Why the need for higher res screens and quad core processors?

tekhna

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Need quadcore and high resolution to work smoothy? No

Need quadcore and high resolution to sell your product? Yes

It is now becoming a spec war, doesnt matter if you need it, you have to have the biggest and fastest specs in all the land to compete.

Yep. And people here seem to want to ignore that, or call people sheep. Which is fine. But it's not selling phones. Fact is, even the iPhone has to play the specs war/game now.

As for screen resolution, give me a break. Go use a high-res phone screen and then try to go back to low-res screen. They look awful once you see how much better high-quality, high-res screens are. And here, specs actually make sense. More pixels=need for more processing power.

As I've said before, it's just rank apologism to suggest that WP7 couldn't benefit from better specs.
 

pderosa

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The resolution is not as big a factor unless you are looking at two phones side by side. It I put my Lumia 900 up against an iPhone I have to admit that the resolution is better on the iPhone, however I prefer the contrast on the Lumia. There are much blacker blacks and it is much easier to see in the sunlight. When I don't have the phones up next to each other I don't look at my Lumia and think that it has bad resolution. If I think back to when I got my Nokia N95 years ago, I thought that had a great display on it, but when I hold it up to a current phone, I now see that it is nowhere close to the technology that is available today.

In my opinion, if I don't look at a phone on it's own and think, "wow, that looks bad" then I'm OK with it regardless of if there is some phone out there that is better in comparison. It should also be said that the better the resolution and the more cores in the processor, the more battery hungry the device will be. There are plenty of people out there that need to have the highest res and the fastest processor, but want their phone to be paper thin and have the battery last forever. I don't think it's possible to have everything. Buy a phone you like and enjoy it, don't spend all your time comparing it to the next great thing.
 

jbjtkbw007

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There is no NEED. It's a want, bottom line.

You go and shop for a car. Sure, you can get the more horsepower, gadetry, and such, but you'll pay more. Bottom line is you want the car for the basics: transportation, utility, storage, etc. Same applies here on some level.

Bragging rights and specs do sell, unfortunately. Doesn't mean it's right. The Nokia up to my Bionic while I had it was so much more superior of a screen and popped next to it. I didn't need the dual core and higher res to enjoy what I was looking at. It didn't help me be more productive and didn't make any apps any more visually appealing. I think the screen technology trumps straight up resolution any day. My personal feeling.
 

tekhna

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There is no NEED. It's a want, bottom line.

You go and shop for a car. Sure, you can get the more horsepower, gadetry, and such, but you'll pay more. Bottom line is you want the car for the basics: transportation, utility, storage, etc. Same applies here on some level.

Bragging rights and specs do sell, unfortunately. Doesn't mean it's right. The Nokia up to my Bionic while I had it was so much more superior of a screen and popped next to it. I didn't need the dual core and higher res to enjoy what I was looking at. It didn't help me be more productive and didn't make any apps any more visually appealing. I think the screen technology trumps straight up resolution any day. My personal feeling.

But the thing is it doesn't apply here--the Lumia 900 costs something like 20% more to build than the iPhone, for substantially lesser specs.
 

socialcarpet

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Its easy to make an argument for higher resolution. Its not just about a "nicer" picture. Higher res allows you to fit more content in the same size screen, this is especially relevant when you want to view web pages in desktop mode instead of "mobile" which no smartphone user should really need. That said, much of the stink made over 800x480 whether in biased reviews of recent Windows Phones (Lumia 900) or people here, is a bit over the top.

The fact is that 800x480 is still the standard for smartphones. The vast majority of them have that res or even lower in a few cases. The iPhones 960xwhatever is better than average. The handful of Android phones that have 1280x720 are also unusual and not the norm. Should WP offer that? Absolutely, and the first Lumia that has 1280x720, I will probably buy. But no one should act as if 800x480 is anything less than the norm right now.



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socialcarpet

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Now regarding multi-core processors, that's a bit more if a gray area where marketing hype is outpacing practical use. Multi core processors only make a noticeable difference in performance when you are using a multitasking OS designed to take advantage if them AND while you're doing something that leverages that advantage, and/or when running an app written to use multiple cores. Most DESKTOP computer apps aren't even designed to do that yet. Photoshop, video editing software, things like that benefit dramatically from being optimized for multicore processors. High end games do too. The truth is most things you do with a phone won't perform amazingly better with 2 or more cores. Background processes wil run faster and smoother if the OS is optimized for sure though. Better games will be possible. Video editing and very processor intensive stuff like that will be noticeably faster. But for most things, ita going to be a very small difference, certainly not in proportion with the hype. I guarantee you quad core Androids are still going to stumble and lag over Google's sloppy coding.

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socialcarpet

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Also, performance and more cores or resolution does necessarily equal a corresponding decrease in battery life. Samsungs new 4 core Exynos chip actually uses 20% less energy than the 2 core chip it supersedes. As chips get smaller and smaller nm they will gain processing power while simultaneously using less power.

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Big Bang Radar

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There isn't. Its mainly to make the fandroids to STFU after roughly 2 years of whining about single core processors & HD displays. Windows 95 needed 8MB to run. Win 7 needs a gig of RAM. Do we take real advantage of that? No. The same arguement stands there too.
 

tekhna

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There isn't. Its mainly to make the fandroids to STFU after roughly 2 years of whining about single core processors & HD displays. Windows 95 needed 8MB to run. Win 7 needs a gig of RAM. Do we take real advantage of that? No. The same arguement stands there too.

I'll trade you my Gateway (upgraded to Windows 95! 14.4kb modem--I paid extra for that puppy) for your Win7 comp w/1gb of RAM. If you don't see any advantage to your Win7 comp, that is.

You and Bill Gates should start a "No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer" club!
 
