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Read the full review here.
As you will notice quickly, this review is not aimed at the hardcore WM user. But it focuses nicely on what makes the HTC Diamond Touch the phone it actually is...
Conclusion:
We are overall very impressed with HTC’s latest super-phone. TouchFLO 3D is an amazing overlay that proves to be much more than eye candy. Opera Mobile is the best mobile web experience we’ve encountered yet. It’s a very powerful device for both the business user and general consumer alike, and staying fully connected and entertained on the go has never been easier. The size and weight couldn’t be more perfect. HTC set out to raise the bar and they undoubtedly have.
The Diamond is far from perfect though, and the iPhone still has it beat in some important areas. Like we noted, we’ll reserve our reception judgment until a proper US model comes out. While TouchFLO 3D is nearly perfect, the lag when navigating the Windows environment needs to be addressed. HTC falls well short on their music player too, which is the iPhone’s strength. Until a product is built from the ground up to compete with the iPhone there is little chance that it will succeed in doing so. The Diamond will be wildly successful, most likely surpassing the Touch’s 2M units sold, but in the end it is still in a different class than Apple’s offering.
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IMO, the conclusion really focuses on the casual customer and therefore it is not untrue.
However, most of you will probalby agree that WM 6.1 offers a far superior flexibility in customizing your phone the way you need it. In addition, the variety of third-party solutions is a big advantage for WM based phones like the HTC Touch Diamond, if you are just a bit more knowledgeable than the avarage customer...
Yep. As with computers, Microsoft's main advantage over Apple is the huge amount of third-party solutions out there...
And, TBH, I think the Touch Diamond is a really the best crossover so far between the business and social functions that a phone should have. The iPhone may have style and speed, but it lacks productivity and customisability.
Anyway, I would agree that the Touch Diamond will outsell the Touch. It's the official successor, so it should attract all of the Touch users through its improvements and it should attract new users through its amazing (and very handy) features.
This review has been updated with a very nice 3 part video review... almost 25min total
find it here
Very helpfull to get an impression of touchflo3d etc.
The author apprently has a very different opinion on the interface than the people at pocketnow.com since he thinks he could give this phone to his grandmother and she would have no problems with touchflo... hrhr... probably a bit too optimistic.
Another good one :
Quote: "...bringing more for the touchflo 3D into the interface and hopefully replace more of the Windows Mobile UI... Or they could just put Android on the phone." Ouch... XD
I'm thinking about buying x1 as cheapest andro phone with wvga, hardware qwerty and hardware supportet opengl(my toshiba g900 don't have only that, and works on andro are very slow) I have a few questions:
( In brackets i will pu state of my toshiba in it ( for inquisitives))
1. Has Xperia android nand version?? ( soon , it will avalible surely be to New Year)
2. Could someone put video with playing games on xperia android ??
3. How runs 3d wvga games ,for example from moto milestone/x10?? ( Don't ask, for only android work a bit fast , resolution must be changed to wqvga)
4 . -||- 2d wvga games (-||-)??
my dear friend u can not expect our xperia to get android kernels updates bcz there is no coordination amongst us to complete work and ports will not fulfill ur requirements of gaming get ur self a new android device
1. Nope. And i think you will not see it anytime soon.
3, 4. Xperia have old GPU which is not capable of handling newer graphically demanding 3D games. Simple 2D games like Doodle Jump works perfectly. Some, like Robo Defense works so-so, but still kinda playable. But big part of the games don't work. It would be just too slow and have weird lines across the screen.
@gaurav_v ah don't be so negative. There are quite an updates. Devs in kernel development are building releases based on each other's kernels.
Just wondering if anyone else has watched many movies with NF ? I'm using the most recent version, but running off SD card.
Seems quite a bit slower than running under B&N stock 2.1
What SD card, and also what specifications are you using?
nootered said:
What SD card, and also what specifications are you using?
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I checked, and it is only a 4 GB Class 2 card (Sandisk). I suppose that could be having a significant impact ?
I'm not running an OC kernel either yet.
Is it possible to get at the internal memory when running NF off the SD card ?
I have had very good results using QQPlayer on my OC'd NookColor at firmwares 1.0.1 and 1.1. I've yet to try out Froyo due to it's lack of video/audio playback.
With the overclock, all formats worked smoothly, but without, there was a bit of a stutter with some of them.
edit: I use a 16GB Class 2 uSD
synnth said:
I have had very good results using QQPlayer on my OC'd NookColor at firmwares 1.0.1 and 1.1. I've yet to try out Froyo due to it's lack of video/audio playback.
