warning for anyone considering Android.

[fatclue_98]

That's not entirely true.
Flash memory eventually wears out.
LCDs can die, although not for a very long time. I hear AMOLED has a shorter lifespan somewhere, but don't quote me on that I could be wrong.

Capacitors or small parts can wear out etc
it could also be very minute defects making themselves heard

Unless there are moving parts, there is no wear. If you're telling me that silicon chips deteriorate, I can buy that since I don't know the half-life of silicon. I've never seen an expiration date on a phone. Considering there are still some 2002-era devices still running out there, I don't think the "wearing out" theory holds any water. I'm typing this on a TC1100 built in 2002. Except for a battery replacement, it still has all the factory parts. I do take care of it like making sure the heat dissipation system is clean and the fan runs as little as possible and heat stays at a minimum. Always remember, heat is the only reason we'll never see a perpetual motion machine. Never.

Any device, whether mechanical or electrical, that runs outside of its designed temperature range will suffer from early deterioration. It is the operator's responsibility to notice these things, not the manufacturer's.

 

[thed]

Unless there are moving parts, there is no wear. If you're telling me that silicon chips deteriorate, I can buy that since I don't know the half-life of silicon. I've never seen an expiration date on a phone. Considering there are still some 2002-era devices still running out there, I don't think the "wearing out" theory holds any water. I'm typing this on a TC1100 built in 2002. Except for a battery replacement, it still has all the factory parts. I do take care of it like making sure the heat dissipation system is clean and the fan runs as little as possible and heat stays at a minimum. Always remember, heat is the only reason we'll never see a perpetual motion machine. Never.

Any device, whether mechanical or electrical, that runs outside of its designed temperature range will suffer from early deterioration. It is the operator's responsibility to notice these things, not the manufacturer's.

It may not be "wear" in the traditional sense of the word, but over time electronics definitely become less reliable and more likely to fail whether there are moving parts or not. Components will always fail given enough time. Flash memory can only withstand a certain amount of write cycles before it becomes unusable (manufacturers acknowledge this and rate their products based on how many cycles you can expect to get before it dies). Taking good care of your stuff can definitely help, but in general if you have a piece of electronics that has lasted an unusually long amount of time then it's because of luck more than anything.

 

[fatclue_98]

It may not be "wear" in the traditional sense of the word, but over time electronics definitely become less reliable and more likely to fail whether there are moving parts or not. Components will always fail given enough time. Flash memory can only withstand a certain amount of write cycles before it becomes unusable (manufacturers acknowledge this and rate their products based on how many cycles you can expect to get before it dies). Taking good care of your stuff can definitely help, but in general if you have a piece of electronics that has lasted an unusually long amount of time then it's because of luck more than anything.

Failure of electronic components is not dictated by age and time. There is a distinct difference between a Qualcomm chip and a MediaTek chip and this is not by accident. Manufacturing processes and the actual materials used are the pivotal factors between a device that lasts 10 years and one that barely makes it to two years. Luck has nothing to do with it.

In my profession, electronic alarms for medical gas systems displaced mechanical ones over 20 years ago for this very reason. Circuit boards are sealed in 100% dust-free environments and the pressure sensors are accurate to +/- 0.25 psi and are checked every year by state and federal agencies. I have replaced alarm panels that were installed in the late eighties and were only replaced because they could not accommodate additional gasses. If you understood the level of quality involved with these systems you would look at your phone as a medieval piece of technology right there alongside an abacus.

The question is, do you want to pay for such longevity? The answer is a resounding "NO" because we change phones like the seasons. Nokia, Samsung and the rest want you to buy a new phone every six months to a year. Keeping it cheap is the only way to accomplish this and with the carriers all but encouraging us to trade in every year, I think we've seen the last of the truly well-built phones.

 

[stalemate1]

Electronics are not organic creatures, they don't age. They're not mechanical either so there are no moving parts to wear out. People however don't always take care of their items and most don't bother to learn how to use them properly.

Then why do old computers get slower and slower, why do battery cells die.

Why do resistors burn out. Why do capacitors stop working, why do light bulbs fuse. ?

And why does the metal body of a car degrade ? Everything on earth degrades, even if it takes 1000 years like certain plastics.

 

[stalemate1]

That's not entirely true.
Flash memory eventually wears out.
LCDs can die, although not for a very long time. I hear AMOLED has a shorter lifespan somewhere, but don't quote me on that I could be wrong.

Capacitors or small parts can wear out etc
it could also be very minute defects making themselves heard

Im not sure about life span but I have seen ghosting on AMOLED (ghosting accrues when you see faint images on a plain white screen, such as the icons in your home screen faintly showing on the white screen background as you type a message.)

