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NVIDIA Releases 337.50 Beta Driver, Touts Significant Performance Improvementsby Ryan Smith on 4/7/2014 9:00 AM EST
50 Comments
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nadim.kahwaji - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkthat's why we need the Red team to keep Nvidia's Motivation high :) Reply
schizoide - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkIf you say so. AT measured the changes since 331, which was a very long time ago, and they only found a 0-11% performance increase. Assuming the gains are real for this driver, and didn't come in any of the many in between, 11% is nothing to sneeze at, but it's not worthy of a "major event". Reply
HisDivineOrder - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkWas it more of a major event to you when it was Mantle giving that gain? ;) Reply
schizoide - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkNopers. Reply
unproven - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkAnandtech should review AMD's Mantle. Reply
nathanddrews - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkYes it would, but I think they should wait until summer. This will give AMD a chance to normalize their drivers, nail down some of the rendering quality issues (missing/different effects and particles), as well as allow NVIDIA to do more driver improvements like R337. Then I think it would be a nice comparison. Reply
SeanJ76 - Wednesday, April 09, 2014 - linkR290 has been out for 5 months and their drivers are still horrible.....so maybe another 5 months and they'll get a stable driver out there? LAWL@Amd garbage Reply
teiva - Friday, April 11, 2014 - linkHow are the R290 drivers horrible? Reply
hero4hire - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkThe competition will be vs dx12. So we have can see a mature Mantle vs dx11, new dx12 all in one is what I would want. While a quick mantle vs dx11 would be nice (there's plenty of reviews out there ) it's more informative to compare current cards at $/perf then feature specifics in api. So I'd vote to hold off an in depth look until then. Reply
HisDivineOrder - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkDirectX 12 comes out at the end of next year (2015).
I think they can squeeze in both a review of DX11 vs Mantle mid-summer AND a review of DX12 vs DX11 vs Mantle in December of 2015.
It's not an either/or. Reply
Wreckage - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkHere you go.
wccftech.com/nvidias-directx-11-driver-better-mantle-api-benchmark/ Reply
SeanJ76 - Wednesday, April 09, 2014 - linkThey did-
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/175881-amd-mantl... Reply
CiccioB - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkHow do these driver perform with a more human monitor resolution? It is quite evident that if the GPU is at its limits no performance can be gained by reducing driver overhead (unless there is a SLI scaling problem like for TotalWar).
What about a more wide spread 1080p resolution as in NVIDIA benchmark? Reply
CiccioB - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkdriver = drivers
An edit button would still be appreciated even after few years of the same request ;) Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkThe reason we don't have edit is simple: it's supposed to make you think before posting. We want our comments to rise above the common Internet forum quality, and we feel the lack of an edit button helps ensure posters take time to proof anything before posting. If we just let anyone go and edit previous posts, think of all the potential flame wars and name calling that could ensue...THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
Okay, not really; I'm not sure why we haven't added it, other than to guarantee that what you see posted is what was always posted, so there's no retroactive editing. :-) Reply
nathanddrews - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkI just made $3400 last moth working from home in my pajaems! Seriusly, check out my wbzone for more informations! dhty450.ext.com Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkLOL... we get so much of that crap. I generally just flag the account as spam, which deletes all posts from that user ID (and potentially locks the account). Reply
nathanddrews - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkOh crap! It was a joke, I'm not a bot! ;-) Reply
teiva - Friday, April 11, 2014 - linkdamn I was about to post that my cat made $8213 last month for its internet business :) Reply
PrinceGaz - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkA time limit to edit your own posts is the best option, about ten minutes which is plenty of time to look at your post and check for speling errors and the like. Reply
schizoide - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkYeah, a 5 minute edit window would be nice. I make typos all the time, and it bugs me when I can't fix them. Reply
sascha - Tuesday, April 08, 2014 - linkWhat about 7.5 minutes? Reply
HisDivineOrder - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkIf someone retroactively edits, people usually catch them. They are often mocked for it, too. The public shame often drives them to binge eating and the stains of doritas powder marks them physically as a retroactive editor of posts. Thus, more shame piles on.
Rinse, repeat.
When you see someone covered in dorita's dust, you know what happened. That's why it's an unspoken law you must treat them as Worf was treated after he was disowned by the whole Klingon Empire. You just cross your arms and turn your back to them.
Sure, they might stab you in the back and take your car keys or your iPhone, but at least you won't have acknowledged their existence. Reply
cobrax5 - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkHaha, nice... Reply
RonanH - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linktesting a 780Ti at 1080p is a waste of time (and gfx horsepower) the system is probably bottlenecked by something other than the gfx card at that res. Reply
HisDivineOrder - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkIf you want to know when the nVidia driver (or even Mantle) will make a difference, all you have to do is ask yourself: "Is my CPU bottlenecking me?"
