My God, the spec sheet I got from Verizon today lists the Galaxy S4 as having a 1.6 GHz Quad core A15 processor.
In a cell phone!
That dusts all my current computer hardware.

I'm beginning to wonder if I need a computer.

Then there is the big/little eight core Exynos 5 using four A15s and four A7s.

Egads, Arm is getting intimidating.

Where are the netbooks and other devices based on this stuff?

How about a development board?

Yep manufacturers went bezerk with phones. Instead of making them use less power to stay on longer they upgrade to more powerful hardware needed by only a fraction of market. Needed is loose term, as no-one really needs that kind of horse power in a cellphone. I miss days when I had to charge my phone once a week god damn it.

The Microsoft Surface is ARM based which is like a net book. Samsung have done similiar products.
The main downside is that there are no good OSes yet for desktop envoriment with ARM. Windows RT is not yet usable IMO, but will be at some point.

AFAIK The Arndale Board, Andreas mentioned in another post,is the only (or at least the more powerful) A15 dev board available at the moment. But it's a dual-core.

> The Arndale Board, Andreas mentioned in another post

To give credit where credit is due, I'd like to clarify that minator was the one making MorphZone readers (including me) aware of that board.

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7675&start=364

> the spec sheet I got from Verizon today lists the Galaxy S4 as having a 1.6 GHz
> Quad core A15 processor. [...] Then there is the big/little eight core Exynos 5
> using four A15s and four A7s.

Actually, the Exynos 5 is exactly what's inside the (GT-I9500 model of) Galaxy S4.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S4#Octa-core_variant

> The Microsoft Surface is ARM based which is like a net book.

That's only Cortex-A9, not Cortex-A15, which is what Jim is talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Surface#CPU

> Samsung have done similiar products.

Yes, the Chromebook has Cortex-A15 cores (which Jim is aware of), but only 2 of them, not 4.

@ Jim... So much horsepower for a smartphone, but my Samsung Galaxy II barely reaches 16 hours of activity, and if I navigate,then the battery fals in less than 4 hours.

Sure Samsung Galaxy S3 and Galaxy S4 doubled battery capacity to 2600 milliampere, but I do not believe that this enhancement will be enough to double the performance on 4core smartphones...

A quadcore Cortex running Morphos will be more performant, due to very light code of our operating system.

hooligan,
Quote:

Actually, during the fourth quarter of 2012, spending on games for phones and tablets overtook that on games for portable game consoles. So, clearly, there are many smartphone owners out there who do use their devices for more than just calls, texting and the occasional web browsing, and who are willing to sacrifice usability (controls) in favor of added convenience (all-in-one device).

Gaming has been a huge driver for advances in hardware performance for decades now and it will continue to be for a while to come.

If someone cares more about battery life than performance, there are certainly phones that provide extended running times and are more affordable than a Galaxy S4 as well.

Andreas_Wolf,
Quote:

Apparently not in the ones we are getting in late April.
While the press was shown S4s with that processor, the spec sheet I have from Verizon only shows the four A15 cores.

Bummer.

Funny, I don't really care about the cellphone features.
I like it for computing oriented tasks.

@ASiegel

I know the game industry, that is sadly the trend. When I said no-one NEEDS a phone this powerfull this is just what I meant. Basic tasks like GPS, browsing, emails, SSH, playing music etc. can be done perfectly fine with less but marketing is often based on how powerful the phone is.

Also, in Finland there has been lots of discussion how expensive smart phones are sold to for example elderly when something way cheaper and less complicated would suffice. No doubt the situation is same all over the world.

>> the Exynos 5 is exactly what's inside the (GT-I9500 model of) Galaxy S4.

> Apparently not in the ones we are getting in late April. While the press was shown S4s
> with that processor, the spec sheet I have from Verizon only shows the four A15 cores.

Then either the Verizon spec sheet is inaccurate or the model uses some not yet announced Samsung chip, because to date there's only the Exynos 5 Dual (2 Cortex-A15) and the Exynos 5 Octa (4 Cortex-A15 + 4 Cortex-A7) announced by Samsung.

> AFAIK The Arndale Board [...] is the only (or at least the more powerful)
> A15 dev board available at the moment. But it's a dual-core.

Another one (also dual-core, but more expensive) available since early May:

http://www.ti.com/tool/omap5432-evm
http://www.svtronics.com/omap/omap54xx?product_id=33

Neat, but Imight just wait until the next Galaxy tablet is release.
That is supposed to be a four core A15 at 1.9 GHz.

> Imight just wait until the next Galaxy tablet is release.
> That is supposed to be a four core A15 at 1.9 GHz.

As far as I've read, the Exynos 5 Octa in the Galaxy Tab 3 Plus (GT-P8220) is supposed to clock at 1.6 GHz.