You seem to completely ignore the fact that higher resolution. In the offscreen, OpenGL ES 3.0 test, the Note 4 is actually faster than the iPhone 6. I see you've selectively decided to stop caring about resolution/PPI as soon as you're lagging behind.
Also, if we're ignoring resolution completely, shouldn't the article be called "iPhone 6 Plus slower than the iPhone 5S"?
Changing resolutions? Absolutely I understand. I did not say it was without challenges. But the company that overcomes those would give users the ability to decide what speed vs graphics resolution works best for them. Apple would have a tougher time overcoming the challenges because they are set to fixed displays (which has given their developers a helluva easier time- there's a tradeoff for everything).
Is it your argument that Apple makes poor design decisions because clearly their hardware is not up to snuff on the iPhone 6 plus, they chose to put in a higher resolution screen before their hardware was capable of driving it correctly? Clearly it is notably slower than the 5s so it is a failure in your view, right? Of course (or at least I'm hoping) the answer to that is 'no.' Apple traded some performance to provide a better screen. Samsung traded even more performance to provide an even better screen again. I agree with you for my personal use, I'd prefer if the Note had gone with the lower resolution of the iPhone 6 plus to gain gaming performance- but to the people that spend a lot of time with photos or browsing, a sharper screen could well be the better choice, and phones are fast enough that most games play flawlessly on either ( I don't think they've ported hi-res Crysis to phones yet).
I'll hold off judgement until I can compare both side by side, but the few side by side reviews out there do state the Samsung screen is noticeably better, but that you would *only* notice it when actually holding the phones next to each other. I haven't seen a Note 4 but I did check out the 6 plus and think its screen is gorgeous.
Changing the resolution of an Android phone, that has been rooted, is an arbitrary task, edit a few lines in a config file and a reboot is all it takes, heck there are even apps that do this for you. So creating a system function that detects the optimal resolution settings for each program and dynamically changes it would also be a fairly easy thing to do. However your idea would never work or at least with any desirable results.
A modern LCD display contains a certain number of individual pixels. Think of each pixel as a small light that can be one of several colors (it actually produces a color through a combination of its red, green and blue elements). The image on your screen is built from the combination of these pixels. The number of pixels in an LCD results in its native resolution – for example, a laptop with a 1366×768 resolution has 1366×768 pixels. When an LCD monitor runs in its native resolution each pixel on the LCD corresponds to a pixel in the image sent by your computer’s video card. This produces a sharp, clear image.
Now, imagine that your computer’s video card sends an 800×600 image to a 1366×768 LCD, you’ll see that the 800×600 image doesn't evenly correspond to the number of pixels in the LCD. To produce an image smaller than its native resolution, the display would still be using 1366×768 pixels, so the display must interpolate (scale) the image to be larger and fill the screen resulting in a image that will be distorted. It is similar to enlarging an image in an image-editing program, you’ll lose clarity and, if the image is a different aspect ratio, it will appear distorted.
All that being said though there isn't any need to do what you suggest. even if there wasn't any visible image distortion that resulted after changing the resolution. Just because a few arbitrary benchmarks that were designed to tacks a systems capabilities show a lower result then that of a system running at a smaller resolution doesn't mean anything other then bragging rights for the user who uses a phone with that lower resolution. Especially when their are currently no apps in the Google Pay Store that any of the current phones with a 2560 x 1600 resolution could't run and run them well.
Benchmarks are useful when trying to determine the overall performance of a device but they don't always tell the full story. First, all of the devices shown for comparison in the benchmark test are all fast devices, even the bottom one and is more then capable of running any app that is currently available for it's ecosystem. You would actually get a better understanding as to just how fast these devices are if that comparison chart showed every single phone currently available on the market. The Note 4 is in the top 5 and if the resolution was 1080p it's GPU benchmarks would be just a few points away from the A8, in fact the Offcreen tests where resolution isn't a factor, show that the Note 4 was even a few points higher. So regardless of what has been said in this thread, The Note 4 with a Qualcomm 805 CPU is an extremely fast phone, regardless of resolution but the need for us to always show that our stuff is better than their stuff has down played these things significantly. Now, the Note 4's cheap looks and crappy software is, well, that's a whole different discussion in it's self.