 

[ohgood]

Unless there are moving parts, there is no wear. If you're telling me that silicon chips deteriorate, I can buy that since I don't know the half-life of silicon. I've never seen an expiration date on a phone. Considering there are still some 2002-era devices still running out there, I don't think the "wearing out" theory holds any water. I'm typing this on a TC1100 built in 2002. Except for a battery replacement, it still has all the factory parts. I do take care of it like making sure the heat dissipation system is clean and the fan runs as little as possible and heat stays at a minimum. Always remember, heat is the only reason we'll never see a perpetual motion machine. Never.

Any device, whether mechanical or electrical, that runs outside of its designed temperature range will suffer from early deterioration. It is the operator's responsibility to notice these things, not the manufacturer's.

your battery has no moving parts, either.

 

[fatclue_98]

your battery has no moving parts, either.

You did notice I mentioned having to replace the battery. Power supplies are their own little microcosms and shouldn't be considered as an electronic component. Most devices can run independently of their batteries if connected to an external source such as A/C power.

 

[fatclue_98]

Then why do old computers get slower and slower, why do battery cells die.

Why do resistors burn out. Why do capacitors stop working, why do light bulbs fuse. ?

And why does the metal body of a car degrade ? Everything on earth degrades, even if it takes 1000 years like certain plastics.

You're not factoring quality of construction or end-user care. Of course all materials degrade. If you smoke, drink heavily and eat fatty foods you're likely to live a very short life as well. If we're going to have an intelligent discussion at least show a modicum of common sense.

 

[himmatsj]

Not that really. It's just apps (and games especially) get more intensive etc, and our definition of quick/lag-free changes over time.

Due to the fact Android progresses quickly in terms of pure specs, the gap between the fastest device today and the fastest 12 months from now means the fastest device today will run games/apps/browse laggily in 12 months time.

I can confirm this as I have used multiple Android tablets as my primary smart devices. My current one is 18 months old. Resetting the device doesn't really help. I also have a 3 year old iPad 2, but that one is just crazy fluid. I don't know how Apple does it, but it is 32GB packed with games and I never once reset it (I also didn't upgrade to iOS 7).

I'm hoping my Lumia 1320 can at least be "relatively" lag free for a while now.

 

[himmatsj]

Yes, electronic devices age, but they are supposed to do so much slower these days. Back in 2000, I would install 2 games and my computer would suddenly take 10x as much time to start up. Not the case today anymore.

Also, flash memory is specifically made for the purpose to no "degrade" over time, at least not as much as regular disc based memory.

 

[a5cent]

Then why do old computers get slower and slower.

Computers becoming slower and slower can be attributed to a gazillion things, but none of it can be attributed to "aging integrated circuitry". HDDs are certainly one culprit, as the OS must often compensate for increasing read and write errors over time, but that is nothing that chkdsk and a full format couldn't fix. 99% of what consumers experience as "slowing" has zero to do with hardware and everything to do with software...

Users willingly or unwillingly installing new software that starts during boot and runs in the background, using up memory and CPU cycles

malware that millions of people harbour on their systems

file system fragmentation which increases with every update (one of the things SSDs make irrelevant)

Lack of storage space to maintain a swap file.

corrupt registry entries

misconfigurations, etc, etc, etc.

If you know how to properly do a clean install, any 10 year old PC can be made to run as good as new. No problem.

Not to say it can't fail... everything does eventually, but like fatclue said, integrated circuitry can easily last for multiple decades without any noticable signs of degradation... whatsoever... Seen it hundreds of times myself...

Beyond that, different types of electronics age differently. A lightbulb is something completely different from a battery or an IC. You can't lump them into a single category as examples of how electronics age. Not comparable.

 

[tekhna]

Not that really. It's just apps (and games especially) get more intensive etc, and our definition of quick/lag-free changes over time.

Due to the fact Android progresses quickly in terms of pure specs, the gap between the fastest device today and the fastest 12 months from now means the fastest device today will run games/apps/browse laggily in 12 months time.

I can confirm this as I have used multiple Android tablets as my primary smart devices. My current one is 18 months old. Resetting the device doesn't really help. I also have a 3 year old iPad 2, but that one is just crazy fluid. I don't know how Apple does it, but it is 32GB packed with games and I never once reset it (I also didn't upgrade to iOS 7).

I'm hoping my Lumia 1320 can at least be "relatively" lag free for a while now.

False. The Moto X is basically a Galaxy S3 with an upgraded GPU and it's the best Android phone on the market.

 

[fatclue_98]

Not that really. It's just apps (and games especially) get more intensive etc, and our definition of quick/lag-free changes over time.

Due to the fact Android progresses quickly in terms of pure specs, the gap between the fastest device today and the fastest 12 months from now means the fastest device today will run games/apps/browse laggily in 12 months time.

I can confirm this as I have used multiple Android tablets as my primary smart devices. My current one is 18 months old. Resetting the device doesn't really help. I also have a 3 year old iPad 2, but that one is just crazy fluid. I don't know how Apple does it, but it is 32GB packed with games and I never once reset it (I also didn't upgrade to iOS 7).

