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
Conclusions
We've revisited two phones running the same SoC, each a bit over halfway into their product life cycles. It's an interesting perspective that this gives us, as they're no longer the latest and greatest, but still far above average, and a ways from being obsolete.
From a physical perspective, the Motorola Droid remains the flagship of Android phones that come with a hardware keyboard - a feature that enthusiasts and casual users alike still identify as hugely important. If having a hardware keyboard is important to you, the Motorola Droid is almost the only option out there with a modern ARMv7 CPU.
Even though Motorola's summer refresh is looming - likely bringing along the Motorola Droid 2 and Motorola Droid Xtreme - the phone that launched Android 2.0 will still get an update to Android 2.2 'Froyo,' and likely be offered at a discount price as it continues its life cycle. Already, Verizon is offering buy one get one free on the device. In fact, although many expected Motorola Droid sales to slow down significantly after the HTC Incredible's launch, sales continue to shore up supply, with Motorola's Sanjay Jha making note of device shortages similar to the HTC Incredible's due to demand.
Motorola's made support for its current Droid an obvious priority, as we've seen the device get multitouch in the browser, maps, and gallery, with Android 2.1 among other important features. From a performance perspective, the Motorola Droid's 550 MHz Cortex A8 simply isn't a match for the 1 GHz A8 in Snapdragon's Scorpion CPU - but the Motorola Droid's GPU is faster. The OMAP 3430 still has a lot of life in it waiting for overclockers - in fact, many already do. From a battery life perspective, call time on the Motorola Droid is absurdly long compared to other smartphones at 8.13 hours. In spite of the looming Droid 2 and Xtreme, the original Droid is a sound choice to make if you're on Verizon and absolutely need a hardware keyboard. Though we didn't test it - I would expect much of the same from the handset's GSM cousin - the Motorola Milestone.
When I sat down to tackle the N900, I was hugely excited because of how much potential Maemo still has as it evolves into MeeGo. A month later, I still feel the same way - like I've explored maybe 10% of the platform's real depth. There's something to be said for how truly and completely open Nokia's approach is compared to platforms like Android and iOS. For as big on 'open' as these latter two platforms advertise being, it's refreshingly mindblowing to see Nokia offering instructions on how to get superuser access on their own handset, on their own support website. Contrast that to iOS or Android where one has jailbreak or 'root', respectively, to do things the platform creators don't intend. To that end, I find it incredibly depressing when the Linux chief architect himself, Linus Torvalds, (who is notably Finnish, same as Nokia) embraces Android over Maemo. It's the difference between a platform that lets you fire up a preinstalled X-Term and apt-get install away versus one that doesn't. While that's not really an end-user feature that any handset maker will tout, it's telling about platform philosophy.
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Affectionate-Bed-980 - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
You talk about the display brightness and how nice it looks, but you need to mention gamut. In some tests the 3GS shows ~65% of gamut, while the Droid shows 102%. Nexus One is at 141%. I expect the Incredible to be around there, so while the colors look nice on AMOLED, you must remember it's over-saturated and inaccurate while the Droid is spot on at 102%.fabarati - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
I think you've misunderstood what gamut means.When a screen is advertises as 98% of the Adobe sRGB Gamut, it means that the screen covers 98% of the colours defined by Adobe for that gamut..
If it says 141% of the Adobe sRGB gamut, it means that it covers more than that defined area. It doesn't mean that the colours are oversaturated. It also doesn't mean that it can display all the colours there is.
Read up on gamuts on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamut
Powerlurker - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
On the other hand, I doubt that anyone is going to do color correction or some sort of display calibration on their smartphone, and since most companies set their displays to be somewhat saturated by default, I would guess that in practice the Incredible's AMOLED screen will be oversaturated compared to the Droid's LCD.Brian Klug - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
So here's the problem - there's absolutely no way to measure it. Or at least, I haven't found an acceptable solution.Going off the display panel numbers seems extremely unrealistic for obvious reasons, but barring that there are other bigger problems.
