Snapdragon 820 announcement

[William Tadekawa]

Considering that the Snapdragon 820 and Exynos 8 are now officially announced and rumored to be in phones possibly by the end of this year (Huawei) or early next year (Samsung), do you think the Lumia 950/XL (yet to be released) is already "outdated" in terms of specs? The 808 and 810 have been around pretty much this whole year. I understand that the hardware was probably sitting at Microsoft forever waiting for a handful of employees to finish the OS, but us consumers have to "suffer" the wait, which may also hurt sales for MS. We all know that in the tech world, things can become outdated very quickly.

 

[Paul1266]

How can it be outdated? Nothing has the 820 yet...and "suffer"?! Bit melodramatic eh? What's that all about? I would rather have a device that has a tried and tested processor than be a Guinea pig to be honest. If Manufacturers were always waiting for the next chip they would never get anything out. Furthermore, the iterative increases in performance on some of these high end chips are getting smaller and less to get excited about. It's become a daft arms race which doesnt produce corresponding benefits. I would rather these companies concentrated on leveraging better battery life. Most of their users don't need all that under the hood power but would appreciate longer battery stamina I suspect.

 

[Zulfigar]

No, no, he's right, the Lumia 950 and 950 XL are outdated, but only in terms of the SoC, while in terms of features, they're still far ahead. So, yeah, they're outdated, but not in the department it really matters.

 

[RumoredNow]

There is always a new SoC coming. Take a moment to consider this fact.

Hamsters run on treadmills and put on miles and miles and miles and never really get anywhere. You can't keep chasing the next chip to exclusion of what is present. Try and enjoy the moment. How much computing power do you NEED from your phone today?

 

[William Tadekawa]

So I guess my main question is, how long until specs become outdated? For example, if the 950 had a Snapdragon 801, I actually wouldn't buy it. I didn't wait this long and pay $550 to get a device with an old processor. If it's going to be called a high-end, it needs to have the best of the best. If it's like the OnePlus X, though, having an SD 801 is completely fine since it's an excellent value for the low price tag. Sure, you could argue that we don't need better processors, better RAM, better displays, etc. But that's the exact reason why I would never buy an iPhone. They give you the bare minimum for a high price. All they ever say is, "you don't need more cores, more RAM, higher pixel density, more storage (16GB for $650!?), bigger battery, microSD, NFC other than for Apple Pay, etc. etc." Yet apparently you need to pay a high price for such cheap products. Apple users obviously don't care, which works out for both the consumers and company. I just don't want Windows Mobile to become something like that. Sure, the specs right now are average for a high-end Android smartphone since the beginning of this year. 3GB RAM, SD 808, QHD screen, etc. Windows Hello is very cool, plus the apparently superb camera, but other than that there's really no "wow factor" in terms of hardware. Apple's A9 compared to A8 is very impressive, which is the kind of processor I wish the new Lumias had. I think MS maybe considered waiting for the SD 820, but because that would be the beginning of next year, they just decided to release the 950/XL just so they have something for us this year. Maybe it's just bad timing for Windows mobile this year. If it weren't for the software, we would probably have the new Lumias in our hands for months by now, and can look forward to the Surface phone with a new Intel chip or SD 820 being released around Q2 of next year. And if we're talking about Windows 10 Mobile being able to run .exe files, I'm pretty sure that processing power is extremely important.

 

[RumoredNow]

My now aging 1520 came with an SD 800. It was released in November of 2013. I purchased mine BNIB in August of 2014 and paid $485. I'm still satisfied enough to take a pass on 950 and 950 XL.

If I was to get either I'd go for the 950. Not for the size, but the "less powerful" 808 intrigues me more than the 810. I believe either would suffice for the next 2 years easily.

If you wait until this spring the price on these phones is likely to drop a bit anyway. I don't consider the 808 or the 810 outdated. Reviewers might. I don't. For what people will do with these phones in the field it is fine. In terms of price, I think the initial price is about spot on for what hardware is on offer.

 

[StaticXCC]

The moment you drop the $$$ on a high end phone, it will be outdated a few months later. Had you waited to get the new phone a few months later to avoid this... then THAT phone will be outdated a few months later.

CPU horsepower is a moving goalpost you will never catch. Buy for the now, because it's impossible to future proof your purchase no matter when or what you purchase.

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

 

[William Tadekawa]

Thanks for the reply, guys. I appreciate your time.