This Just In: LG Optimus 2X, Our First Tegra 2 Smartphone
by Brian Klug on January 27, 2011 1:55 PM EST- Posted in
- This Just In
- Smartphones
- LG Optimus 2X
- Android
- Mobile
Update: Our full review is now live!
It's been 22 days since we saw the Tegra 2 packing LG Optimus 2X at CES, and just moments ago the device arrived at our doorsteps ready for a thorough reviewing. It's out of the box and charging now, ready to enter our battery life tests, but before that we managed to grab a bunch of photos and a few quick benchmarks.
First off, our model is European-spec and likewise came with a Type-C power adapter. Luckily we've got tons of microUSB chargers laying around. Our unit's packaging is definitely not final, as it came in just a black box with the accessories, but that's hardly an issue, what we're interested in is some Tegra 2 performance. Physical feel and appearance is almost exactly how we left it at CES.
Some quick benchmarks show Tegra 2 performance definitely leading in the browser area. Note that the Optimus 2X is shipping with Android 2.2.1. Gingerbread (2.3) was launched on Samsung's Hummingbird so it'll take a little while to port it over to NVIDIA's hardware. Honeycomb (3.0), on the other hand, will launch on Tegra 2 hardware once more.
Note that most of the performance advantage NVIDIA currently holds in these tests is between 12 - 25%. This implies that Qualcomm's 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon due out later this year could be performance competitive with NVIDIA's dual-core Cortex A9 Tegra 2. We still have a lot more benchmarking to do in order to properly characterize and understand NVIDIA's Tegra 2 performance in a smartphone however.
Linpack performance is a bit behind the latest from Qualcomm, but that's more telling of FPU performance and cache bandwidth than most real world smartphone apps:
We've got a lot more to run on the LG Optimus 2X, but so far it looks impressively speedy, just as expected.
Update: We've taken our usual video samples from the Optimus 2X, and uploaded them to YouTube and our own servers in a big (147 MB) zip. Full analysis will come with our larger review.
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JonnyBlaze - Thursday, January 27, 2011 - link
Gets 41.667 in linpack. It is overclocked a little tho.notposting - Thursday, January 27, 2011 - link
Out of curiosity I ran the sunspider test on mine. Running, 2.2.1, slight overclock to 800 MHz. Came in just behind the EVO. Guess I don't need to upgrade for awhile.mwhk1983 - Thursday, January 27, 2011 - link
Does it have an LED Notifications light ??bplewis24 - Thursday, January 27, 2011 - link
I believe there is one. Click on the large photograph at the top of the article and it looks like there is one on the top left.Brandon
StormyParis - Thursday, January 27, 2011 - link
I'm having strong misgivings about putting the focus on performance when evaluating smartphones.1- I never really think that my phone is slow. I often think it's lacking in other aspects though (ergonomics, functionnality, ruggedness, battery life..). I'd like whatever time your devoting to running so many perfs benchmarks devoted to these aspects instead.
2- Do you choose your car by how fast it can go ? your pizza by how fast it's delivered ? your girl friend by how fast she can run ? did I cover all stupid analogies ? Fast enough ?
3- we're no longer little boys... I'm confident (or is it resigned ?) about my -and my phone's- dick size. Numbers are nice and all, but useless numbers are just that: useless bragging.
strikeback03 - Friday, January 28, 2011 - link
As the owner of a phone that is extremely slow to the point of seriously impacting use (HTC Diamond) speed does mean something to me. More importantly for a first look like this though these tests can be run in a few minutes, probably less than an hour to run each of these 3-5 times. As opposed to something like battery life which takes several hours per run. Things like ergonomics and functionality also take days of use to form an opinion on. This is a very early preview, not a final review.nafhan - Friday, January 28, 2011 - link
For all your examples, you are probably interested in what they will be like in two years.For phones and other computing devices extra speed is generally a means of future proofing. In other words, really fast now means it will probably still be acceptable by the time I'm 12 months into my phone contract.
Plus, reviews generally cover things like battery life, screen quality, etc...
bhougha10 - Friday, January 28, 2011 - link
I think this is a good point in general. But better software requires more juice. Graphic intesive ones for sure.Just like general users on the PC don't need the latest and greatest, same would apply here. At least for now.
The better the software is, the more addicted the smart phone uses will be.
"(ergonomics, functionnality, ruggedness, battery life..)." -- All of these exexpt functionality, should have been worked out in the mobile phone market over the last 20-30 years. We want to see functionality and juice. The rest is subjective.
alxx - Monday, January 31, 2011 - link
Get real.Other than 3d games , better software doesn't mean more juice.
Better software requires developers to pay more attention to detail
and getting better educated about the features they use in their apps.
Especially important with multicore!!
Badly written multicore apps can suck a lot more juice than a badly written app running on a single core.
Not as important when running on a vm but can still have a significant effect on battery life.
stureandre - Friday, January 28, 2011 - link
Android 2.2 does not have official support for dual core CPU's.. 2.3 does so I'm sure that this phone will be quite a bit fast in certain applications as soon as the 2.3 version is ready for it.But the benchmark numbers are good to at least get a general picture regarding the phone's general performance.. sure, most of it is probably not necessary but it's cool nonetheless ;)