Anand's Google Nexus One Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 3, 2010 3:40 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Inside Snapdragon is a Scorpion
Several years ago Qualcomm assembled an architecture team in the Research Triangle Park in NC, coincidentally around 30 minutes from where I live. One of their tasks was to design a high performance CPU core around the ARMv7 instruction set. They called it Scorpion.
While the Scorpion core is normally referred to as a Cortex A8, Qualcomm views it as more of a Cortex A9 competitor. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between. Like the Cortex A8, Scorpion is a dual-issue in-order microprocessor architecture. As I mentioned in my iPhone 3GS article, you can think of it as a modern day Pentium processor (but not an Atom).
Qualcomm claims the ability to do some things out of order, but by and large the pipeline is in order which ultimately keeps it out of the A9 classification.
Qualcomm hasn't shared much about the base architecture other than to say that it's definitely not based on the Cortex A8. It might have a deeper pipeline than the Cortex A8 to help it reach higher clock speeds. Unlike the ~600MHz target the A8 will hit at 65nm, Qualcomm's Scorpion will run at 1GHz at 65nm.
Scorpion also implements the NEON extensions to the ARMv7 ISA, although Qualcomm's implementation is a higher throughput version of what the Cortex A8 offers. It's my understanding that NEON isn't very widespread in usage today, so I'm not sure that Qualcomm's advantage here matters just yet.
Cache sizes are unknown but I'd expect that they're competitive with what we've seen from competing Cortex A8 implementations. Ultimately everyone is bound by die size and power consumption at 65nm.
Qualcomm integrates the Scorpion core in its Snapdragon SoC. The version of Snapdragon in the Nexus One is the QSD8250. This SoC includes a 1GHz Scorpion core and an integrated 3G modem. The QSD8650 will be used in the Verizon version with support for EVDO and CDMA 2000.
Qualcomm's integrated modem is a very different approach from what we've seen from companies like NVIDIA, Apple/Samsung and TI. Those companies rely on an external modem solution to reduce time to market. Qualcomm's response is to instead offer an SoC that integrates support for all major wireless standards. The QSD8250 used in AT&T's supports GSM, GPRS, EDGE and HPSA networks. The QSD8650 supports CDMA2000 1X, 1xEV-DO Rel 0/A/B, GSM, GPRS, EDGE and HSPA wireless networks.
When I spoke with Qualcomm one message it stressed was how calculated the timing of Snapdragon was. It's not by accident that all of the major Android phones being announced today use Snapdragon, it's because of very careful timing and planning that Qualcom was able to hit this bulge in the market. Most SoC makers would cite time to market as a reason for not integrating a modem into an application processor, it's clear that Qualcomm faced that challenge and took timing very seriously with Snap Dragon.
The CPU side of the Snapdragon SoC is fast. Faster than what's in the iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre and Motrola Droid. Unfortunately there are other issues. Qualcomm scaled up processing speed but didn't increase memory bandwidth. The Snapdragon still has a 32-bit LPDDR1 interface, giving it the same memory bandwidth as its competitors despite boasting a much higher clock speed.
The even bigger problem with Snapdragon is its use of the Adreno 200, a dated and slow GPU Qualcomm acquired from ATI a couple of years ago. Luckily for Qualcomm, intensive 3D gaming hasn't really taken off on smartphones just yet but here Snapdragon is at a disadvantage to the Samsung and TI SoCs that use Imagination Tech's PowerVR SGX.
So the Nexus One has better CPU performance, identical memory bandwidth and worse GPU performance compared to the iPhone 3GS. Nothing is ever easy in this world.
Later this year Qualcomm will introduce its 45nm Snapdragon SoCs. These will range from being simple clock bumps of the 8650 in the Nexus One with LPDDR2 support, to full fledged dual-core versions with a much higher performance 3D core. Qualcomm also confirmed its intentions to move to an out-of-order architecture at some point in the future. I'd expect to hear more about that next year.
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xtremevarun - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
Reviews of Nexus One on other sites were not as comprehensive as on Anandtech. You guys really explored all the features. Apple needs to do a major refresh to iPhone. And I do see Android becoming a major, major OS for phones if it's not already. WinMo7 also looks great. Good that competition is hotting up against the iPhone.xxNIBxx - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
What about Samsung's Bada OS? Samsung Wave s8500 beats the living crap out of all those Snapdragon devices. Also Samsung will release i9000 Galaxy S, which has pretty much the same hardware as with s8500, except it runs Android. Hardware wise, these 2 are the best phones in the world. Snapdragon is old news.Iphone 4g, which will come out in 2 months, will most likely use apple's a4, which from what i hear, is probably identical to samsung's 1ghz cpu(same cpu/gpu)/
sprockkets - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
If you receive a call over BT, does it1. Play the ringtone over the headset?
2. Play it on the headset only or both the speaker and headset?
3. Announce CID over the headset or even just the speaker?
sushantsharma - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
Looks OK! But usability should not go for a toss! Or I am missing it and it is there?Chloiber - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
"It's got a Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8650 SoC"Thought the Nexus One (and the HTC Desire) use a Snapdragon QSD8250?!
Anand Lal Shimpi - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
You are correct :) Fixed!Take care,
Anand
Karl Brown - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
I will be receiving my Sony X10 on Tuesday.I hope the Sony will offer enough of the Nexus One's functionality to not make me regret not waiting longer for the Nexus One to become available in the UK.
jasperjones - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
Thanks for the very thorough review. The one area were the review lacks depth is audio and video playback and syncing. Differences in this area are striking imo:1.) If you don't use iTunes as an iPhone owner, you're pretty much SOL. The Nexus One I could sync with iTunes using DoubleTwist. But I don't like iTunes. I can just use Explorer or Windows Media Player or Songbird (1.7 beta) to sync instead. The latest Songbird builds do an amazing job (they even converts WAV and FLAC files on-the-fly).
2.) Formats. I like that the the Nexus One supports OGG. FLAC support is coming (AFAIK it got added to trunk some time ago--idk if users will see it in FroYo or Gingerbread) Plus the Nexus One gives me everything the iPhone has (including M4A).
3.) The media player. I hate to admit it as a current Nexus One and previous iPhone owner, but here the iPhone with its iPod app wins hands down. The UI of the iPod app is infinitely more intuitive, whereas things such as playlist generation are a pain on Android (everything takes far too many clicks).
Because of 3.), I think the overall win in this category goes to the iPhone.
bstewart - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
Outstanding review - really enjoyed your detailed assessment of the Nexus one compared to the IPone and Palm Pre. I have read a number of reviews on the Nexus one lately determining if it is the right device for me or not. After reading this review I am certainly more inclined to purchase it than before; especially based on it's pros and cons versus the IPhone. Thanks!Brian
cj100570 - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
All in all I'm not feeling this review. There was way to much time spent comparing the Nexus to the iPhone. And your complaints about the notification system used by Android is just asinine. I'm the former owner of both an original and 3G iPhone and Android simply puts the iPhone OS to shame. The iPhone had it's 15 minutes of fame but it's time to face facts that Apples way of doing things is the biggest problem the iPhone has. As a smartphone it is a #FAIL. Sure it sells well but the honest truth is that most people buy it because it's an Apple product and because of all the apps, 80% useless, that Apple and AT&T trot out as the big selling point.