Understanding the iPhone 3GS
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 7, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Final Words
I always feel like I need to congratulate or somehow gift those readers who make it all the way through an article like this. Maybe I'll start handing out lollipops one day. If you made it this far you'll know that there's a lot of concluding that needs to happen.
First, the phone itself. Honestly, if you have the original iPhone then this is absolutely the one you'll want to upgrade to - you'll feel like you've been swept off of your feet one more time (assuming you did like your iPhone). Upgrading from the 3G is also a good idea in my opinion, just because of the tremendous increase in performance. Where the upgrade recommendation becomes stickier is if you have to pay full price for the phone. Unlike the iPhone 3G launch, AT&T isn't letting everyone move to the 3GS at the $199/$299 upgrade price (16/32GB models). Under immense pressure from the market, AT&T has made terms a little more favorable but there is a sizeable population that won't get upgrade pricing until later this year. At $500 or $600 I'm not sure the 3GS is worth the price today, simply because I'm expecting an updated model around this time next year. Remember that Cortex A9 based phones will be out in 2010 and Apple also has the option of using a multi-core A8 variant as well, especially at 45nm. If you have to spend that much money, either wait until the next iPhone or wait until your upgrade price drops; $500 can buy you a Core i7, it shouldn't be the cost of a CPU upgrade for your phone.
Next, there's the Palm Pre. I continue to be impressed by not only how much Palm was able to do in such a short period of time with webOS but how frequently Palm is updating the OS on the recently launched Pre. We're now up to four OS updates since its launch in June and I fully expect more from the Palm crew. By the time the Pre debuts on Verizon and AT&T the phone should be sitting pretty. If you don't mind being on the bleeding edge of a platform that needs work and real developer support, the Pre is a real alternative to the 3GS - and in some senses, a better device to use.
Finally, there's the hardware itself. The real story behind the 3GS isn't that Apple took longer than necessary to move to the Cortex A8. No, the real story here is that both ARM and Imagination Technologies are significantly improving the CPU and GPU performance in high end smartphone SoCs at a rapid pace. There's significant room for improvement in both CPU and GPU performance, right now all we're limited by is power consumption. Within the next year we should see more SoCs transition to 45nm and at that point I'd expect to see multi-core ARM implementations as well as wider PowerVR SGX cores. Then there's always ARM's Cortex A9, the first out-of-order ARM core. In the distant future we also have to start thinking about Intel; Atom was always intended for the smartphone market, and at 32nm I'd expect to see an Atom based CPU in an iPhone-sized device.
If you're bored by performance improvements on the desktop, then keep an eye on the ultra mobile space. Smartphones are going to see significant performance gains over the next few years. The iPhone 3GS is just the beginning.
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iwodo - Thursday, July 9, 2009 - link
Would really love Anand digg deeper and give us some more info. The info i could find for Atom, has 47 Million transistors. Ars report 40% of it is cache, while others report the core is 13.7 million. The previous iPhone article Jarred Walton commented that x86 decoder no longer matters because 1.5 - 2 million transistors inside a billions transistor CPU is negligible. However in Mobile space, 2M inside a 13.7M is nearly 15%. Not to mention other transistor used that is needed for this decoding.The space required for Atom is 25mm2 on a 45NM ( Including All Cache) . Cortex A8 require 9mm2 ( dont know how many cache ) on 65nm.
What is interesting is how Intel manage to squeeze the north bridge inside the Atom CPU ( more transistors ) while making the Die Smaller. ( i dont know if Intel slides were referring to the total package size or the die size itself ).
snookie - Thursday, July 9, 2009 - link
The Pre hardware, as in case, screen, keyboard is terrible. Cheap, plasticky and breaking left and right on people. If Palm survives long enough to get to Verizon etc Here's hoping they come out with better hardware soon. I've used Blackberries for year but I see no need for a physical keyboard. With the new iPhone widescreen keyboard I type with both thumbs very quickly and I have big hands.snookie - Thursday, July 9, 2009 - link
Jason, Apple has in fact agreed to using mini-usb as a standard. As if that is really a reason to buy a phone or not.To say Apple never changes shows no knowledge of the history of Apple, even their recent history.
Itaintrite - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
Heh, it's funny how you say that you can't just look at clock speed, then followed with "the 528MHz processor in the iPod Touch is no where near as fast as the 600MHz processor in the iPhone 3GS." Heh.Anonymous Freak - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
I want my punch and pie!Or a lollipop.
Good review, I could feel your hunger pangs toward both Palm and Apple toward the end...
monomer - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
Regarding Anand's comments about Android phones needing an upgraded CPU, rumors are that the upcoming Sony Xperia Rachael will be sporting a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor (ARM Cortex A8 derivative). Would love to find out the details of this phone when they become available.http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/04/sony-ericsson-r...">http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/04/sony...chael-an...
Affectionate-Bed-980 - Thursday, July 9, 2009 - link
Well I'd like to see Anand's experience with Android phones. What is it, just G1? Look at the new Hero or even G2. What about the Samsung i7500? Sorry I'm afraid that the limited nature of cell phone selection in the US makes it VERY HARD to review cell phones well here. I haven't seen a good cell phone site that's by people in the US and from the US only. Phone Arena, Mobile Burn, Phonescoop, GSM Arena, It seems the international guys get a LOT more exposure, and this is why I feel like Anand's comments about phones in general makes him sound inexperienced which I can certainly bet is the case.If you limit yourself to only carrier offered phones, then I don't think you can make accurate assessments about manufacturers like Nokia or certain OS phones like WinMo or Symbian or even Android unless the US starts offering more of what the world considers top notch popular phones.
Affectionate-Bed-980 - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
N97 specs should be 434 MHz ARM11 not 424...Affectionate-Bed-980 - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
BTW I don't believe you should be commenting about the N97. Gizmodo is heavily biased towards iPhones and unless you yourself Anand uses some Symbian S60 phones with detail, I don't really think you should join in the S60 bashing. I think a lot of us Symbian users AGREE that the platform needs to improve, but considering we were like ZOMG434MHZFAIL, the N97 is not bad in response time if you look at a few videos. The UI exceeded a lot of expectations amongst the Symbian crowd. If anything why don't you throw the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD in there instead? That has a Cortex A8 and uses Symbian S60v5 (not to mention has been out longer than the N97). The other S60v5 phone to come out is the Sony Satio which also uses a Cortex A8.You might as well comment on why Cortex A8 isn't being implemented in all new phones. WinMo phones are still on ARM11, and even HTC's newest announcements are ARMv7 chips. The iPhone doesn't define what high end is. Because if you want to point out that its unacceptable to have a ARMv7 chip in an N97, then it's just as unacceptable for the iPhone not to have a 5MP camera and multitasking.
straubs - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
1. It IS unacceptable for any flagship phone to use ARM11. The iPhone, Pre, and Omnia HD (as you pointed out) all use it, so why wouldn't Nokia put it in it's $700 N-series flagship? It doesn't make sense. I'm surprised he didn't mention the crappy screen on the N97.2. He did comment on how the iPhone needs multi-tasking and how much he missed the Pre's implementation of it.
3. Doesn't everyone at this point agree that the number of megapixels in a phone camera is not a huge deal, considering the size of the sensor and optics? I would guess the N97 pictures are better than those from the the 3GS, but nothing like the jump from an ARM11 or A8.