Smartphones vs. laptops: Of mice and... touchscreens
- A
- Aussie Traveller
- uEB
- 12 May 2013
I carry a top of the range Asus 13.3 laptop with me and a blackberry Z10 everywhere. It is no effort and I can do all my business and personal stuff on the go anywhere in the world. What can you do with a S4 in isolation, take decent photos, and vids etc, but it is nothing compared to what I can do with a laptop and the right mobile. I dont see any mobile phone coming anywhere near a laptop replacement, though slate pro might (I dont know - never seen one actually)
- f
- flintstone
- mxx
- 12 May 2013
Comparing a top end smartphone to a low - mid range ultrabook is not a good comparison. The s4 is the top of its technology in mobile phone, and most ppl who are into tech would not even sniff at the yoga. Should always be comparing best versus best and it will show you the real difference.
- D
- AnonD-252
- J5N
- 12 May 2013
LightnigRevolver, 12 May 2013What? Of course smartphones have better productivity than l... moreConnect that phone to a big screen and a gamecontroller and use the phone as a game-console, "x-box"...!
- D
- AnonD-96269
- dPT
- 12 May 2013
Andrei, 12 May 2013My phone is an Acer cloudmobile(4.3 inch 720p(was thbe high... moreAlright.
A decent phone you have, but 4.3 inch diagonal is a pain for any more ambitious use case.
From my experience, 5 inch is the minimum. And if you really want to use a phone as a laptop replacement, you need a 5.5-6 inches and a stylus.
Per core, yeah the A57 is probably weaker than i5, but that's the least telling part of the picture.
How about peak power? Minimum power? Die size?
We're not comparing cores alone here.. we are comparing the whole chip.
To put it simply..the whole A50 big.LITTLE chip will pack 4+4cores in the same die size as a dual core i5 Haswell..and use FAR less power, at that.
So, the SoC will be more powerful.
It uses less powerful cores, but can use much more of them because they are small and very efficient.
And the chip is also cheaper, in the end.
Again, that's why AMD and Freescale opted for A50 solution for their future server and powerstation designs.
- D
- AnonD-252
- J5N
- 12 May 2013
I think that we already next year will have full desktop OS, Linux..., on phones with quad-cores and 2... Gb ram..., and future Android 5.0 will be available on laptops...!
There will always be a need for big screens and big hardware keyboards, but phones can be connected to those big screens and big hardware keyboards...!
- D
- AnonD-14560
- 7vu
- 12 May 2013
For writers, there's no word or at least LibreOffice alternative on mobile yet, especially when it comes to custom font.
For designers, Photoshop Touch outputs ugly results, and very limited features available. Not even count powerless vector software. There's no Indesign alternative either.
Web browsers on mobile/tablet are still not major enough to take on every tasks even for casual users needs. There's a problem with Flash and a lot of DRM content sites still prefer Flash over an overhyped non-DRM HTML5 contents.
IMO mobiles and tablets still have long way to go before they quit being a "portable" device.
- a
- andyy
- 0Ue
- 12 May 2013
Quite stupid decision from companies: 1920x1080 screen for 5" devices and 1280x800 screen for 10.1" devices.
- D
- AnonD-96269
- dPT
- 12 May 2013
Ian, 12 May 2013This dude is crazy haha, i dont see 2 years later that i wi... moreWhat?
So you think in two years Android will require 4Gb RAM or something?
You think games on Android will be so advanced that you won't be able to play them with a two year old device?
That's crazy.
You're just contradiction all over.
The thing is, Android was shaping up over the years at an unprecedented pace so the hardware requirements were increasing accordingly.
But there really isn't any reason for that to continue.
2GB RAM will be enough for any OS in the next years.
And if you think that manufacturer support is the issue.. you ever heard of rooting and flashing and custom ROMs?
A Galaxy S1 can easily run jelly bean.. heck, running JB is possible even on the 6 year old G1.