I'm hoping my Lumia 1320 can at least be "relatively" lag free for a while now.

WP and iOS don't need the resources that Android does so you get more with less. Remember also that Android devices come from umpteen different MFGs with umpteen different skins, not to mention carrier bloatware. A Nexus device without rooting or custom ROM runs pretty good and remains quite stable. I just don't like Android's UI or Google's business practices.

 

[ohgood]

WP and iOS don't need the resources that Android does so you get more with less.

what do you get more of ?

the resources are available, 1gb of ram, quads if cores, why would you not use them?


usually, I drive on all four of my tires are once, and roll all four of my windows up it down as the seasons change. doesn't make sense to me to not use what's available to get things done.

 

[fatclue_98]

what do you get more of ?

the resources are available, 1gb of ram, quads if cores, why would you not use them?


usually, I drive on all four of my tires are once, and roll all four of my windows up it down as the seasons change. doesn't make sense to me to not use what's available to get things done.

Efficiency of design. If you don't need quad cores to achieve the same results as dual cores, why burden yourself with higher manufacturing costs? It's reaching the point of diminishing returns. Would you put a Z06 motor in a Corolla even if it fit?

 

[ohgood]

Efficiency of design. If you don't need quad cores to achieve the same results as dual cores, why burden yourself with higher manufacturing costs? It's reaching the point of diminishing returns. Would you put a Z06 motor in a Corolla even if it fit?

hmm, so the benefits zero, of not using the available resources. OK, got out.

the corolla part is an undeniable, resounding


yes, absolutely!

 

[a5cent]

hmm, so the benefits zero, of not using the available resources. OK, got out!

Fatclue was referring to something I'll call software efficiency, which doesn't really have anything to do with "not using the available resources". Rather, software efficiency is about reducing the computational effort required to achieve a defined outcome. For example, assume that achieving a desired outcome requires 20 million calculations. If we can find a way for our software to achieve the same outcome with only 10 million calculations, then we've made the software twice as efficient. If we have a multicore CPU at our disposal, then we should obviously prefer to distribute those calculations across all available cores, but that has no bearing on software efficiency. Basically, software efficiency is unaffected by how much hardware you "throw at it".

The benefit of more efficient software depends on what the software does. Typically, more efficient software can complete an operation in less time, and/or do so using less battery power. If we're talking about a game which continuously runs at full speed, and assuming those 10 million calculations represent the effort required to render one frame, then we can't say if we'll use more or less battery power, but we very likely will achieve a higher frame rate, as the system mustn't expend as much effort rendering each frame.

In a nutshell, improving software efficiency boils down to "working smarter, not harder".

WP's UI rendering stack is one area where WP is very efficient, at least when compared to Android. The benefit is a UI that performs just as well on devices from 2012, as it does on an L1520 from 2014. Optimization is a similar word that is often used in the same context, which can mean the same thing, but doesn't have to.

Finally, imagine an app that must complete a task, after which it goes back to waiting for the next user interaction. If you can make that task twice as efficient, then your app will go back to waiting sooner. During execution, that task will hopefully use all the hardware at its disposal (never happens in practice, but this is purely theoretical), but either way, once it has completed , it will have used fewer CPU cycles (computing resources) to achieve the desired outcome... that is what Fatclue was referring to with "less".

I'm not disagreeing with your point, which is also important. It's just not really what Fatclue was referring to.

 

[ohgood]

when I saw two operating systems lumped into 'more with less' I was hoping for some daily usage examples where it actually mattered.

 

[a5cent]

when I saw two operating systems lumped into 'more with less' I was hoping for some daily usage examples where it actually mattered.

Consider battery life. Compared to Android devices in the same price range, the iPhone's battery is pathetically small (1560 mAh), yet it is still able to remain somewhat competitive in battery life tests. Apple couldn't stick to their preferred (tiny) form-factor and remain competitive in that discipline without that efficiency advantage. If Apple ever releases a larger device with much larger batteries, they will role up the field and I may have to consider switching (unless MS gets all the battery related wrinkles ironed out before then... ehem...).

 

[ohgood]

Consider battery life. Compared to Android devices in the same price range, the iPhone's battery is pathetically small (1560 mAh), yet it is still able to remain somewhat competitive in battery life tests. Apple couldn't stick to their preferred (tiny) form-factor and remain competitive in that discipline without that efficiency advantage. If Apple ever releases a larger device with much larger batteries, they will role up the field and I may have to consider switching (unless MS gets all the battery related wrinkles ironed out before then... ehem...).

playing a movie , game, or sat nav with a screen on is going to drain all of them. plugging my phone in, or dropping it on a inductive mat isnt a big deal.


I really expected to hear someone say wp /iOS was smoother, and bring up the 'android lags!' thing.


since it's looking like moot, i'll play the other side now and argue with myself: what's the point of having an octocore device when a single core does everything just as well?

because single core saved the planet!