If so, yes. If not, not much improvement will be had. That's what makes Mantle being restricted to only GCN cards so absurd. The biggest gains Mantle has to offer are CPU improvements that could have been incorporated into OpenGL as extensions or, apparently, into DirectX drivers.
But AMD wants you to go buy a GCN card or one of their relatively new APU's, so they refuse to make it work on anything except GCN. Reply
jwcalla - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkThese two companies are great at hype.
I went into the wrong line of business. I should have taken up marketing. Reply
Hameedo - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkYou should have tested BF4, Theif and StarSwarm to compare with Mantle.. Reply
Margalus - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkI would like to see a review with these drivers showing if there were performance gains for older cards like the 580 and 680! Reply
username609 - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkAnandTech Overlords:
I realize it's probably impractical to go back and re-bench everything in the Bench database when new drivers are released. But would it be possible to add a field indicating the driver revision that was running when the test result was achieved? Reply
skiddierow - Monday, April 07, 2014 - linkHow about some benchmarks of CPU bound games? I'm seeing a nice increase to min fps with these in WoW and GW2 on 3570k/660ti, Ultra preset was a no-go (for 60fps) in MoP before now. Reply
TheJian - Tuesday, April 08, 2014 - linkThey concentrated on 1080p as shown in their charts. Only 2% of users are running above this, that is why you didn't see much improvement. Why should they spend time on that when only 2% (according to steam hardware survey) use it? Test again with 1080p, otherwise these results aren't relevant. Nice info to know, but for 98% of us on 1920x1200 or below you're wasting our time. Reply
stacey94 - Tuesday, April 08, 2014 - linkAre the improvements more or less pronounced on the Maxwell 750 series? Reply
coburn_c - Tuesday, April 08, 2014 - link337 gave me a code 43, guess that's one way to improve frame rates Reply
Scali - Tuesday, April 08, 2014 - linkThat happens on Windows 8.x when you have Hyper-V enabled. Disable Hyper-V or disable VT in your BIOS, and the drivers will work. nVidia is aware of the problem, and will probably fix that in the next beta release. Reply
coburn_c - Tuesday, April 08, 2014 - linkYeah I saw the geforce forum post, but I had to reboot like 5 times to get it all sorted so I had to come back and complain. Reply
Klimax - Tuesday, April 08, 2014 - linkUnless I suck at reading I don't see specs on system, which quite important, because too powerful CPU will completely annihilate any change.
Which would quite explain results. Not CPU-bound games on powerful CPU... Instead you should have some very weak CPUs like APUs or at least i3 or below... Reply
Azurael - Tuesday, April 08, 2014 - linkBecause everybody pairs a 780Ti with an i3... Reply
Klimax - Tuesday, April 08, 2014 - linkYou want to see changes on CPU side, you have to limit CPU side otherwise your testing will show just expected stuff and is generally useless.
And 780Ti is great for elimination of GPU limits/bounds... Also if you wanted to go with proper real scenario, then you'd get say 750 or something, if you wanted to go there. Reply
rms - Tuesday, April 08, 2014 - linkI've read Shader Caching is the secret to this driver's speedups. Any chance AMD could add this to their drivers as well? Reply
austinsguitar - Tuesday, April 08, 2014 - linkOkay guys i am seeing a 5 fps increase on most games after this update (using an 660ti). Not only did the games speed up, but windows and in game frame-time has a HUGE benefit. The whole experience is bizarre and much smoother than before (im guessing this explains the new shader cache check box in Nvidia now). Anyway, just play around with your graphics card before updating and share what's up. Reply
austinsguitar - Tuesday, April 08, 2014 - linkOh yah, and i use a 2048x1152 resolution monitor and an i7 880 if that helps explain something. Reply
mapesdhs - Wednesday, April 09, 2014 - linkI think you're the first person I've seen on a forum say they have an i7 880. Neat!
Is it oc'd? If so, to what level? Which mbd? I bought a use 875K instead. Just curious! :)
Btw, are you using a CRT display? That resolution sounds familiar, think I used to use
it on my old Dell P1130 for gaming.
Ian. Reply
austinsguitar - Wednesday, April 09, 2014 - linkI have it oc'd to 4.4 ghz... im not really into making my computer unstable ans have a fast cpu ha. But nope. Im using a samsung 2343 lcd. Its pretty good. Reply
Mikuni - Wednesday, April 09, 2014 - linkDesktop capture is actually useless for windowed mode games, since it includes also the game's caption bar and Windows' taskbar etc. I need to keel using Fraps until they sort this. Reply
SeanJ76 - Wednesday, April 09, 2014 - link337.50 is garbage for 670 FTW sli, tested and confirmed this new driver is only for 770/780ti Reply
LiquidLogic - Wednesday, April 09, 2014 - linkAny news on this "Boost" being supported on card lower than the 7xx series? Reply
khory - Wednesday, April 09, 2014 - linkThe performance increases are pretty meh.
