Nexus S and Android 2.3 Review: Gingerbread for the Holidays
by Brian Klug on December 14, 2010 4:08 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Nexus S
- Gingerbread
- Android 2.3
- Mobile
Performance
We’ve already seen that Hummingbird is a competent performer in the Galaxy S line of devices, but haven’t gotten to see how that performance changes with the updated Dalvik VM that 2.2 (and thus 2.3) brings. Android 2.3 doesn’t bring as big of a performance boost, and it’s hard to tell in the first place given the lack of any other Hummingbird devices running Android 2.2.
Regardless, performance overall is around where it should be. I’ve included numbers from the myTouch 4G which I’ve begun testing, and Vivek’s G2 as these show performance of the new 45 nm Snapdragons which is also competent. Adreno 205 comes close to but falls short of PowerVR SGX 540 in every case. Note that Neocore is now clamped by vsync across both the new Snapdragons and Hummingbird - those numbers literally are the cap.
We also continue to see the strong lead in Linpack from Qualcomm Snapdragon’s much faster FPU which neither of the A8s can catch. That said, Hummingbird does see a jump over the numbers it posts running Android 2.1.
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ltcommanderdata - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
I asked this in the previous LG Optimus 7 review and didn't get an answer. I was wondering if your benchmarks for the iPhone and iPad have been updated to use iOS 4.2.1? iOS 4.2.1 introduces Safari 5 compared to Safari 4 in the previous iOS 4.1 so I was interested in seeing what performance benefits there are.Brian Klug - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
Oh interesting, I haven't updated them but will do so soon. I don't know if they'll go into this review, but definitely in the myTouch 4G and LG Optimus One pieces that are coming shortly. Thanks for pointing that out.-Brian
Brian Klug - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
There we go, I've updated the web synthetics graphs (Brmark and Sunspider 0.9) with numbers from iOS 4.2.1. Looks like Brmark saw a nice jump, but Sunspider did virtually nothing.-Brian
DigitalFreak - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
I'd be all over a Nexus if they made one with CDMA and either WiMax or LTE.ltcommanderdata - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
Thanks for the quick response.Just a question on the charts. They mention the older iOS version as 4.2 while the newer one is iOS 4.2.1. Were the older results actually iOS 4.2 since I don't believe that was publicly released. They went directly from iOS 4.1 to iOS 4.2.1.
Brian Klug - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
Oops you're right. I got confused thinking - hmm, what's last the version of iOS I was running - since I played around with the beta for a while. Fixed now ;)-Brian
evan919 - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
Awesome, thanks!sprockkets - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
He took the video with an iphone. Kinda ironic ;)samven786 - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
I was wondering did your nexus s had any random shutdowns? This is known issue on the captivate and the vibrant.Brian Klug - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - link
Thus far no, it's been speedy consistently. I've been using it (somewhat brutally) nonstop since mid-Friday. I haven't seen it grind to a halt yet.-Brian