With the overclock, all formats worked smoothly, but without, there was a bit of a stutter with some of them.
edit: I use a 16GB Class 2 uSD
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Why is video poor on Froyo, is it due to lack of video support or the fact that its on SD or both?
Anyone know if it will be possible to get the video hardware support on Froyo?
Regards,
Mike
Yeah all this love for the Nook and while its still early in it's life... running froyo from internal at the moment leaves me YouTube less... :/
panamamike said:
Why is video poor on Froyo, is it due to lack of video support or the fact that its on SD or both?
Anyone know if it will be possible to get the video hardware support on Froyo?
Regards,
Mike
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Obviously, no-one. No sound from CyanogenMod guys that hardware based video decoding AND rendering is enabled in their customized Android 2.3 (I suspect they customize stuff mostly for fast/smooth GUI and/or better 3D. When the same shaders of SGX530 refuse to act as video deinterlacing renderers in their build, they could say that they wash their hands and move on. Sure, that's what TI has stuck with their Zoom2 platform. Or Motorola with the following Droid X/2 phones. Remember, there's no hardware decoders support in Android if it's not for m4v. They have that principle, you know. Rockchip/Snapdragon don't
Mr. Deeper-blue of recent "Honeycomb on NC" fame has GUI hardware acceleration working. It's not video, and very far from getting hardware overlays (=zooming in/out HD video at will, and following the device's orientation, full augmented reality support, full HD video phone, etc.,. etc.) But we are all ears. Pity the A3.0 is more of a pure concept now, having nothing to do with a practical implementation on a 3-year old SoC OMAP3621 Google decided it doesn't like a base demo A3.0 machine.
In any case, for good video on a single-core ARM (plus GPU, plus DSP though) look for the work on Android 3.x, plus VOME engine donated by VisualOn for the AOSP 2.3 project.
However, if nothing of above helps much, get yourself dual-core TI OMAP4430 RIM PlayBook based on QNX and forget everything about those silly green dudes (for awhile though....too many Android hackers put Android on their Pandaboards somewhere back in summer 2010)
Consider it a rant, if you will. But it also a "bow" of sorts to Mr Deeper-blue who probably never bothered to look into "limitations" of either OMAP3621, or Android 3.0. He just did unthinkable. Now I won't be suprised to see Android 3.0 on my Pandigital Novel one of those days, lol.
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fineoils.blogspot.com
aludal said:
Obviously, no-one. No sound from CyanogenMod guys that hardware based video decoding AND rendering is enabled in their customized Android 2.3 (I suspect they customize stuff mostly for fast/smooth GUI and/or better 3D. When the same shaders of SGX530 refuse to act as video deinterlacing renderers in their build, they could say that they wash their hands and move on. Sure, that's what TI has stuck with their Zoom2 platform. ...
Mr. Deeper-blue of recent "Honeycomb on NC" fame has GUI hardware acceleration working. It's not video, and very far from getting hardware overlays (=zooming in/out HD video at will, and following the device's orientation, full augmented reality support, full HD video phone, etc.,. etc.) But we are all ears. Pity the A3.0 is more of a pure concept now, having nothing to do with a practical implementation on a 3-year old SoC OMAP3621 Google decided it doesn't like a base demo A3.0 machine....
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fineoils.blogspot.com
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This is pretty much what I was wondering about, will OMAP3621 see any support or potentially get proper drivers adapted to work with the various hacks.
Maybe if B&N comes out with their version of Froyo they may include what's needed to get the DSP support driver/interface...
Mike
overclocking will definitly speed things up
Hi all,
For those already using the LG 2x as their daily phone, may i just ask how's the performance in terms of daily usage? Some reviews says it's speedy, so does benchmarks but i have also read reviews that said it should be much better considering that it's dual core and at times, there's some slight stuttering due to the custom froyo skin that LG has.
I'm presently using a Nexus S and it's smooth as butter running custom roms and oc kernel. I'll probably be able to sell off the phone at no loss and top up something like USD120 to get the LG 2x when it arrives in Singapore in the next 2-3 weeks.
Anyone here that have tried both phones and able to provide me with some insights on if i should bother switching? How's the real life use (browsing net, playing music, batt life while playing games etc) difference felt between the processing powers of the two phones?
As it is, the Nexus S can do everything i want except for those Tegra 2 only games. I don't really need a 1080 HD video capability, HDMI mirroring and the 16 Gig space, although limiting is not a deal breaker for me.
Has there been any indications that it'll be able to run custom roms and kernel soon? i know paul from modaco is looking into it at the moment.
Thanks all!
Hi there, I'm also considering between Nexus S and Optimus 2x.
Would appreciate any feedbacks from the users here.