However watching Red and Green fight for every ounce of advantage no matter how small is great. Reply
jtemplin - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link@ Liquid Logic
I was excited about this update potentially giving across-the-board increases to gaming performance so I decided to install my trust old 3dmark06 and do a before and after test. What I found is that on my relatively old GTX 560 and with a very old benchmark I got an 8% increase in my 3dmark score! (On a 2500K OC to 4.4 ghz and RAM @ 1600)
I noticed D3:RoS framerate seemed way smoother and less spiky (mostly referring to downard spikes in FPS...but any variability can distract from gameplay) and HIGHLY recommend all nVidia ppl to get this update on the DOUBLE. Reply
jtemplin - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - linkHuge grain of salt to my excitement--I should add that I was updating from year old drivers. So I can't say what the improvement is over more recent (just few months old) drivers. Reply


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The Real Conroe Successor: Clarkdale & All You Need to Know about Westmereby Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/24/2009 6:00 PM EST
- Posted in
- CPUs
96 Comments
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Wolfpup - Friday, October 16, 2009 - linkDual core CPUs in 2010, AFTER we've had quad core for three generations, and even have a fairly reasonably priced Core i7 in NOTEBOOKS now? Boooooring! Reply
cosminliteanu - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - linkHi,
anybody know when Intel will add support for USB 3 and SATA 6 GB? And most important in which chipset/platform will be ?
Thanks. Reply
NeBlackCat - Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - link
Once again AMD will be getting my money as I'm not being forced to buy two motherboards to get the CPU that I want now (Clarkdale) and it's immediate successor.
I'm sure you're gutted. Reply
SFNR1 - Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - linkwhat PSU was being used? Reply
IKeelU - Monday, September 28, 2009 - linkI hope that mini-ITX is < 100$. I'll finally be able to upgrade from my existing atom board and its measly 2 SATA ports. Reply
cjs150 - Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - linkExactly. Personally I am excited by this. I need to build a couple of things for the home network
1. HTPC - this needs to be very very quiet. This new CPU and Mini ITX board looks spot on if (and it is a big if) Intel actually delivers on HD acceleration for both video and audio
2. Small home server to replace the ancient thing currently flogging its guts out. This looks close - low power is good but I have two big requirements. (a) standard PCI slot for my RAID card which is an 8 port SATA raid card (Broadcomm) which just works exactly as it should. (b) with all the HD streams 2 xGb ethernet ports would be nice to allow for future expansion (and yes I know it is overkill). Looks like the current minim-itx board fails on both
CrimsonFury - Thursday, October 08, 2009 - linkAn 8 port SATA controller is very limited via standard PCI.
Even a PCI-E x1 slot would double the bandwidth (x4 or or x8 would be better)
Just use one of the mini-ITX boards that has a PCI-E x16 slot and check a PCI-E sata controller in there. Reply
Holy Smoke - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - linkAm I the only one who finds the tock-tick thingy retarded?
It's the wrong sequence, dammit! It's like an army going 3-4-1-2 fer chrissakes! Reply
2good2btrue - Monday, September 28, 2009 - linkOkay, how is this the wrong sequence?
They optimize the circuit design, from a known good/working design, then they optimize it at the smallest current size possible.
How is this retarded? Reply
strikeback03 - Monday, September 28, 2009 - linkI'd guess he is arguing that the tick should be the new microarchitecture, and the tock should be the shrink of that. Reply
wagoo - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - link..with these 12 shaders you are really spoiling us! Reply
ClagMaster - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkClarksdale is not the spiritual successor of Conroe. If this is true then I fail to see it.
Clarksdale with its dual core CPU and embedded graphics chip is obviously positioned for business and education Platforms. What Intel is attempting to do is include a high speed GPU with low latency interconnects to the CPU, memory and PCIe. To improve memory latency for the GPU and maximize its performance, the memory controller is placed on the GPU die instead of on the CPU die. This makes perfect sense for a business platform processor. But it makes no sense at all for a mainstream or enthusiast processor.
Additional evidence that Clarksdale is positioned for business and education platforms is the much touted AES-NI encryption acceleration. This is wonderful for business and government, but generally worthless to high-end mainstream and enthusiast users. I certainly could not care less about these new instruction sets.
I share TA152Hs disgust and horror over moving the memory controller from the CPU to the GPU.
