Two OMAP 3430 Phones: Nokia N900 and Motorola Droid
by Brian Klug on June 10, 2010 9:29 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- N900
- Maemo
- Motorola Droid
- Droid
- MeeGo
- Android
- Mobile
Speakerphones: A New Test
A huge contributing factor for a lot of smartphone shoppers is how loud the smartphone's speaker goes. Rather than subject you to objective cricisms that really are just a measure of how well my hearing is, we're going to report speakerphone volume.
To do this, I place a call to the local ASOS automated weather service (which plays a continual report of the weather in an emotionless computerized voice) on the speakerphone at maximum volume. I then use an Extech USB sound level datalogger connected to my computer and collect data until the call hangs up automatically, usually one to two minutes, and take the average. Unfortunately I lack an anechoic chamber, so ambient noise level was a somewhat loud 51.8 dBA.
The microphone is 6 inches above the smartphone, display side up.
We can see that the N900 is the loudest of the bunch, likely thanks in part to the dual speakerphone setup which is along the sides of the phone. It's an excellent design that means volume is the same face up and face down. Both the HTC Droid Incredible and Motorola Droid put the speakerphone on the bottom of the device, though they're equally loud here.
The iPhone 3GS puts the speakerphone at the bottom of the device, giving it good face up and face down performance, but it's still measureably quieter than the bunch. I'm going to have another article soon with some other interesting iPhone specific findings...
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DaveGirard - Saturday, June 12, 2010 - link
sweet Jesus, that Nokia phone is huge. Does it double as an ice cream sandwich cover?metafor - Sunday, June 13, 2010 - link
Cortex is the CPU designed by ARM. This is available as a hard-macro (layout already done) or soft-macro (just the functional RTL). Some companies license this in either version. For those who license the soft-version, such as TI, nVidia and Broadcom, they can do a customized place-and-route along with clock-tree optimizations and voltage partitioning to try to make the design run faster.However, the micro-architecture is the same.
A few companies have ARM architectural licenses (Apple, Qualcomm, Marvell) and instead of licensing the Cortex line of processors, they design their own. The micro-architecture is developed independent of what ARM did in their Cortex series albeit there will often be similarities.
Scorpion inside Snapdragon was developed in the course of years and while it has many similarities to the A8 from a power-point standpoint, the micro-architecture underneath was designed from the ground up. Everything from the branch predictors, the cache controller, exception handling, execution units and most notably, a partially OoOE scheduler and retirement buffer.
There's also the 128-bit, fully pipelined, partially OoOE SIMD/FP unit.
medi01 - Sunday, June 13, 2010 - link
Well, I find it very strange, that "incidentally" iPhone is never shown in bad light. Could you please update your side to side comparison?Impulses - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link
Personally I think there's better things for you guys to do or test with your time... Who cares if a phone's screen colors are more or less accurate, as long as they aren't outright flawed or ugly to look at it shouldn't be a big deal, not like anyone's gonna be doing any pro content editing work on their phones! (I don't even own an AMOLED screen so I'm not particularly biased one way or the other, I own an EVO atm)mojtabaalemi - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link
I hate the design of nokia mobile phones . in my idea an iphone is far far better !paihuaizhe - Sunday, June 20, 2010 - link
(nike-alliance).(com)=>is a leading worldwide wholesaler company (or u can sayorganization)
arnavvdesai - Saturday, June 26, 2010 - link
I was just wondering if the author had installed AdBlock+ and then run the browser speed numbers or without it being on. If it was not installed which is what I am guessing from the photos, did you notice an improvement in the render times when it was installed. I actually bought the phone recently after seeing it on sale for 380$ and wanted to know the details. Also, I have heard that the current build of the OS allows potrait mode even for the browser(although it has to be activate through some setting) and not just the phone.drwiremore - Sunday, July 4, 2010 - link
Amanda, delighted to have found you. Given the issues in the title, affecting 20~50% of MOTO Droid users, was surprised to see no mention of it. The MOTO boards are alive with disdain and some feel an in you face attitude by Motorola Droid 2 and X announcements. Would you do an iPhone like analysis of voice, antenna and signal issues across Verizons Droids: HTC incredible and MOTO Droid. Your scientific analysis would be welcomed.