Uh oh, I think someone just spent a bunch of money on a second rate smartphone.
Don't own Samsung, never will. I just can't for the life of me see why Dilger has to keep going on about them on an Apple website. He talks more about Samsung than he does about Apple. Anyone with that level of visceral hatred for a hardware company has problems.
<span style="line-height:1.4em;">Silver Shadow is too happy to find that he has friends just as silly as he is to even attack you properly!</span>
As long as you continue to write such enjoyable, informative articles - that also include a fireworks show at the end - I will continue to read them, relish them, roll on the floor laughing over them, and recommend them to all I know.
Keep up the great work!
Go out on a limb much? You certainly have taken the phrase to the same level as the original article.
Don't own Samsung, never will. I just can't for the life of me see why Dilger has to keep going on about them on an Apple website. He talks more about Samsung than he does about Apple. Anyone with that level of visceral hatred for a hardware company has problems.
Without the whole good vs. bad angle angle forums such as these, would just be filled with boring stories about how people actually use their devices. Doesn't make for a good read or I'm assuming do to their very low amount of comments, the stories about Samsung however which always have a high amount of comments arouse the darkest corners of human nature, like hating things that mean absolutely nothing to us, gaining up on a certain thing without ever actually using that thing that's so bad. If you want Dilger to stop than stop reading, especially participating in these types of threads.
The whole basis of this article is that users don't care about how a device functions at an artificial level. Which in most cases is very true. However, than in itself is quite misleading. I present to you a similar argument: A person walks into an electronics boutique, looking for a TV. The attendant asks, "What are you looking for?". The person answers, "I want great picture and performance". In this analogy, the attendant than shows an Iphone6 TV, but it sadly only runs at 1080P. The customer then says "Hey what about that one?" and points at the galaxy note 4 TV running at 2K. The attendant responds saying, "yeah well for really intensive GPU work that galaxy TV can't compete." (Which by your numbers is true). But the client going to say, "Yeah, but that picture is so much better". End of story.... Customers/Users do care about performance in real life, but they only care about what they use it for. For some items you would rather have faster FPS, but for most people they would take the hit and get better looking resolutions. Also let's face it, 2K is a monumental upgrade compared to 1080P, for daily uses like instagram or facebook (If those developers and others start supporting it). When Mom looks down to check her email she's going to say that she can read her note 4 better than she can read her email on the iPHONE6. However, Little Jimmy will probably complain about the gaming performance on his giant ~6" nexus (even though it looks better) than what he would say about using his Iphone6 for gaming.
One more thing-- the author bashed Engadget for showing only offscreen numbers. However, how the heck are you supposed to compare an IPHONE 6 with a galaxy note 4 when the Apple doesn't have 2K? There is no on-screen 2K that can be represented, so they used the only "fair" way to compare against each other.
In my opinion, this is a completely slanted argument for IPHONE6 that doesn't take into account real-world use (as well as the author thinks he has). That said, good job Apple for 64 bit a sweet RAM interface.
I was excited to play with the Droid Turbo today at Verizon, and the phone looks beautiful, but disappointed to see it didn't run as well as I expected, which was at least as well as the Moto X 2nd gen, which runs beautifully. The Droid Turbo simply lagged at unexpected times, much like my old Droid RAZR MAXX. My Moto X had a consistently better frame rate, and it's only got a 1280x720 resolution on a two-generation-old Snapdragon S4 Krait (same as the Nexus 4 processor).
I would say most people don't notice or care about frame-rate lag, but I think they do and that's why iPhones tend to depreciate less, because they just run fast throughout their life no matter how old they are. It seems the resolution was a terrible decision by Motorola, as it's hampering the frame rate and battery life (NOT 2-days as advertised), and is a strange decision considering Motorola has put out lower-resolution phones than the top-of-the-line at the time they were released in the last few years.