1. Android uses 16-bit color in a lot of places because they're rendering them with 3D OpenGL compositing and compressed textures. One of the most glaring - and dare I say troubling - examples is right inside the gallery application. The gallery application in 2.0.1 was full 24-bit color, but in 2.1 Google contracted with Cooliris to develop a more flashy 3D gallery. Obviously, the limitations imposed by the GPU on different devices (and possibly even from the POV of what textures are supported) necessitated 16-bits per color. In practice, it just looks awful. Without even being nitpicky, I can notice lots of banding.
2. The AMOLED displays use the PenTile array, which also does a lot of dithering inherently - in fact, their pattern is essentially trying to get around Nyquist by being very creative with the human eye system, and this intermediate software layer of theirs. The consequence is that it ends up smoothing and dithering the 16-bits, making it really hard to see the banding, but it's still there. Pull up the color gradient images from the article and scrutinize the Incredible. There's no banding, but in person, you can stlll pick out dithering and a problem.
3. I still have no way of doing gamut testing on any mobile devices. So back when I started on the iPad article, I had a (relatively clever, I think) idea to use the calibration software through a 24-bit remote desktop session, tricking it into using any mobile device like a screen. This just doesn't work for reasons outside my understanding. I've done it on iPhone OS and Android, and for some reason the results are just complete bogus. So there's no way of really telling what the % gamut coverage of Adobe 1998 any of these things are. Moreover, since there's no way of loading a display profile on them, you're really stuck with whatever it shipped with anyways.
The sad state of things is that AMOLED "looks" brighter and more contrasty, but the color accuracy is just undoubtedly wrong. I mean, it's obvious to make that comparison when you're surrounded by calibrated IPS panels with Delta-E tracking under 1.0, you hold up any of the phones, and see a veritable library of differently hued photos.
I'm open to any suggestions you guys have for really measuring gamut. I mean, we could try being more manual and laboriously testing colors one by one (that's basically how I do brightness - white, black, and contrast) but, is it worth it?
KevinToon - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Shouldn't the speakerphone testing be done with the devices suspended off the desk??I know my phone sounds different if it's on a hard surface like a desk.
R3MF - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
I have an n900, so thanks, good article.Found an interesting MeeGo article since you mentioned it:
http://jedibeeftrix.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/ultim...
medi01 - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
May I ask why 3GS is missing from "side by side comparison"? Just an incident or you are THAT afraid of Mr Jobbs marketing's wrath?dtreader - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Wow! Just moments after finally placing my order for an N900 about eight hours ago (I've been lusting over this phone ever since it was just rumored to exist), I noticed this article on AT, with no comments having been posted to it yet. Cool, huh?I have a feeling there are many people like me....people that have been thinking about purchasing this incredible phone, but have been holding back for various reasons: for the price to come down a bit, to see how Nokia supported it with software updates, to find out about bugs and if they're being fixed, to feel comfortable about the future of Maemo on the N900 and, at this point, feeling comfortable about buying this phone even if Nokia comes out with something better in a few months time.
I've been depending daily on my flip phone/N800 tablet combination for a few years now, and have been dying to step up to the next level, even before I knew that would come in the form of the N900. A few months ago I looked at the Droid (currently I'm with Verizon), and lately considered the htc EVO on Sprint, but when you combine the current capabilities and the exciting future of the N900 (thanks to its truly open philosophy and dedicated enthusiast/developer base), I just couldn't wait any longer to get on board! T-Mobile 3.5G here I come!
Thanks for this article, Anandtech! You've been my main "source for hardware analysis and news" for over ten years now! :)
Go N900!!!
milli - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
"From a performance perspective, the Motorola Droid's 550 MHz Cortex A8 simply isn't a match for the 1 GHz A8 in Snapdragon's Scorpion CPU ... "That should read: ... for the 1 GHz Scorpion CPU in the Snapdragon ...
There's no Cortex A8 in the Snapdragon.
Brian Klug - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
That's being a bit semantic I think.Inside the Snapdragon is a Scorpion, which is Qualcomm's trade name for their hardened (1 GHz supporting) Cortex A8 CPU.
Cortex is the ARM Family, ARMv7-A is the family, and Cortex A8 is the fully qualified core name.
So really, either one is correct ;)
-Brian