I am disappointed. Clarksdale is not a processor I would want. I would much rather have Lynnfield shrunk to 32nm with incremental improvements to the memory and PCIe controllers. The reason why this has not happened is because of that GPU included with Clarksdale. Two CPU's with hyperthreading (4 threads) will never outperform four CPU's with no hyperthreading. I would be better off with an i7 860 than with Clarksdale.
Gulftown is evidently another server chip design with desktop versions available for enthusiasts (in the Samuel Johnson sense of the word) with plenty of cash to squander. I agree with the observation the X58 is a dead-end money pit.
Intel may well be providing an opportunity for AMD. AMD will soon be providing a 32nm quad core Athlon II X4 CPU for high-end mainstream users that will challenge Lynnfield.
v12v12 - Monday, October 05, 2009 - linkI would much rather have Lynnfield shrunk to 32nm with incremental improvements to the memory and PCIe controllers. (Testing since the POS buttons don't EVER WORK!)
I couldn't agree more... WTF, I like to consider myself a "smarter" shopper. Aka I like looking at road maps and plotting the best times to buy chips with most ground breaking innovations for my personal usage... And it WAS Lynnfield, UNTIL they balked at 32nm AND disabled (b/c they are greedy and AMD doesn't have a leg to stand on anyhow) HT... So now I'm stuck with a crippled 45nm Lynn Vs a Bloom-860 that SHOULDN'T even be on the market as far as I'm concerned... the Lynn 45nm PLUS HT = should be MY NEW CHIP (if I had to settle...) *Sigh* guess I'll be waiting some more on my old AMD rig... Thanks Intel... Reply
CrimsonFury - Thursday, October 08, 2009 - linkThe i7 860 is NOT Bloomfield based, its Lynnfield based (dual channel memory, intergrated PCI-E controller) on socket 1156. You want 4 cores and 8 threads (HT) in a more affordable package, there you have it.
Personally I think Intel made a mistake creating the i5 750. They should have just called the 8xx series i5 to differentiate them from Bloomfield and left it at that until the i3 arrives.
PS. To add to the branding confusion, just found out from an Intel conference yesterday than the Clarksdale's with with vPro enabled (Dual core CPUs with HT) will be branded Core i5 ^_^ Reply
mozartrules - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - link"I am disappointed. Clarksdale is not a processor I would want"
Why did you ever think it would be. Most people on this site would not be interested in the Intel processor family that is just above the Atom. Lynnfield is the processor made for you. Of course it would have been nice to have a 32nm Lynnfield, but Intel cannot change all their factories at the same time.
Intel has an obligation to the shareholders and I don't think we need to look at their business plan to realize that the vast majority of processors are sold to people who would not choose a four core processor. The reality is that the vast majority of people has no need for a four core processor and they are unwilling to pay for it.
I am writing this on a 2GHz dual core laptop and that is overkill for what I do (I don't use games). I have a dual X5570 at work for Monte-Carlo simulations, but that is a completely different market. The latter will probably also point towards the expected Gulftown audience, $1000 is cheap when you were OK paying $1500 for the X5570!
Also remember that AMDs survival is crucial for Intel. Not just to fend off the monopoly charge but also to make sure that nVidia has a competitor. Letting AMD compete in the reasonably small area of people who build their own computers and overclock (less profit for the CPU manufacturer) may well be a good business decision. Reply
ClagMaster - Monday, September 28, 2009 - linkThe business of Intel is Business. Thats why they developed Clarkdale to address business needs for an efficient high performance chip. Its perfect for Business and Home Theater platforms.
Your right, the Lynnfield is for me. My next upgrade in the Summer of 2010 will feature an i750/P55.
I too run Monte Carlo analysis (neutron/photon transport) on my PC at home and on superclusters featuring 100's of 4-processor servers. The i750/p55 is actually more capabile than the mainframe computers I was working with 25 years ago. Most of my CPU cycles are used for media conversion or monte carlo analysis. I use the power of overnight batch processing while I count sheep to get the most out of my PC. I get good statistics with the problems I run at home with my E6600/G965.
I agree the survival of AMD is crucial for Intel for the reasons you described. Reply
smilingcrow - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - link"AMD will soon be providing a 32nm quad core"
Unfortunately this isn't going to happen until early 2011 so it will be competing with whatever Intel has out by then. Reply
ClagMaster - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - linkWhat Intel will have out in 2011 is the pricey Gulftown for pricey LGA1366 motherboards.
I think a 32nm shrink of Athlon II X4 or X6 will occur sooner than you think. Reply
Harry Lloyd - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkDoes the 24 Hz refresh rate finally work on Intel graphics? Will Clarkdale support it?
