There's a lot of speculation about the SoC used in Samsung's Galaxy S II, thankfully through process of elimination and some snooping around we've been able to figure it out - and run some preliminary performance tests.
Read on to see how it stacks up against the latest NVIDIA Tegra 2 based smartphones.
The tablet market today is a far more interesting place than it was just over a year ago. Since the launch of the iPad, there hasn’t been a real competitor to iOS in the tablet space. We’ve seen customized versions of Android for larger devices like the Galaxy Tab, but they’ve all had their fair share of limitations. In fact, Android releases up to Gingerbread were never really designed to be used on larger screens. But Honeycomb has the potential to change all that and it could be just the catalyst manufacturers need to come up with the next iPad-killer.
It’s been public knowledge that Honeycomb (v3.0) was going to be the next major release of Android after Gingerbread (v2.3). It all started when Andy Rubin showed up at the D: Dive Into Mobile event with a mysterious looking tablet that was later revealed to be the Motorola Xoom running Honeycomb. CES gave us a sneak peek at Xoom and a host of other tablets that would run Honeycomb. At the Honeycomb launch event a few weeks back, Google gave us a full-blown preview of the OS. Now, with the Xoom releasing this month, the time has come for Google's official answer to the iPad.
Honeycomb has been designed ground-up for use on tablets. Google also confirmed that Honeycomb is a tablet-only OS for the time being and that some of the new features would eventually transition over to phone versions of the OS. That’s where the next release of Android codenamed Ice Cream comes into picture; more on that later. Honeycomb represents Google’s first effort to be a serious contender in the tablet market. Make no mistake here Honeycomb is an absolutely massive release with a smorgasbord of new user and developer features; some of which are so well implemented that they could give iOS a run for it’s money. Without further ado, let us dive into the juicy bits.
Earlier this morning we published our first impressions on Apple's iPad 2, including analysis on camera quality and a dive into the architecture behind Apple's A5 SoC. Our SoC investigation mostly focused on CPU performance, which we found to be a healthy 50% faster than the A4 in the original iPad - at least in web browsing. We were able to exceed Apple's claim of up to 2x performance increase in some synthetic tests, but even a 50% increase in javascript and web page loading performance isn't anything to be upset about. We briefly touched on the GPU: Imagination Technologies' PowerVR SGX 543MP2. Here Apple is promising up to a 9x increase in performance, but it's something we wanted to investigate.
Read on to see just how fast the new PowerVR SGX 543MP2 really is.
I don't exactly remember when I stopped using the iPad, but it wasn't without me trying to use it. We reviewed the WiFi version on AnandTech last year but it was the AT&T 3G version that I ended up using most of the time. For short trips around NC I'd carry it with me. It was the perfect car companion. Smaller and lighter than a notebook but functional enough to get me through any short trip. I tried carrying it to lunch and meetings around town but for the most part it wasn't portable enough for that to make sense. A smartphone was a far better companion.
For several trips around the country I remember trying to take just the iPad, but I always needed to work on an article or publish something extensive while I was gone. For months I boarded every plane with the intention of bringing only the iPad but I always ended up bringing a notebook as well. Even when I went on vacation last year I had to finish a review and ended up bringing a notebook just for three days of use. Eventually I just gave up completely and left the iPad at home. As I mentioned in our review of the first iPad last year, this is a device that augments your existing setup - it replaces nothing. You'll still need a computer of some sort and you'll still need a phone, you just get to have another device that's more convenient than both of those occasionally.
These days my iPad sits docked at my desk doing nothing more than charging and receiving updates. Yet every time I'm at an airport I look around and see tons of passengers with their iPads. It's the new ThinkPad. I see it everywhere and people seem to be happy with it. In fact, last quarter 17% of Apple's total revenue came from iPad sales.
Will a new iPad be enough to make me a tablet convert? Read on for our full review of the iPad 2.
