Motorola Droid X2 Review - A Droid X with Tegra 2
by Brian Klug on July 7, 2011 8:31 AM ESTPerformance
The X2 is powered by a 1.0 GHz Tegra 2 SoC which consists of two Cortex-A9 CPUs and NVIDIA’s ULP GeForce GPU. Anand has already detailed the architecture pretty thoroughly in our Optimus 2X review, which was the first handset to be built around Tegra 2, so if you’re interested check that out. Since then Tegra 2 has scored a lot of Motorola design wins, starting with the Atrix, the Xoom, and hopefully the unreleased Bionic.
I’ve also gone ahead and borrowed a Motorola Droid X from a friend, which I then proceeded to wipe (don’t worry, they’re used to this kind of behavior) and install the 2.3.3 update on. I then re-ran our benchmarks and updated things to give a better perspective of what the performance delta looks like right now with the X2 running 2.2.2 and the X running 2.3.3, both of which are current as of this writing.
First up are our web benchmarks, which primarily test JavaScript and page rendering. We’re still running SunSpider 0.9, though we’ll soon switch to 0.9.1 and report that alongside. JavaScript performance on Motorola’s themed browser is actually very good, and comes in nearly at the top of our charts, alongside the Optimus 2X.
Flash is next, and here the X2 delivers very good performance that’s on par with the Optimus 2X, even though we’re dealing with a qHD screen compared to WVGA.
GLBenchmark 2.0 is a regular in our benchmarking section, and the X2 gets a run through this test as well. Performance is pretty close to the Atrix but just behind it, perhaps due to the Atrix having 1 GB of LPDDR2 compared to the X2’s less inspiring 512 MB of LPDDR2.
Next is BaseMark ES2.0, which is a slightly updated version of 3DMarkMobile ES2.0. Here we run at the default resolution, which is VGA, and thus get a picture without being constrained to just native resolution constantly.
The Android port of Quake 3 is what we sort of started all of this with, and we’re still running it even if it’s starting to hit vsync in parts. The results look strange here until you realize that this is a qHD phone, not WVGA.
Next up is Linpack, which added a multi-threaded version of the benchmark earlier this week. I’ve run it on all the dual core devices I could get my hands on.
Last up is Quadrant which will be depreciated pretty soon as it’s at the framerate cap in its 3D tests, has overall little to no documentation for most of the subtests, and generally is woefully out of date. The X2 does extremely well in the I/O test thanks to it using EXT3 for most partitions.
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Hrel - Thursday, July 7, 2011 - link
I'd like to see them add an attachable/detachable slide out keyboard. Then they could also add a gamepad for actual hand held gaming. And they'd get to make money selling more accesories. It's a win for everyone! The thing is so thin as it is it can stand to gain some thickness without being an issue AT ALL.snoozemode - Thursday, July 7, 2011 - link
what do you mean, u cant see the grainy pattern in blue color? i see it just as good as in green, download the engadget app and put the icon on the homescreen, tons of black spots in it where the white subpixels have closed. RGBW sucks, period.bjacobson - Thursday, July 7, 2011 - link
all these high powered phones but scrolling up and down with your finger on a webpage is still laggy as hell. ???bplewis24 - Friday, July 8, 2011 - link
They're displaying flash images...what do you expect?JayQ330 - Thursday, September 1, 2011 - link
you have to download a gpu rendering browser, its the reason the iphone & samsung galaxy s2 & even the s are able to scroll & zoom in & out so smooth, when you see checker board effect you know its gpu rendered where as the regular android browsers are constantly resizing & adjusting words & images in realtime. they should take a hint from samsungs browser.NeoteriX - Thursday, July 7, 2011 - link
If I was looking on my HTC Evo 3D, what text would I be searching for in the dmesg output to identify the camera initialization line?Brian Klug - Thursday, July 7, 2011 - link
Things like this:<4>[ 14.364959] __s5k3h1gx_probe
<6>[ 14.365051] s5k3h1gx_vreg_enable camera vreg on
<6>[ 14.365173] sensor_vreg_on camera vreg on
<6>[ 14.365722] sensor_power_enable("gp4", 2850) == 0
<6>[ 14.366180] sensor_power_enable("gp6", 2850) == 0
...
<6>[ 14.463897] s5k3h1gx_probe successed! rc = 0
<6>[ 14.464141] ov8810 s->node 1
<6>[ 14.464324] s5k3h1gx: s5k3h1gx_sensor_probe: switch clk
<6>[ 14.464416] Doing clk switch (s5k3h1gx)
<6>[ 14.484527] [Camera] gpio_request(30, "s5k3h1gx")
Note the part with OV8810 which is an omnivision 8 MP 1/3.2" sensor. Possibly the Sensation uses some parts Samsung, some parts OV.
YoPete525 - Thursday, July 7, 2011 - link
Great review as always, but I still find it ironic how far software optimization has to come on Android in general. I realize the X2 is rendering 26%(?) more pixels, but for every time it appears to process actions more quickly than the X, there is an example of it falling behind, like when pulling up the menu with the hardware button, and loading Basemark from the app drawer. Also, if you were to load up one of the more scrolling-conscientious launchers from the market, like LauncherPro or Go Launcher, the homescreens would scroll essentially at the device's refresh rate without stutter. Same story with Opera Mobile vs. the stock browser.NeoteriX - Thursday, July 7, 2011 - link
As I thought when I first looked at the dsmeg output; looks like it's no dice -- where the sensor ID should be is only "sp3d":<6>[73834.064016] [CAM]sp3d_vreg_enable camera vreg on
<6>[73834.064139] [Camera]Shooter_sp3d_vreg_on
...
<6>[73837.130660] [CAM]sp3d_spi_open_init: 1697
<6>[73837.130691] [CAM]sp3d_vreg_enable camera vreg on
<6>[73837.130691] [Camera]Shooter_sp3d_vreg_on
<6>[73837.132155] [CAM]sp3d: sp3d_sensor_probe: switch clk
<6>[73837.163436] [CAM]sp3d_sensor_setting type:0 config:0
Thoughts?
BTW, for what it's worth, the HTC Evo 4G uses the OV8810 omnivision for its camera:
<6>[690609.827789] [CAM]ov8810_resume
wpwoodjr - Thursday, July 7, 2011 - link
The effective available RAM memory on the DX2 is about 70-80mb less than the DX, you can see this by looking at Settings...Applications...Running Services and adding up the used and free memory. I was all set to buy a DX2 until I saw this. Even in the store I could easily make the Moto launcher close and be forced to redraw with only a few programs open. My DX already runs out of memory, I didn't want more problems. Perhaps this memory is taken up by the graphics card?It would be great if you added some multi-tasking tests to your reviews that would stress memory.