MamiyaOtaru - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkThis leaves me pretty flat. I was waiting for a 32nm Nehalem so i could maybe finally get a quad core without a larger TDP than my dual core. But 6? So much for TDP not increasing too much. And there's no way I am getting another processor with 2 cores, especially not with integrated graphics. I don't need a bunch of silicon sitting there that I'm never going to use.
My plan to wait for Westmere seems to be fail. I'll just stick with what I've got I suppose. Reply
Arbie - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkIs this true? Right when apps will begin to really use the quads, Intel is going to stop making new ones?
That's amazing, but good news because it will give AMD a great opportunity to recover. They can sell a quad against any Intel dual as long as the base clocks have the same first digit. Nobody (statistically) is going figure that even a double-throwdown super-trick over-and-under hyperthreaded handshaking pair will beat four of a kind, across the board. It might be true, but it won't sell at Best Buy.
Arbie - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkOh - now I see. No new quads until Sandy Bridge. Well, that will at least give AMD some time to make hay. They need it, and we need them. Reply
grimpr - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkUnfortunately, Clarkdale is NOT the Conroe succesor, despite all the stiring of enthusiasm and feelings about Conroe that our dear Anand likes to provoke. As TAH152 points out, its a half baked product like Lynnfield, everyone thats taking a serious look at the platforms and products of 2011 will clearly see the complete and mature solutions that will arise in that year, cpu and platform wise, Sandy Bridge, the TRUE Conroe successor from Intel and a completely new architecture from AMD.
Dont bite for just a piece of blue sky.
gwolfman - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkOoooo, I want! I'll replace my Intel G45FC without even having to think about it! :) Reply
gwolfman - Friday, September 25, 2009 - link@Anand
Any news on those 4 SATA + eSATA ports supporting RAID5? I hope so! Reply
vshin - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkThe final piece of the puzzle has been revealed and now we can map out the right path to upgrade for the budget enthusiast PC gamer market (<$250 CPU budget, no SLI).
Clarkdale is not the answer. This is a CPU for the casual non-gaming PC user and the HTPC market. On board graphics and 2 cores do not make this the ideal upgrade choice for the majority of us.
Bloomfield was the answer. It's still a great CPU on a great chipset but it will cost more than a Lynnfield without a proportional payoff in gaming performance. Yes the X58 platform might be "future-proof" since Gulftown will be a drop-in upgrade. But Gulftown is rumored to start at $1000. This makes X58 a dead-end money-pit. Even if Gulftowns eventually drop in price, by that time Sandy Bridge will be out, along with USB 3.0, PCIe 3.0, and SATA III so you'll want to upgrade your motherboard anyways.
Lynnfield may be a "crippled" Bloomfield but this is the least expensive option for us until Sandy Bridge. There might be a 32nm version but probably not until mid 2010. In any case, all we need is to build a system that will perform well until around 2011-12 since we'll want to upgrade our motherboards by then anyways. So go with a low budget system for now, perhaps a Lynnfield 750 (or 860 if you can find one for under $250), a non-SLI 1156 mobo (under $120), with 4GB DDR3 1600 ram (<$90). Throw in a decent heatsink and overclock this sucker as high as you can.
I just want to make clear that I don't hate the Bloomfield. It's still better than Lynnfield but less bang-for-your-buck to the typical budget gamer. I suppose if you can spare the cash (>$250 for CPU) or plan on building an SLI setup, you wouldn't be wrong to go with a Core i7 920, especially if you can pick up a D0 stepping at the local Microcenter for $200. ASRock has a socket-1366 motherboard selling for $170 with SLI/Crossfire, which is probably the best deal you're going to get for this platform. I think decent 6GB DDR3 1600 triple-channel kits can be found for around $120.
TLDR version:
If you want to spend <$250 on a CPU, then go with Lynnfield.
If you can spend >$250 on CPU and want to SLI, fold proteins, or encode video, then go with Bloomfield. Reply
bobbrb - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkIs there any info available on sockets/chipsets spec for future 22nm processors? I've been waiting to build a monster rig for few months now and keep postponing with news of better chips coming out... but I set the deadline for Jan'10 and it looks like Clarkdale will be the winner for me. But... it looks like it will come out with only 2 cores (what's up with that???). So I'll be looking for good mobo with plenty room to grow and 2-core Clarkdale hoping to upgrade the chip once 22nm processors come out - that's if sockets/chipset support will allow. Reply
chizow - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkJust seems like its going to be really short-lived. It'll capture the low-end, maybe $150 and lower because above that you have Lynnfield. On the high-end, 6-core and $1000 for Gulftown puts it out of reach for even most X58 users, and no 4-core Westmere part means no upgrade path for current Bloomfield owners.