It really would have benefited Motorola and the user if they'd released it at 1920x1080, and I'd be more impressed with it. The difference between 720/1080/1440 is negligible to me on a 5" screen, as I didn't even notice a pixel on the Droid MAXX (720 5"). I gain nothing from a 1440 screen, though maybe it would matter on the Nexus 6, it's still compromising performance.
Sorry, but the nexus 4 runs the benchmarks on 2x the resolution on which the iPhone 6 Plus is running.
If i run my game on 5160 by 1080 over 1920 by 1080, i get a 50 frame drop. This is bullshit. And on top of that, am i the only one who knows what 64bit is for? Utilizing more than 4GB of RAM. And since the Note 4 only uses 3GB, there is no need for a 64bit processor, apple uses the 64Bit as a marketing scheme as much as gaming mice developers use DPI as a way to market their mice. More DPI doesn't immidiatly equate to better performance and accuracy.
Since the Nexus 6 and the Note 4 share the same processor and GPU and similar speeds, the assumption would be that they give similar numbers. I assume that is how the author came up with the headline.
The Note 4 and the Nexus 6 are not a remotely fair comparison. They do not use the same operating system.
Comments
Also, if we're ignoring resolution completely, shouldn't the article be called "iPhone 6 Plus slower than the iPhone 5S"?
Changing the resolution of an Android phone, that has been rooted, is an arbitrary task, edit a few lines in a config file and a reboot is all it takes, heck there are even apps that do this for you. So creating a system function that detects the optimal resolution settings for each program and dynamically changes it would also be a fairly easy thing to do. However your idea would never work or at least with any desirable results.
A modern LCD display contains a certain number of individual pixels. Think of each pixel as a small light that can be one of several colors (it actually produces a color through a combination of its red, green and blue elements). The image on your screen is built from the combination of these pixels. The number of pixels in an LCD results in its native resolution – for example, a laptop with a 1366×768 resolution has 1366×768 pixels. When an LCD monitor runs in its native resolution each pixel on the LCD corresponds to a pixel in the image sent by your computer’s video card. This produces a sharp, clear image.
Now, imagine that your computer’s video card sends an 800×600 image to a 1366×768 LCD, you’ll see that the 800×600 image doesn't evenly correspond to the number of pixels in the LCD. To produce an image smaller than its native resolution, the display would still be using 1366×768 pixels, so the display must interpolate (scale) the image to be larger and fill the screen resulting in a image that will be distorted. It is similar to enlarging an image in an image-editing program, you’ll lose clarity and, if the image is a different aspect ratio, it will appear distorted.
All that being said though there isn't any need to do what you suggest. even if there wasn't any visible image distortion that resulted after changing the resolution. Just because a few arbitrary benchmarks that were designed to tacks a systems capabilities show a lower result then that of a system running at a smaller resolution doesn't mean anything other then bragging rights for the user who uses a phone with that lower resolution. Especially when their are currently no apps in the Google Pay Store that any of the current phones with a 2560 x 1600 resolution could't run and run them well.
Benchmarks are useful when trying to determine the overall performance of a device but they don't always tell the full story. First, all of the devices shown for comparison in the benchmark test are all fast devices, even the bottom one and is more then capable of running any app that is currently available for it's ecosystem. You would actually get a better understanding as to just how fast these devices are if that comparison chart showed every single phone currently available on the market. The Note 4 is in the top 5 and if the resolution was 1080p it's GPU benchmarks would be just a few points away from the A8, in fact the Offcreen tests where resolution isn't a factor, show that the Note 4 was even a few points higher. So regardless of what has been said in this thread, The Note 4 with a Qualcomm 805 CPU is an extremely fast phone, regardless of resolution but the need for us to always show that our stuff is better than their stuff has down played these things significantly. Now, the Note 4's cheap looks and crappy software is, well, that's a whole different discussion in it's self.
Uh oh, I think someone just spent a bunch of money on a second rate smartphone.
