LG Optimus 2X & NVIDIA Tegra 2 Review: The First Dual-Core Smartphone
by Brian Klug & Anand Lal Shimpi on February 7, 2011 3:53 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Tegra 2
- LG
- Optimus 2X
- Mobile
- NVIDIA
The Partners and the Landscape
Although NVIDIA announced the Tegra 2 at CES 2010, it wasn’t until CES 2011 that we saw a single smartphone design win. Luckily for NVIDIA, we got two wins at this year’s CES: LG and Motorola.
Here’s how the landscape breaks down. In 2011 TI will have its OMAP4, used in the BlackBerry Playbook tablet and Qualcomm has its Snapdragon QSD8660. The QSD8660 will be used in upcoming HP/Palm and HTC devices later this year.
| 2011 SoC Landscape | ||||||
| NVIDIA | TI | Qualcomm | ||||
| Handset Partners |
LG Motorola Samsung (?) |
RIM/Blackberry Nokia (?) |
Dell HTC Huawei Sony Ericsson |
|||
This leaves us with Dell, Huawei, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. Dell, Huawei and Sony Ericsson are all in Qualcomm’s camp. I’d expect that to continue. Nokia has shipped TI SoCs in the past, and I’d expect that to continue as well (if not TI, then Intel). That leaves us with Samsung. Samsung has typically shipped its own SoCs, however the recently announced Orion is still far from ready. With a hole in its roadmap, Samsung is rumored to be in NVIDIA’s camp for its next generation of Galaxy devices. And I don’t like posting rumors on AT.
All of the aforementioned SoC vendors have key design wins. NVIDIA went from being a no-show to a key player in the smartphone and tablet space. Did I mention that NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 is the reference SoC for Android 3.0 (Honeycomb)?
NVIDIA’s roadmap ahead is equally impressive. NVIDIA secrets are leaking left and right, perhaps on purpose. At MWC 2011 NVIDIA is expected to announce the successor to the Tegra 2: the NVIDIA Tegra 2 3D. And late this year or at CES 2012, NVIDIA is expected to announce Tegra 3. Two new Tegra SoCs within a 12 month period? PC gaming veterans should recognize a very familiar pattern. NVIDIA looks to be bringing back the 6-month product cycle.
Frustratingly good execution is what helped establish NVIDIA in the PC GPU industry, and ultimately what drove competitors like 3dfx and Matrox out. Based on the leaked roadmaps, it looks like NVIDIA is trying to do the same thing with smartphone SoCs.
Tegra 2, Tegra 2 3D and Tegra 3 are all 40nm parts, and only Tegra 3 is a new architecture (GPU, not CPU). This is a deviation from NVIDIA’s old 6-month cadence, but we’ll see what Tegra 3 Ultra/Tegra 4 bring in 2012. If the follow up to Tegra 3 is a 28nm shrink, followed by a new architecture with Tegra 4 by the end of 2012/beginning of 2013 then NVIDIA may truly be up to its old tricks. But for now it’s too early to tell as Tegra 2 3D looks to just be a clock bump of Tegra 2.
Based on what’s been made public thus far, the Tegra 2 3D will add glasses-free 3D support (LG has already announced that it’ll be showing off the world’s first 3D smartphone at MWC 2011). Tegra 3D will also bump clock speeds from 1GHz to 1.2GHz. This boost is important as it’ll match Qualcomm’s QSD8660, which will ship at up to 1.2GHz
Little is known about Tegra 3. Based on the timing I’m guessing it’ll still be Cortex A9, however with some performance tweaks (and a faster/beefier GPU). NVIDIA has the design wins and it has the roadmap going forward.
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matt b - Tuesday, February 8, 2011 - link
Just curious because I've heard rumors that HP will use the Qualcomm chipset and I've also heard rumors that they will stick with Ti for their new tablets/phones. I just wondered if you know for sure since I know that you met with folks at CES. I hope that we all find out tomorrow at the HP event.Great review.