Then you have Sandy Bridge in late 2010....meaning Westmere will have a shelf-life of about a year? Or will 32nm Westmere low-end parts not see a refresh until Ivy Bridge? Almost seems like Intel is going away from its straight refresh approach and alternating high and low-end parts on their Tick and Tock and coordinating with the process shrinks.
Better for the consumer I suppose, as it offers 2 year life cycles for their preferred performance bracket, but seemingly worst for Intel's bottom-line. Unless they think their bottom-line is best served pacing their progress due to lack of any real competition from AMD. Reply
strikeback03 - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkEnthusiast irrelevance maybe, but it will probably be huge in laptops (which will probably make up over 50% of processor sales for most if not all of the life of these chips) and will also fill in the cheaper desktops from HP, Dell, etc. So yes, the Westmeres seem to be skipping the midrange market, but I imagine they will still sell plenty of them.
Too bad, I'd love a 32nm 4 core/8 thread part for under $300, but they took so long releasing Lynnfield after Bloomfield that obviously they are not anxious to turn right around and replace the 45nm i7s with 32nm. Reply
chizow - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkYep but again, that all hinges on whether or not there's a 32nm Sandy Bridge refresh of this low-end, or not. I'm guessing not. 11-month life span would be short even by Intel's standard. I guess their new plan will be to space out generations further, especially as they venture into greater core plurality. Last I heard 8-core was going to be the baseline core # for Sandy Bridge. Reply
strikeback03 - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkRemember, there was initially supposed to be a 45nm low end, it was axed and 32nm pulled up. So I wouldn't be surprised to see a 32nm Sandy Bridge, but probably a while after the higher-end versions launch, same as we saw with Nehalem. Reply
sunefred - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkThats a perfectly sized and nice looking case that the Clarkdale is housed in. Is that comercially available yet? Reply
MadAd - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - linkyeah third on that, what itx case is it? Reply
MadAd - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - linknvr mind, its one of the travla series
http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=10314">http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=10314 Reply
cdalgard - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkdoes anyone know what case is used for the mini-itx system that is shown in this article? Reply
KompuKare - Friday, September 25, 2009 - link"Why not give all chipsets video out support? Intel is big on differentiation. The P55 chipset is a bit more overclocking friendly, a set of optimizations that you won't see in H57. Both types of motherboards will take Clarkdale processors."
I do wish reviewers would be a bit harder on Intel with their artificial market segmentation.
My personal pet hate is the game of which CPUs have Intel-VT and which do not. I see a lot of people being disappointed trying to run XP-mode in Windows 7 not to mention trying to run VirtualBox and VMWare properly.
gstrickler - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - link50%-60% faster than the lousy IGP in G45 when running 3DMark Vantage. The G45 had the X4500HD, so a 50%-60% improvement still puts it at about half the performance of the Nvidia 9400M (G) chipset IGP. Fast enough for daily tasks and maybe games from 4+ years ago. That makes it adequate for HTPC and the casual desktop PC or business PC, but it's still way behind the IGP in Nvidia or AMD chipsets.
The whole idea of putting an IGP on the CPU just sounds like a bad idea to me. It's great for embedded SoC systems, but for a GP CPU, I think it's the wrong place for it. Don't want the Intel IGP? Too bad, since they moved the memory controller off the CPU die and onto the die with the IGP, you get it whether you want it or not. Intel is going to force their less lousy IGP into your machine. Hopefully the IGP is fully power gated so that if you're not using it, it at least doesn't cost you power.
I'll wait for some independent tests before I bless or condemn it. 3.33GHz Clarksdale with Turbo Boost and HT enabled is estimated to be almost as fast as a 2.66GHz C2Q on SPEC*Int_rate2006. Let's see, that's 2 cores running at perhaps 3.66GHz + about 33% (for the HT threads) = 7.33GHz * 1.33 = 9.75GHz vs 10.66GHz (4 x 2.66GHz). Allowing a little extra for the IMC and other CPU improvements. Sounds about right on performance, and the power consumption should be down quite a bit.
Aside from the IGP, it sounds pretty good if the price is right.
Inkie - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkSo, what you find wrong with the IGP is that it isn't very good for gaming? It's just a question of degree. No IGP out there is very good, from anyone. Serious (3D graphics) gamers buy graphics cards anyway. Reply
gstrickler - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkNo, what I find wrong with the IGP is that it still sucks compared to the IGPs from Nvidia and ATI/AMD. With OpenCL (and maybe DirectCompute), the OS and some applications are starting to use the GPU to accelerate non graphics functions. Given that, putting in an IGP that is significantly lower performance is a performance impediment, even for non gamers.
While I have no doubt that Intel will support OpenCL and/or DirectCompute on Larrabee, I don't remember seeing any indication of whether they will support it on this GPU. Even if they do, the performance is likely to be far lower than the performance you would get from an IGP from Nvidia or ATI/AMD.