About custom roms - Paul said yesterday that today would be available beta of clockworkmod for download, everything seems that O2X will be great phone for custom roms and stuff Probably there will be functioning Clockwork Mod and developers cooking even before you even get your O2x )
It is lightning fast, and much faster than the Nexus S on stock 2.3. I know because I tried them side by side.
The reviews are correct though, there is some stuttering. I'd say it's annoying as hell, but I'm an impatient guy when it comes to tech-gadgets. I'm sure it's only software issues that will be addressed, either by LG or by custom ROM's.
Sometimes it takes about 5-10 seconds to open the apps list when adding them to the home screen, and sometimes it's as quick as expected.
Sometimes it will stutter while scrolling but most of the time it's smooth as butter. You can clearly tell that there's nothing wrong with the performance because of the smoothness, but there are undoubtedly some serious flaws in the implementation causing intermittent stutter that needs to be addressed.
Playing games is as smooth as I've ever seen. It's simply amazing; There's no stutter or lag AT ALL, so the stuttering you see in the menus seem to be fairly isolated. So far I have tested Angry Birds and AB Rio in addition to Fruit Ninja + Samurai II from Tegra Zone. Samurai II on the TV looks better than a Wii game and is closer to PS3 to be honest.
Another evidence of the incredible performance is the Gallery app. My jaw dropped to the floor when I saw how quick and smooth it is. My Nexus One is like an old Sony Ericsson with Symbian in comparison. If you haven't tried an SE phone with Symbian, consider yourself lucky.
One thing also worth considering is the fact that Froyo is not really optimised for DualCore phones. When gingerbread hits the LG 2x then the speed difference between it and other single core phones should become even more apparent.
the only problem i have with o2x is LG's poor implementation of the LG skin on it. LG's UI w/c i believe can easily be fixed by tweaks/updates or custom roms. that's why im quite happy that g2x will come with vanilla android froyo.
hope LG recognizes the 'MINOR' flaws and stuttering when on the menu/app drawer. but besides that, all other things like browsing, gaming, camera, texting, calling etc are Great and is superior than any other phones in the market as of the moment.
MeX_DK said:
One thing also worth considering is the fact that Froyo is not really optimised for DualCore phones. When gingerbread hits the LG 2x then the speed difference between it and other single core phones should become even more apparent.
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Gingerbread isn't currently optimized to take advantage of the dual core devices either... Hence the information about a version 2.4 of Gingerbread dropping in April. http://goo.gl/b7P0g
I had mine for 8 days now and Im still not used to how fast it is!
My last phone was a HTC Hero, wich I really cant compare it to, but I have played around a lot with iPhone 4, Samsung Galaxy S and Desire HD and my phone eat em for breakfast. Mutitasking games like Angry Birds and Reckless Drivning is really fast and smooth.
Even though 02X dont have 2D accelerated graphics and iPhone 4 does, the smoothness in the menus are pretty much the same.
Amazing fast phone used my old desire (moved to my wife) and it scared the heck out of me found it very slow go figure lol
My son and I uses both the 2x and coming from desires...
Love the screen over the amoled great quality only notice with black when playing not a full screen movie... But the again almost not seen this...
Browsing the net is great and fast deciding which browser to use dolphin mini or opera the latest with flash.
Actually we found the camera great and the sound is great too...
Running myself launcherpro and the diskspace room 1.45gb to store apps beside the sd.
That's what i hated with my desire lol 148 mb
Battery life is building up nice now after 12 days 38 hours normal usage and heavy 8 hours...
lol and we have gorilla glass too
Bottom line an amazing fast phone just love it.
Sent from my LG-P990 using Tapatalk
The stutter/lag I saw some of seems to be as good as gone after upgrading with all the latest stuff from MoDaCo.
Ok guys just a quick one... Checked out the phone for quite a bit at the retail shop...
First Impressions...
It's both fast & slow at times. However believe that this should be able to be addressed via software eg custom roms etc... Games tried all seem smooth. Opening of apps at times there was lag but it was somewhat random and can't quite pinpoint. Other times it was fast.
Installed Golauncher, ADW and LauncherPro and all seemed to work alright. Do note was just a quick one at the shop...
For those into it...
Quadrand Std - 2600 - 2700 +
Linpack Score - 36 MegaFlops...
Neocore - er sorry don't recall & first time running it... 75???
Nothing else really significant to say except that in a nutshell this phone has potential...
If you google android gpu acceleration, you'll see numerous threads on other sites of people asking for it and others saying there hardware is smooth enough.
