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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akse - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
I've got my N900 clocked to use 250Mhz idle and 805Mhz stress clocks and it fastens everything by huge amount. 600Mhz is sometimes a bit slow and if you up it a little bit, everything starts to get smoother..The custom kernel is using lower voltages but higher clocks than nokia stock kernel.. which is why 805mhz drains just about the same amount of power than 600mhz with stock kernel.
I just love the fact that you can do that kind of things on this phone..
One guy was asking how to backup sms messages.. well there wasn't any app for it so you could just run a command with sqlite in Xterm to search through the database for all sms's and forward the results with > to a text file :)
Exodite - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
That's a truly epic article, the in-depth look at both the hard- and software side of things is far and above what I'm used to reading regarding smartphone reviews. Many thanks for that!Looking forward to similar articles in the future.
medi01 - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Epic, right, and you don't care that Apple's device is visible where it has advantage but is not shown, where it doesn't. Like on contrast comparison images.Misterious.
Exodite - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
No, can't say I mind that at all really.Then again I'm not in the market for an iPhone anyway.
Brian Klug - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
I actually completely spaced on that one - I probably had a 3GS in my pocket when I took those photos.There's no conspiracy - I just thought that the Incredible's AMOLED display would make an interesting comparison with the Motorola Droid's LCD, and the N900's resistive layer would mix things up a bit.
The iPhone screen really shows its age in the numbers from the bench though. It leaks light pretty badly and obviously the lower PPI is... well... bad.
Cheers,
Brian
Rayb - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Nokia has been making devices that work without much hoopla for a long time. It is not for everyone but it beats the available iPhone in more useful ways than is possible.Helmore - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
The Adrena 200 is based on the AMD Z430 GPU. A Z340 does not even exist AFAIK.I know, I'm nitpicking here, but I just thought I had to mention it.
The Adreno 200 runs at a frequency of 133 MHz, giving it a theoretical performance of 133 MPixels/s of fill rate and 22 Million Triangle/s. The Adreno 205 is the same core but running at 200 MHz and is what will be used in the MSM7X30 and QSD8X50A (45 nm version of the current Snapdragon chip with some small tweaks). The SGX530 used in the Droid (OMAP3430) runs at around 100 MHz, which should give it a theoretical fill rate of 250 MPixels/s and a 7 million Triangles/s. On the OMAP3630 the SGX530 will run at 200 MHz AFAIK. That's all theoretical performance, as we all know they're only part of the story. Just take a look at the GTX480 and the Radeon 5870 and you'll know that theoretical performance doesn't get you very far.
fabarati - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
1) there was a mistake on the N900 hardware page: it's a 3.5 mm jack, not a 1.8 mm. You probably mixed it up with 1/8"2) The N900 can do Video calling over 3G, like most 3G phones in Europe have done since 2003. It works ok, but it's hella expensive, so no one does it more than once or twice.
Brian Klug - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Fixed! Thanks!-Brian
wobblysausage - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link
Lies! It cannot make a 3g video call.It can make a skype video call (or a google chat video call) over a 3g data connection but this is not the same thing. Not nearly.
I've had my N900 since November and this is the 1 thing I really miss.