Like I said, it's "less lousy" than Intel's previous IGPs, and it should actually be adequate for most uses up to low end gaming, but it doesn't have the power to provide many of the benefits that an IGP can provide and there is no reason to build it into the CPU. It should be in the chipset, and like previous generations, you should be able to choose a chipset with it or without it. Reply
Inkie - Saturday, October 03, 2009 - linkAnybody serious about OpenCL or DX 'Compute Shaders' will also buy a discrete GPU, for now. Reply
Penti - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkNo IGP is good enough for gaming either way. It's a laptop/low end desktop chip. So it's good enough. And you still have a x16 PCI-e slot. Reply
ereavis - Tuesday, October 06, 2009 - linkexactly. I'd estimate at least 4000 PCs in this building and guess that 95% or more of them would love this processor. Compiling software, running electrical engineering hardware simulations (when you leave open dedicated crunching servers for the big tasks) need the best processing available. Low end IGP is perfect for displaying the results, reading email, and other office tasks. Big companies doing bulk buys are aiming for low power without sacrificing performance. The gaming market drives video cards, not IGPs.
Having said all that, I'd want my living room computer playing movies to support some gaming, but I'll sacrifice the case size for that. Reply
TA152H - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - linkI'm horrified by the idea of them moving the memory controller off the CPU and onto the GPU. What the Hell are they thinking? I was very much looking forward to this product, but like every Intel product, they find a way to marginalize it. Why not just leave the memory controller on the CPU die? Not everyone, especially people buying this platform, care about graphics performance, but, everyone uses a CPU.
It's just so strange. Reply
vshin - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkYou really shouldn't advocate Gulftown or Clarkdale over Lynnfield any more. There may actually be people who were swayed by your posts and now you've done them a disservice.
For the budget enthusiast PC gamer who is upgrading from a C2D system or older, the best Intel CPU will be Lynnfield until Sandy Bridge. Gulftown will debut at $1000 and the current Bloomfield isn't significantly better to justify the extra cost for this segment. The X58 platform is basically a dead-end money pit. But hey, if all you do is fold proteins and encode video, then stick with it.
Clarkdale isn't "the answer" either. I'm surprised Anandtech is calling this the spiritual successor to Conroe. It most certainly is not. This is a CPU for the HTPC market and LAN party builders. Maybe grandma would like Clarkdale too. You call Lynnfield crippled (which is true) but Clarkdale is half a Lynnfield with an obsolete (no DX11) IGP stapled onto its back. Reply
TA152H - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkBased on what? You're unqualified opinion? You've offered zero evidence.
From what I've seen, there's no upgrade for the Lynnfield. The only option is a dual core, which would qualify as a downgrade.
On the other hand, there is an upgrade for the x58. So, what deranged thinking are you suffering from by thinking this validates someone buying a P55 more than before, when there's even less of an upgrade path.
Not that the Gulftown is going to be feasible in the near future, it's just the P55 shows even worse upgradeability. Reply
vshin - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkWrong. X58 doesn't have a viable upgrade path if Gulftown will start at $1000. At least the P55 is cheaper and has the option to drop in a 32nm Lynnfield later on. Reply
jordanclock - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkCould you provide some evidence that this will have a real-world impact on performance? Besides, the market segment this processor is aimed at will almost always be using integrated graphics. For those few cases where it won't be used, I'm sure it will be a simple matter of plugging your monitor into your discrete video card and the usual changes one makes when using a discrete card on an integrated motherboard. Reply
jonGhast - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkYou also think going from 3 channel memory to 2 channel for Lynnfield was a horrible idea, despite plenty of evidence that it doesn't really matter.
Can't we just agree that you don't really know what you're talking about, and move on? Reply
TA152H - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkWhat kind of an idiot are you?
There are very real differences between the Lynnfield and the Bloomfield. Didn't you read Anand's apple to apple comparison? Can you read at all?
I think we can agree you're an idiot, and move on. Reply
KaarlisK - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkActually, the impact from this will be higher. Memory latencies will be on the level of Core2 instead of Bloomfield/Lynnfield - basically, you're losing the IMC. Reply
jordanclock - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkI see you're privy to data we are not seeing. Could you please share where you received this information that moving the memory controller to another chip ON THE SAME SOCKET will somehow cause pre-IMC memory latencies? We'd all like to see some actual numbers instead of sensationalist guesses. Reply
KaarlisK - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkI remembered reading about it somewhere.
It was from the benchmark here. http://global.hkepc.com/3878/page/5#view">http://global.hkepc.com/3878/page/5#view
Though the latency in this review is higher than Core 2's, which makes it suspect.
