also, i really don't think we will see much from the OEMs on this front, unless it becomes an in thing at some point. It is hard to successfully push anything that doesn't have a well understood metric to it (like screen resolution, cores, clock speed) The issue is really one for the SOC guys (samsung, nvidia, qualcomm etc) and CPU designers (ARM, qualcomm, apple); we may see some movement if apple makes good progress and starts to use the fact heavily in marketing. Just look at the razr max; not efficiency exactly-- but battery life. And that didn't have much of an impact.