Don't own Samsung, never will. I just can't for the life of me see why Dilger has to keep going on about them on an Apple website. He talks more about Samsung than he does about Apple. Anyone with that level of visceral hatred for a hardware company has problems.
Apple user experience truly makes a difference.
Go out on a limb much? You certainly have taken the phrase to the same level as the original article.
Don't own Samsung, never will. I just can't for the life of me see why Dilger has to keep going on about them on an Apple website. He talks more about Samsung than he does about Apple. Anyone with that level of visceral hatred for a hardware company has problems.
Without the whole good vs. bad angle angle forums such as these, would just be filled with boring stories about how people actually use their devices. Doesn't make for a good read or I'm assuming do to their very low amount of comments, the stories about Samsung however which always have a high amount of comments arouse the darkest corners of human nature, like hating things that mean absolutely nothing to us, gaining up on a certain thing without ever actually using that thing that's so bad. If you want Dilger to stop than stop reading, especially participating in these types of threads.
However, than in itself is quite misleading.
I present to you a similar argument: A person walks into an electronics boutique, looking for a TV. The attendant asks, "What are you looking for?". The person answers, "I want great picture and performance". In this analogy, the attendant than shows an Iphone6 TV, but it sadly only runs at 1080P. The customer then says "Hey what about that one?" and points at the galaxy note 4 TV running at 2K. The attendant responds saying, "yeah well for really intensive GPU work that galaxy TV can't compete." (Which by your numbers is true). But the client going to say, "Yeah, but that picture is so much better". End of story....
Customers/Users do care about performance in real life, but they only care about what they use it for. For some items you would rather have faster FPS, but for most people they would take the hit and get better looking resolutions. Also let's face it, 2K is a monumental upgrade compared to 1080P, for daily uses like instagram or facebook (If those developers and others start supporting it).
When Mom looks down to check her email she's going to say that she can read her note 4 better than she can read her email on the iPHONE6. However, Little Jimmy will probably complain about the gaming performance on his giant ~6" nexus (even though it looks better) than what he would say about using his Iphone6 for gaming.
One more thing-- the author bashed Engadget for showing only offscreen numbers. However, how the heck are you supposed to compare an IPHONE 6 with a galaxy note 4 when the Apple doesn't have 2K? There is no on-screen 2K that can be represented, so they used the only "fair" way to compare against each other.
In my opinion, this is a completely slanted argument for IPHONE6 that doesn't take into account real-world use (as well as the author thinks he has). That said, good job Apple for 64 bit a sweet RAM interface.
I would say most people don't notice or care about frame-rate lag, but I think they do and that's why iPhones tend to depreciate less, because they just run fast throughout their life no matter how old they are. It seems the resolution was a terrible decision by Motorola, as it's hampering the frame rate and battery life (NOT 2-days as advertised), and is a strange decision considering Motorola has put out lower-resolution phones than the top-of-the-line at the time they were released in the last few years.
It really would have benefited Motorola and the user if they'd released it at 1920x1080, and I'd be more impressed with it. The difference between 720/1080/1440 is negligible to me on a 5" screen, as I didn't even notice a pixel on the Droid MAXX (720 5"). I gain nothing from a 1440 screen, though maybe it would matter on the Nexus 6, it's still compromising performance.
If i run my game on 5160 by 1080 over 1920 by 1080, i get a 50 frame drop.
This is bullshit.
And on top of that, am i the only one who knows what 64bit is for?
Utilizing more than 4GB of RAM.
And since the Note 4 only uses 3GB, there is no need for a 64bit processor, apple uses the 64Bit as a marketing scheme as much as gaming mice developers use DPI as a way to market their mice.
More DPI doesn't immidiatly equate to better performance and accuracy.
Since the Nexus 6 and the Note 4 share the same processor and GPU and similar speeds, the assumption would be that they give similar numbers. I assume that is how the author came up with the headline.
The Note 4 and the Nexus 6 are not a remotely fair comparison. They do not use the same operating system.