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Big Bang Radar

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I'll trade you my Gateway (upgraded to Windows 95! 14.4kb modem--I paid extra for that puppy) for your Win7 comp w/1gb of RAM. If you don't see any advantage to your Win7 comp, that is.

You and Bill Gates should start a "No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer" club!

Ugh. That's not how I meant it.

Like this:

Word in Windows 95 is practically the same task as it is in Windows 7, but with a freshened up Aero interface and Ribbon. The differece is is that the Office at the time was more advanced (In the interface) and there was a grey bar rather than a thicker...Clear bar? And, BTW, I have 4gb RAM :p

I'm just saying, Windows is actually quite resource hungry for an OS with many of the same features that were in 95, Its like I insulted you or something.
 

Silverdogz

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I understand hi-res screens. But a quad core come on. I have a dual core in my DESKTOP. When phone CPUs surpass a standard desktop's CPU. Then it's not a phone just a minicomputer.

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cckgz4

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Actually - that's not true - it has to do with viewing distance and whether you can see the pixels from the average viewing distance. With your computer screen you are normally 24-36 inches away so the individual pixels are not visible. With your phone very often you are only 12 inches away and on larger screen sizes (4.3" or larger) it does make a difference having a higher res display (tell me the Titan/Titan II doesn't have some pixelation). Anyone who says the iPhones retina display isn't amazingly crisp is lying to themselves (330 pixels per inch does make a difference). And next time you're in an ATT store take a look at the new HTC One X (4.7" Super LCD II display). Tell me you wouldn't like to see WP7 on hardware like that and you're not only lying to me, you're lying to yourself.

Right........which reinforces my statement: We all would like to have these things, but it's not necessary. And if you need me to flat out say that I would like that on a WP device, then yes I would like to see that on a Nokia device (specifically lol), but I don't need it.
 

cckgz4

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Need quadcore and high resolution to work smoothy? No

Need quadcore and high resolution to sell your product? Yes

It is now becoming a spec war, doesnt matter if you need it, you have to have the biggest and fastest specs in all the land to compete.

Yes it has now become a **** measuring contest amongst phones, especially in Android alone. OEM's are fighting and burning through specs......for what? There isn't a logic behind it. Yes the tech fanatics will eat up a bigger and better piece of phone, but the general public that are the biggest buyers? No. So in three years, what will phones be doing then?
 

cckgz4

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Yep. And people here seem to want to ignore that, or call people sheep. Which is fine. But it's not selling phones. Fact is, even the iPhone has to play the specs war/game now.

As for screen resolution, give me a break. Go use a high-res phone screen and then try to go back to low-res screen. They look awful once you see how much better high-quality, high-res screens are. And here, specs actually make sense. More pixels=need for more processing power.

As I've said before, it's just rank apologism to suggest that WP7 couldn't benefit from better specs.

Who, in this topic, has called someone a sheep or a follower? You and a few others carry this big chip on your shoulder to each topic like this board has done something to you and your experience.

And I have gone from using a great screen resolution to something lower. It doesn't bother me. Everyone else that loves it, then that's great. I am glad it completes their experience, but don't say people are fooling themselves because they can live without it. It's possible

Right, because this forum hasn't stated several times that they'd like to see better resolution in the screens way before you even became a member of this forum. We've made thousands of wishlists of things we'd like to see, so yes we can admit to what things would be better to enhance Windows Phone. I, cckgz4, still think that people who thinks it's a need for these higher specs do not know that it's a preference.
 

GMJeff

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Ugh. That's not how I meant it.

Like this:

Word in Windows 95 is practically the same task as it is in Windows 7, but with a freshened up Aero interface and Ribbon. The differece is is that the Office at the time was more advanced (In the interface) and there was a grey bar rather than a thicker...Clear bar? And, BTW, I have 4gb RAM :p

I'm just saying, Windows is actually quite resource hungry for an OS with many of the same features that were in 95, Its like I insulted you or something.

Unfortunately, that argument holds no merit. Windows 95, was a 16 bit OS with a new fancy overlay (think visual DOSshell). It did not have the memory overhead like Windows 7 does.

Windows 7 comes in two flavors, 32bit and 64bit, both using code that is double or even quadruple the size to accomplish the same task. That is why the need for dual and quad core chips, more efficient processing.

The ability to process multiple threads at one time is to save resources, or rather to free them up faster, so the next task can be started. Also, as rumor has it, Windows Phone was supposed to be able to run on dual core processors when it was launched. They opted to get it out the door on inexpensive hardware to keep prices down.

Your argument about Word in Windows 95 is also skewed, as Word and Office at that time were probably 16bit apps as well, whereas Office 2012 is coded in 32 or 64 bit, making them use more processor time/threads as well as memory.

Also, as the screen resolution wars heat up, Windows phone will have to increase resolution, even if only to 720p, to be able to increase device sizes, and to make Windows Phone scalable to tablets if needed.

I have 4 Windows Phones (Focus, Surround, Focus S and Lumia 900) and they all have the same screen resolutions. I also have a Galaxy Note that i am typing this on. If the Note had a 800x480 resolution on it's 5.3" screen, i never would have bought it. Why? Well, because the S Pen it comes with would be totally unusable. The higher resolution helps with the accuracy of the stylus. Tapping is not the issue, but rather the handwriting input.

This would be where the higher resolutions would come into play, for 7" and 10" tablets. Sure battery life would suffer, but that is why they put larger/denser batteries in the devices. My Note can get close to a whole day with moderate use, at higher resolution, LTE radio and dual core processor.

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cgk

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People who are talking a strict 'but what's the practical benefit' stance are missing the point, people don't buy their phones based on what they will actually do, they buy them based on what they *think* they will do - which is why wow-ware such as quad-core processors help at the point of sale even if they make no difference to the actual user experience.
 

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