TareX - Wednesday, February 9, 2011 - link
I'd like to see Tegra 2 on the Xoom compared to Tegra 2 on the Optimus 2X.Why? Well, simply put, the only Android version that seems to be optimized for dual-core is Honeycomb.
Dark Legion - Wednesday, February 9, 2011 - link
Why is there no Incredible on 2.2? I could understand if you had both 2.1 and 2.2, like the Evo, but as it is now does not show the full/current performance.Morke - Thursday, February 10, 2011 - link
"It’s a strange dichotomy that LG sets up with this launcher scheme that divides “downloaded” apps from “system applications,” one that’s made on no other Android device I’ve ever seen but the Optimus One. The end result is that most of the stuff I want (you know, since I just installed it) is at the very last page or very bottom of the list, resulting in guaranteed scrolling every single time. If you’re a power user, just replace the launcher with something else entirely."You are not right there.
First you can create additonal categories (aside from system applications and downloads) and move applications between them.
Secondly you can rearrange the ordering of the applications inside a category (allowing you to have those on top which you access most frequently). You can also delete applications right away in this edit mode.
There is a youtube video demonstrating this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvvtl6pSNp8
See time index starting with 4:21.
Maybe you should correct your review on this?
Morke - Thursday, February 10, 2011 - link
The correct youtube URL demonstrating application launcher management is actuallyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDo-1-jwLko&fea...
brj_texas - Thursday, February 10, 2011 - link
Anand,A question on the statement in the benchmarking section, "the SunSpider benchmark isn't explicitly multithreaded, although some of the tests within the benchmark will take advantage of more than one core. "
My understanding was that all of the tests within sunspider are single-threaded, but a dual-core processor can run the javascript engine (and the sunspider tests) in a separate thread from the main browser thread when you call sunspider from a browser window.
Can you clarify which tests support multi-threading in sunspider if that is in fact what you meant?
On the topic of multi-threading, we've used moonbat, a multi-core variant of sunspider, to explicitly test multi-core performance with javascript code. I wonder if you have any other benchmarks under investigation that measure multi-core performance?
Thanks
-Brian
worldbfree4me - Saturday, February 12, 2011 - link
Thanks for another thorough and in-depth analysis. But I have a question to ask,Should we upgrade (break our 2 year contract agreement for this phone) or ride out our contract?
We trust and value your our opinion. Tom’s hardware does a GPU hierarchy chart every few months, can you do a phone hierarchy in the future?
lashton - Sunday, February 13, 2011 - link
They have a really good idea and lead the market but it falls short because its not quite righttnepres - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
I now own a optimus 2x. The first was dead on arrival, but this one is perfect. The LG software is innovative and pleasing to the eye. In various places they made real improvements to the UI that are just brilliant,ie. the ability to sort and categorize apps. At times the UI is not as fast as you would expect, especially when adding apps/widgets to one of the 7 pages. It seems LG generates a list of widgets for you, so you can see what apps support this mode, and that takes about a second. As I recall, on HTC devices you are just presented with a list of apps and u have to try and see if you can widget it.The LG keybord has a brilliant feature, you tab the side of the phone to move the cursor. Sadly in other respects the keyboard is lacking, ie. when you long-pres you do not get the alternates you might wish, such as numbers.
The batterytime is superb, using the UI consumes much less power than on my desire.
Copy/paste in the browser does not activate via long-pres, you have to hit menu button, but on the plus side its easier to use than what HTC made.
During 2 days of very intensive use i have had 1 app (partially) crash and that was the marketplace. No other issues so far, its my verdict that the unstability issues are overrated.
No problems with wifi using stock ISP (TDC) supplied router. (sagemcom)
To engadget: How on earth (!!?!!?) can you state there is no use for dualcore. When browsing one loads flash the other the rest. Its so fast you cant believe it. Try loading www.ufc.com on a non dualcore phone and you get my drift.
I do not hesitate to give the optimus 2x my warm recommendations.
VERDICT: 9/10 (missing 4g)
Sannat - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link
gsmarena sound benchmark for optimus 2x isnt great...could it be a s/w issue...??