Apple iPhone 4S: Thoroughly Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on October 31, 2011 7:45 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iPhone
- iPhone 4S
The A6: What's Next?
Apple has somehow managed to get a lot of the mainstream press to believe it doesn't care about specs and that it competes entirely based on user experience. Simply looking at the facts tell us a different story entirely:
| Apple SoCs | ||||||||
| 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | |||
| Process | 90nm | 90nm | 65nm | 45nm | 45nm | 28/32nm | ||
| µArch | ARM11 | ARM11 | Cortex A8 | Cortex A8 | Cortex A9 | ? | ||
| CPU Clock | 412MHz | 412MHz | 600MHz | 800MHz | 800MHz | ? | ||
Apple has been at the forefront of the mobile hardware race, particularly if we look at the iOS platform as a whole (iPad + iPhone). Apple was among the first to move from ARM11 to the Cortex A8, and once again with the move to the A9. On the GPU side Apple has been even more aggressive.
Apple hasn't stayed on the same process node for more than two generations, echoing a philosophy maintained by even the high-end PC GPU vendors. It also hasn't shipped the same microprocessor architecture for more than two generations in a row.
Furthermore Apple even seems to be ok with combining a process shrink with a new architecture as we saw with the iPhone 3GS. It's generally thought of as a risky practice to migrate to both a new process technology and a new architecture in the same generation, although if you can pull it off the benefits are wonderful.
The truth of the matter is Apple is very focused on user experience, but it enables that experience by using the fastest hardware available on the market. With that in mind, what comes in 2012 with Apple's sixth-generation SoC?
It's fairly obvious that we'll see a process node shrink. Apple has been on 45nm for two generations now and the entire market will be moving to 28/32nm next year. If Apple sticks with Samsung, it'll be on their 32nm LP process.
The CPU architecture is a bit of a question at this point. We already know that Qualcomm will be shipping its next-generation Krait architecture in devices in the first half of 2012. TI, on the other hand, will deliver an ARM Cortex A15 based competitor by the end of next year. The aggressive move would be for Apple to once again migrate to a new process and architecture and debut a Cortex A15 design at 32nm next year.
Looking purely at historical evidence it would seem likely that we'd get a 32nm dual-Cortex A9 design at higher clocks first. If Apple wants to release an iPad update early next year, that's likely what we'll see. That still doesn't preclude a late 2012 release of a dual-Cortex A15 solution, perhaps for use in the next iPhone.
Note that we haven't talked much about potential GPU options for Apple's next silicon. Given the huge upgrade we saw going into the A5 and likely resolution targets for next-generation tablets, it's likely that we'll see pretty big gains there as well.
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Lucian Armasu - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - link
Anand, you said the GLbenchmark is the only good cross-platform graphics benchmark. Was GLBenchmark made originally for iOS? Don't you think that it could be biased (possibly unintentionally) towards shader performance in its scores, which would make it favor the PowerVR GPU's more?At the end of the day, these are all just syntethic benchmarks, and sometimes they could be way off from real world performance tests. So what if GLBenchmark doesn't give a too big score for stuff that the other chips are good at, like physics, geometry, whatever, and it gives higher score for shader stuff?
Another question, don't you think shader performance is starting to limit what the games can show about now? Will it really help games that much if they received 20x shader performance in the next 2 years?
thunng8 - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - link
Glbenchmark was originally release for Linux, Symbian and Windows Mobile.thunng8 - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - link
Also you do realize that Glbenchmark consists of many tests including some primitive tests like fill rate and Geometry?By other Gpu, do you mean the Mali-400 or GeForce ulp? The standout result I saw was how weak the Mali was at geometry being 4x slower while fill rate was less than 2x slower than the 543mp2
lemmo - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - link
Thanks for the review, but did I miss analysis on audio quality... for music, not voice quality?You've started this with the Galaxy S2, really useful, and I believe you're developing your testing methodology. But any indication how the iPhone audio quality compares to S2, Prime and others?
cacca - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - link
if nobody has photo-shopped the images at page 3 i not quite strenge that you have a better throughput.iPhone 4 test done at PM 4.24, a normal afternoon, with quite a lot of traffic
iPhone 4s test done at AM 3.34, a quite early bird, no problems or fight for resources with other phones
To you is normal to test at so different times? An for you there is no difference between a late afternoon and 3.34 in the morning?
bah
koinkoin - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - link
I was wondering what the battery time is when you call with a headset. I do almost all my call with a headset to keep my hand free (on the wheel or keyboard). How much does this affect the battery time.Also I use a Blackberry and it always check for new email, I sometime read the mail while on the phone, when you do the talk time test is there a connection for email open?
koinkoin - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - link
I was wondering what the battery time is when you call with a headset. I do almost all my call with a headset to keep my hand free (on the wheel or keyboard). How much does this affect the battery time.Also I use a Blackberry and it always check for new email, I sometime read the mail while on the phone, when you do the talk time test is there a connection for email open?
Griswold - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - link
I dont think the results the new camera deliver are superior to the one in the iphone4. Judging by the vast number of shots Engadget compared between these two phones and a couple other premium phones, the iphone4s shows alot more noise than the older model, even in broad daylight. Its probably the increased pixel count, which cant be countered by the other improvements.Its not bad, but its also not better than the old camera. The old saying remains true: more pixels doesnt equal better pictures.
jwwpua - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - link
In the section WIFI, GPS, AUDIO, SPEAKERPHONE, I don't see anything about the speakerphone. Is it louder? Any tests done? Clarity?Thanks, great review!
freezer - Thursday, November 3, 2011 - link
I think you should have the GPU benchmark using phone's native resolution. That would give more accurate results in real world gaming situation than running all phones using same resolution.The iPhone 4S 3.5" screen has much more pixels than Galaxy S2 4.3" screen which gives latter advantage in 3D speed. That is because the GPU has to draw every pixel in every frame. There's no way around it.
In fact running GL Benchmark 2.1 Pro High in native resolution gives very different results as Galaxy S2 comes at top:
http://glbenchmark.com/result.jsp?benchmark=glpro2...