I don't want to discuss the merit of gpu acceleration as I think it's a given. What I'd like to know is a list of apps that do. But also, if these apps can, why isn't it utilized system-wide? Other threads mentioned older hardware could only have one opengl layer, so if your launcher was gpu accelerated, then a game wouldn't launch. I doubt this is the issue now with more recent hardware.
Is there any side project trying to add this to say cyanogen?
Anyway, I know launcher pro is accelerated. The scrolling through applications is like night and day with other launchers. Also the latest Opera is accelerated. It seems like the built-in gallery app is accelerated. I'm not sure about any of the pdf viewers. ezpdf seems the smoothest, but again, it might be just more optimized over other pdf readers.
So is there a list of apps that utilize the gpu? (besides games obviously)
I'm not sure if it's a video driver issue from device to device, but if that's so, how can a small app like launcher pro work accelerated on numerous devices?
sark666 said:
But also, if these apps can, why isn't it utilized system-wide?
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Because a lot of Android phones can't take it.
Other threads mentioned older hardware could only have one opengl layer, so if your launcher was gpu accelerated, then a game wouldn't launch. I doubt this is the issue now with more recent hardware.
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Yeah, but Android's target is a huge range of hardware- some very crappy. Read up on Android's "fragmentation problem."
Is there any side project trying to add this to say cyanogen?
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A composite based GUI is a HUGE project. It is WAY beyond the scope of this community. It is what delayed Windows Vista for so long, and was a huge reason why many people didn't like Vista (as hardware around its launch couldn't handle the interface).
It took the Linux desktop over three years to add a decent composite GUI, and that was with MANY large companies working on it.
Composite based GUIs are VERY VERY difficult to get right. The only reason Apple has it right is from the get go that was the best part of OSX. Apple's engineers somehow got its composite GUI (called Quartz) on old low-MHz PowerPC machines, and that miracle of technology has not been duplicated anywhere else. In fact, that was the competitive advantage that Apple took with it to the phone market once phones were as powerful as old PowerPC machines.
Other OS's that use a GPU accelerated GUI just have to have very strict minimums for hardware. For example, look at the minimums for Window's phones. Any one of those would be high-end in the Android market.
I'm not sure if it's a video driver issue from device to device, but if that's so, how can a small app like launcher pro work accelerated on numerous devices?
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Run Launcher Pro on an older Android device like a Droid 1 and you would be singing a different tune as to how smooth it is. The fact of the matter is that the Android eco-system isn't ready yet....
Hmm, compiz made huge improvements quite rapidly so I don't know about 3 years to get it right. The benefits were immediate; maybe refinements as it went along.
Regardless if it is huge undertaking, google has to address this. I've read articles where they say it's more garbage collecting vs an accelerated gui. Here's a brief but good article on it: http://www.satine.org/archives/2011/01/01/the-care-and-feeding-of-the-android-gpu/
And linux is a good example, the initial beginnings of compiz were a very small group of developers and features were being added very rapidly.
It turns a lot of people off android when they see a sluggish OS, or the appearance of a sluggish OS.
At any rate, my question still stands. you mention older devices needed to being supported. Then how does an app like launcher pro do it? I'm sure it doesn't have custom drivers for all the various gpu's out there? Same with Opera.
And I'd still like a list of (if there is one) of gpu accelerated apps. If the OS doesn't have it, then it would be nice to have it at the app level. Although I see that causing more headaches down the road instead of the OS doing it.
Anyway, google doesn't sound like they are taking this issue seriously. Or dismissing it as not necessary, but I think that's a mistake. On a traditional desktop OS, it's a nice to have but not really necessary, as most things are static. But given the size of the these devices, menus/icons etc are usually moved about cascade and expand etc. Items are dragged and moved etc. All this calls for an interface that maintains a high fps or otherwise it gives the perception of feeling laggy.
Trust me...rewriting Android to do automatic compositing is a huge undertaking. This would be very difficult to do while maintaining compatibility which existing applications. Honeycomb has compositing but it isn't enabled in applications by default because it can break applications with custom drawing. I don't see any reason for us to attempt to implement composting when its already done about as well as anyone can do it in Honeycomb.
sark666 said:
Hmm, compiz made huge improvements quite rapidly so I don't know about 3 years to get it right. The benefits were immediate; maybe refinements as it went along.
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GPU GUI acceleration on the Linux desktop didn't start with Compiz. GPU GUI acceleration started in 2004 when Keith Packard added the composite patch to Xorg. David Reveman began working on XGL and Compiz around that time, and didn't release a workable beta version until 2006.
Yet that beta version relied on XGL, which was basically running the Linux desktop like you would a video game. It wasn't until AIGLX became stabilized in open source and closed source drivers in 2007 that GPU GUI acceleration on the Linux desktop was finished (I am huge Xorg junkie, that is why I know these random facts).