And all those saying "oh i wont be able to play this and that"..so what??!
There are hundreds of thousands of games on mobile.
Many of them are also unique touch based masterpieces that simply have no point if played any other way.
Besides, the classic game types on mobile are getting better too.
For example, I personally enjoyed NOVA 3 more than HALO 3..at least the campaign. It is actually a better game IMO. (graphics aside)
Now it has a full controller support, and playing it on the TV is an AAA experience.
And that is just an example. There are many other great games on Android, and many old PC title ports. (Rockstar games, Square enix etc)
- A
- Andrei
- 0U0
- 12 May 2013
AnonD-96269, 11 May 2013You do realize that your 4.3 inch phone is a far cry from t... moreMy phone is an Acer cloudmobile(4.3 inch 720p(was thbe highest ppi ever until the 1080p phones) android 4.1 dual core krait OC to 1.8Ghz)
Just whent to arm's website to check the "legendary" "most advanced cpu ever" A-57. it's probably due for next year and only gets an 80% improvement over A-15, meaning it still can't match an i5 that currently runs on surface pro(in core/core performance). And probably they will catchup with the current gen laptops in 2 years because of moore's law, buyt by that time laptops will still be 2x faster than the then current gen smartphones.
ARM TAblets are going to take a blow later this year after haswell is released, which will bring 2x graphic perfomance, much better energy efficiency, and the new sleep states, allowing an i5 to be used in an ipad sized tablet, while being 2x as fast(in CPU) and 4-5x as fast(in GPU) than the current best tablet arm tech. Naturally, if this happens, most of the tablet manufacturers(maybe including apple) will be forced to adopt intel in their tablets, leaving arm only with smartphones
- L
- LightnigRevolver
- v0I
- 12 May 2013
What? Of course smartphones have better productivity than laptops and is more easy to access. But processing power, playing games, and other things? The smartphone has no chance... If they are really better than computers, why do we even need to connect them to a computer just to download things over 50MB (I'm looking at you Apple)? And to print things, we need a specific printer and not just any printer... And the screen? LOL. You lose phone.
And who the hell would like to play COD, Counter Strike, LOL, WOW, DOTA, etc on a phone? I don't see that happening.
- D
- AnonD-73765
- vwu
- 12 May 2013
AnonD-131633, 12 May 2013"Smartphones vs. Laptops" i think gsmarena mad... more2 be pretty honest, there won't b ANY difference betwn. laptops n smartphones pretty soon - smart"phones" r alrdy gettn nearly as big as small laptops in size n it's probably jst a matter of time that they catch up to or maybe even overhaul laptops in size, jst as in all other specs! Roflmao!
- D
- AnonD-131633
- thd
- 12 May 2013
AnonD-5041, 12 May 2013Lenovo IdeaPhone K900 should be considered as it is Intel A... more"Smartphones vs. Laptops"
i think gsmarena made the right decision. i dont agree to you,Coz only few or i think that lenovo device only uses intel. We are pertaining to SMARTPHONES meaning not only "lenovo device vs. laptops" . Commonly used in smartphones are Qualcomm and exynos since samsung flooded us with many smartphones.
does someone understand what am i trying to portray???????????????
agree?
- f
- frnt
- uEC
- 12 May 2013
you should do 3dmark on both devices.
- L
- Lesterrific
- v0q
- 12 May 2013
This review is so silly in my opinion.
Here are the drawbacks of a smartphone:
1. It easily gets old. Look at just how fast Samsung has shifted the crowd from S3 to S4! It was pretty fast! That would leave the S3 users in a very awkward position. the feeling of being "outdated". I bet in just 4-5 years S3 users would simply "throw" their device away.
2. Smartphones are stuck with a 1-2 GB of RAM. Yes, processor power and clockspeed does matter, but without a sufficient RAM, that's just nothing! But in this review, what only seemed to matter was the processing power of the devices.
