Apple iPhone 4S: Thoroughly Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on October 31, 2011 7:45 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iPhone
- iPhone 4S
The A6: What's Next?
Apple has somehow managed to get a lot of the mainstream press to believe it doesn't care about specs and that it competes entirely based on user experience. Simply looking at the facts tell us a different story entirely:
| Apple SoCs | ||||||||
| 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | |||
| Process | 90nm | 90nm | 65nm | 45nm | 45nm | 28/32nm | ||
| µArch | ARM11 | ARM11 | Cortex A8 | Cortex A8 | Cortex A9 | ? | ||
| CPU Clock | 412MHz | 412MHz | 600MHz | 800MHz | 800MHz | ? | ||
Apple has been at the forefront of the mobile hardware race, particularly if we look at the iOS platform as a whole (iPad + iPhone). Apple was among the first to move from ARM11 to the Cortex A8, and once again with the move to the A9. On the GPU side Apple has been even more aggressive.
Apple hasn't stayed on the same process node for more than two generations, echoing a philosophy maintained by even the high-end PC GPU vendors. It also hasn't shipped the same microprocessor architecture for more than two generations in a row.
Furthermore Apple even seems to be ok with combining a process shrink with a new architecture as we saw with the iPhone 3GS. It's generally thought of as a risky practice to migrate to both a new process technology and a new architecture in the same generation, although if you can pull it off the benefits are wonderful.
The truth of the matter is Apple is very focused on user experience, but it enables that experience by using the fastest hardware available on the market. With that in mind, what comes in 2012 with Apple's sixth-generation SoC?
It's fairly obvious that we'll see a process node shrink. Apple has been on 45nm for two generations now and the entire market will be moving to 28/32nm next year. If Apple sticks with Samsung, it'll be on their 32nm LP process.
The CPU architecture is a bit of a question at this point. We already know that Qualcomm will be shipping its next-generation Krait architecture in devices in the first half of 2012. TI, on the other hand, will deliver an ARM Cortex A15 based competitor by the end of next year. The aggressive move would be for Apple to once again migrate to a new process and architecture and debut a Cortex A15 design at 32nm next year.
Looking purely at historical evidence it would seem likely that we'd get a 32nm dual-Cortex A9 design at higher clocks first. If Apple wants to release an iPad update early next year, that's likely what we'll see. That still doesn't preclude a late 2012 release of a dual-Cortex A15 solution, perhaps for use in the next iPhone.
Note that we haven't talked much about potential GPU options for Apple's next silicon. Given the huge upgrade we saw going into the A5 and likely resolution targets for next-generation tablets, it's likely that we'll see pretty big gains there as well.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
199 Comments
View All Comments
dacramer - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
The browser benchmarks show the 4s as fastest, but this benchmark is FLAWED as a measurement of CPU performance.The benchmark compares Safari to the Android stock browser. The stock Android browser does not support 2 cores, only 1. So all Android dual cores phones would be nearly twice as fast with another browser such as Opera.
I'm surprised Anand did not include this discussion in the review. He seams fixated on the idea that stock to stock browser is a valuable comparison when it totally misleads readers on CPU performance.
Lucian Armasu - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - link
In case you missed it, the Droid RAZR scored 10% faster than iPhone 4S in the SunSpider test.But yes, this is still mostly a software issue, and I expect the Android 4.0 browser to be even faster on the same chip.
thunng8 - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - link
FYI, Google says the Galaxy Nexus scores 1983ms in Sunspider running ICSdoobydoo - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - link
"Where did it show faster CPU?"Where did it in my comment?
Breit - Thursday, November 3, 2011 - link
I just run SunSpider 0.9.1 on my Galaxy S2, international model (everything stock, with Android 2.3.5) and it came in at 1626.5ms with Opera Mobile browser and 3354.8ms with the stock Android browser. So saying the CPU on the Galaxy S2 is weaker than the CPU on the 4S is just not right (and that by a big margin!).At least make comparisons with the best software there is and not just 'some' browser you eventually found on your phone...
I'll bet there is someone programming his own browser just for the kicks or as an exercise for his programming skills and that browser scores over 9000ms in SunSpider. Does that mean the CPU in that phone is slow? ;)
doobydoo - Friday, December 2, 2011 - link
You could achieve the same results on the iPhone too..The comparison is (rightly) comparing stock browser to stock browser, and the iPhone 4S is faster. It would be even faster again using say, Opera.
As for some guy posting 9000ms - you can filter the results to 'best' times so this is a non issue.
Tetracycloide - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
Isn't there more to displays than just white level in nits, black level in nits (on a chart were I can't seem to find the Galaxy S II or the Infuse), and contrast (again, don't see the Samsung Galaxy S II or the Infuse on the contrast chart either)? Don't get me wrong, I don't agree in the slightest with the summary "this is apple cheerleading" but honestly the display comparisons are pretty lacking IMO. Where are the rest of them? There's more to a screen than just nits.medi01 - Thursday, November 3, 2011 - link
Last time iphone disappeared from comparison photo, from the one where it would pale in comparison, when asked, author "explained' that he simply "forgot" it in the pocket. (!!!). Now they didn't even bother. Round of but kissing on "retina" hype and phones disappearing from charts.Find contrast of Galaxy phones on the charts pretty please...
steven75 - Friday, November 11, 2011 - link
Could you be any more of an Fandroid? Seriously.Stuka87 - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
Wait what?Almost every single page has a comparison to Android phones. Several of them have graphs showing the differences!
And your comment on the displays may be your opinion, but actual measurements show otherwise. but hey, if you like your over saturated display with a much lower pixel density, thats your decision.