Regardless if it is huge undertaking, google has to address this. I've read articles where they say it's more garbage collecting vs an accelerated gui.
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From what I have heard, Honeycomb supposedly has a GPU accelerated GUI. But we don't know till we can see the code.
It turns a lot of people off android when they see a sluggish OS, or the appearance of a sluggish OS.
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I would say that the sluggishness is only obvious next to iOS- other mobile OSes also lack such abilities. Compared to iOS Android has mostly targeted the lower-end user segment where quality of experience is less important than raw price (hence the many underpowered Android phones).
Eventually due to attrition the baseline will increase in power and old phones will be cut off for new features such as this. I have already heard that Gingerbread runs terrible on a Droid 1, which is barely a two year old phone.
Then how does an app like launcher pro do it?
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Same way games do it- they just run like crap on older phones. Google can't afford to take that approach with the entire OS.
And I'd still like a list of (if there is one) of gpu accelerated apps. If the OS doesn't have it, then it would be nice to have it at the app level.
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Me too.
Anyway, google doesn't sound like they are taking this issue seriously.
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I think that is an accurate assessment. I think Google believes that in time the hardware itself wil cover this inadequacy- it matters less on dual core phones. Its all those poor people that bought early Android phones that have had to suffer the most...
I'm sure it's not trivial, but again standalone apps seemed to have done it. I know OS wide is another issue. But really, honeycomb is really late when it comes to this. It really should have been a 2.x feature. I"m the exact opposite of an apple fan boy, but the first iphone in 2007 had this. That set the bar right there. What 4 years later and google is almost on it? And yes iphone is a fixed device, but still. An abstraction layer should have been worked on so if a device has a gpu it's used, otherwise fallback to software.
And on a side note, It would still be nice to know apps that do implement this now.
sark666 said:
An abstraction layer should have been worked on so if a device has a gpu it's used, otherwise fallback to software.
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I am a huge fan of this stuff (I actually had a blog about composite back in the day) and I can tell you after hacking on many devices and OSes, only ONCE have I seen a decent software-based compositor. OSX. That is it, in the whole world.
In fact, Apple's entire "magic" empire of devices is built on that unique competitive advantage. Part of what has made it work is that composite was there from day one- unlike a Linux, Windows or Android, OSX/iOS has ALWAYS had composite so applications had to work with it.
And it wasn't a painless process. Early OSX versions (until Tiger I think) all had major composite bugs (to the point I am good at spotting them). Part of Apple's advantage is that initially the OSX base was so small that it didn't matter what broke and what didn't.
So essentially it is not a 4 year gap, but is more like a 10 year advantage. All those old PowerPC Mac users paid out the nose to make modern Apple phones the pleasant experience they are.
To me the saving grace of Android is that Google allows developers to replace major parts. So maybe the entire OS will never have real GPU acceleration, but Google doesn't stop the Operas and Launcher Pros of the world to replace essential functions with apps that CAN leverage that ability. That way different parts of the OS get fixed up by those who are best at that part, and those with weaker hardware can do without.
So yeah, a list would be nice.
Well even Windows XP seems to dust Android's best. For example, browsing these very forums on my pathetic netbook is smooth but on NC it is extremely slow unless Opera Mobile is used. Even Honeycomb's browser is slow scrolling these forums. It is pretty mind blowing that in 2011 there would be 2D GUI inadequacies like this.
But the reason is as has been said: there are phones with really poor GPUs running Android. So Google basically set the bar too low in order to probably lower the cost to develop an Android device and now they don't want to break compatibility. Although I don't see why 3.0 couldn't have been more ambitious.
Not Quite A List of Android GPU Apps
GPU Acceleration will be system wide when Ice Cream Sandwich is released. I stumbled upon this thread hoping to find specific apps. I am of the Nvidia Bootcamp, so that influenced me to get a Droid X2. There are some killer apps that work perfect with GPU acceleration. I am rather surprised to find that this thread became a history lesson, much which I knew and Wikipedia could tell me.
I am using a Movie Player on Android called MX Video Player (FREE and Free Codec Download Required). It works extremely well. This app is an excellent example of quality software taking advantage of GPU acceleration, before a system wide implementation. I doubt "MX" will get better when ICS is here.
As for CyanogenMod none that I know of other than the ICS port they are cooking up. Has to do with ICS SDK API 14, that is the framework for it?
When I find more I will add to the list here, that is if I dont forget.
Oh and that snyde XP comment.... Let me know how the android gui and os is when it has had ten years in the limelight, with patches and bug fixes!