3. How about the GPUs? Are the smartphones even close to laptops in terms of Graphics processing power? Aside from the very small Screen size, I bet smartphones can't handle power-hungry games like laptops can, unless you can afford to have a fan inside your S4! That's just ridiculous.
4. When new smartphones arise, the predecessors are simply "forgotten" except for some "minor" software updates. That's mostly the case, and that's a fact. You are not even given the option to "upgrade" the hardware, like increasing your ram, or cpu or gpu and anything else. You will just be forced to buy a new one. And that scenario could strike you in just 1-2 years.
Here are why laptops will never be equaled:
1. There are almost limitless possibilities. You are given the chance to upgrade some, and in some cases, all, of the hardware and parts like RAM, CPU etc. and even the OS. In that way, a laptop could still strike people with a "wow" not knowing it was bought 4 years ago. What's more, you can upgrade the parts yourself if you're that skilled and careful enough without having to pay a service center.
2. Laptops offer "true" multitasking. You don't have to "switch" between apps bcoz of the adequate screen size.
3. A pointer such as a mouse offers very much higher precision than a touchscreen. The very reason why developers would not even bother putting photoshop in your tablet or smartphone. That's just too impractical!
4. Laptops are drastically cheaper than most smartphones, and yet they offer more superior hardware and power, not to mention the increasing storage size (hard disk) which at this moment is reaching 1 Terabyte (1000 GB).
Admit it, smartphones just exist for business and "money-making" reasons. The reason why the manufacturer would not even think of giving you the chance to just upgrade your S3 and make it as powerful as S4 or S5 (if ever will come). Yes, they give software updates, but that's it. Software update is just not enough .
Laptops almost has it all. The productivity and portability.
So, will it be wise to throw your laptop and stick with your SGS3? Of course NO! even if ur laptop is 10 years old!
- I
- Ian
- w0P
- 12 May 2013
AnonD-96269, 11 May 2013You do realize that your 4.3 inch phone is a far cry from t... moreThis dude is crazy haha, i dont see 2 years later that i will be playing World of warcraft online on a smartphone lol, and lots of heavy level up games which i am playing now in my laptop since 2005 :)) and hey, my laptop is 8 years old, and still doing well. samdy, talk if your note 2 can do that all and will lasted for 8 years. its just this laptop are still more value for the money than those smartphone that only lasted an average of 2 years
- B
- Bazemk
- 3bm
- 12 May 2013
AnonD-96269, 11 May 2013You do realize that your 4.3 inch phone is a far cry from t... moreYou do realise that x86 architecture based procesors are able to do their job after 5 years? I had a Pentium III that i used to play NFS Most wanted. I waited for 10 min to load the game but it was playable. Tell me what will happen to your "Uber" smartphone 6 mounts after newer model is out or another version of the Os is required that will need the minimum that the smartphone cannot afford? For god sake wathcing movies while traveling on a phone is good but good old fasnion laptop or desktop will get every job done through the years to come unlike phones with android 4;5;6;7 or ios 6;7;8.
- M
- Marketing
- uF0
- 12 May 2013
Samsung master in marketing.
Top dollars !
- D
- AnonD-138944
- 7Xb
- 12 May 2013
Try comparing the Galaxy S4 with an 11" Sager NP6110 / Clevo W110ER i7-3630QM which should be at around the price of the Yoga or even the SONY VAIO S Series i5 3210M which is around $700.
- D
- AnonD-5041
- 7X1
- 12 May 2013
Lenovo IdeaPhone K900 should be considered as it is Intel Atom processor.
- B
- Black Xero
- 38M
- 12 May 2013
AnonD-96269, 11 May 2013You twisted and misinterpreted every single point I made. ... moreOkay let's believe A50 will be the most powerful, but will an android device running on it be able to encode another version of android. Simple ans: NO. They are not made for competing each other. They are for Completing each other.