As to the why, there are smarter people than me who could answer whether there's any impact from locating the other die on the CPU package or in the chipset. Reply
GeorgeH - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - linkHopefully more major manufacturers will offer Mini-ITX motherboards this generation. It's nice to see at least one Intel board, but if 775 is any indication it'll be almost ridiculously feature poor.
I also hope PS and case manufacturers are paying attention - the current crop of mini-ITX options is pitiful. Reply
Mr Perfect - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - linkAbsolutely.
I'm impressed that the mITX has what looks to be an x16 PCIe slot on it though. In the past, Intel was always throwing a PCI or x1 slot on them. I think they where afraid that people would stop buying the bigger, more expensive boards. I know I would have.
Hopefully Anand will take a good hard look at this sector. Reply
tomoyo - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkNo kidding! There's a total lack of good mini-itx boards with undervolting features and only one server raid case for mini-itx at all. It's sad because I'm sure a ton of people would love to make a small DIY raid nas system and not deal with the low end parts and lack of OS choice in pre-built nas systems. Reply
Aquila76 - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - linkI was going to build an HTPC soon, but if this can really bitstream TrueHD & DTS-MA on a single, low-power chip then I can wait. Next year is going to kill my wallet, but at least I can start saving now! Reply
mgl888 - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - linkWhat's gonna happen after 22nm? 10nm?
When are we gonna hit a brick wall and what's Intel plan to do next?
Quantum computing? Reply
Zink - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - linkIt looks like there is going to be a big delay after 22nm because the thickness of certain layers in the transistors can not be scaled thinner.
Check out 16nm too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/22_nanometer">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/22_nanometer Reply
jwilliams4200 - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - linkEach die shrink generation decreases the gate length by a factor of the square root of two (0.707), so that the die area decreases by a factor of two every shrink. To answer your questions, the gate lengths to expect are: 45nm, 32nm, 22nm, 16nm, 11nm, 8nm, 5.6nm ...
As to how the lower ones can be achieved, or whether they will be achieved, I will not venture a guess. Reply
CurseTheSky - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - linkThank you for clarifying that. I always wondered how they determined what the next process size would be. It seemed like they picked arbitrary numbers out of a hat, but now I see that:
65 / 2^(1/2) = 45.96
45 / 2^(1/2) = 31.82
32 / 2^(1/2) = 22.63
etc. Reply
Ryun - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - linkThat Cinebench score doesn't look that great, though I don't know the price of Clarkdale (would this fit into the ~$50-$100 bracket?). Otherwise, I'm excited to see these processors bring on more mini-itx proliferation and they look very capable processors.
It's a good thing AMD has something to combat these processors in the form of it's Athlon II X4 line. Otherwise I'd say these, not Lynnfield or Bloomfield, would be the nail in the coffin for them. Reply
yacoub - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - linkSo to summarize the Intel options for buyers: Basically Intel is going to offer the new 32nm process for super-high-end 6core setups and for HTPC-level dual-core budget systems, but the average gamer and enthusiast who just wants a middle-of-the-road, solid, high-performing cpu is going to be limited to 45nm Lynnfield P55 or an aging i7 920 on an X58 board? Reply
tim851 - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkI'd reckon, that the entry level 6-core will be at the i7 920's price point, so that will be your sweet-spot CPU.
Intel is probably pushing the Quads in the 100-200$ price segment and the Dual Cores below 100$. Reply
vshin - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkGulftown will start at $1k. Lynnfield will be the only Intel option for the budget gamer market segment (<$250 CPU, <$250 video card, no SLI) until Sandy Bridge. Stay away from the X58 platform, it's a dead-end money pit. Reply
MadMan007 - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkI reckon you need to put down the crack pipe :D There's no way Gulftown will be ~$300. Reply
yacoub - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkNot only that but that would require an X58 platform. What if you're running a P55? No 32nm love with more than 2 cores until late 2010 if at all? :( Reply
archcommus - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkI agree as well. Although I'm not looking to upgrade right now anyway, I, like many others here I'm sure, have a Q6600 right now. I would want my next CPU to be a quad core with HT, preferrably 32nm, and have all the latest features like turbo mode and the on-die PCIe and memory controllers. Right now that option doesn't exist. If Westmere won't have a quad core option I guess we're just waiting for a Lynnfield die shrink. Reply
srue - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - linkI agree. I just want a 32nm Lynnfield. Reply
yacoub - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - linkPoor wording. Should replace "middle of the road" with "enthusiast overclocking system" because that's what I meant. I mean the type of CPU that's under $300 but more than 2 cores - what we've been building for the past couple years - there won't be a 32nm die shrink until SandyBridge and even then it will have more on the die than just a CPU.
So for those of us building a gaming rig, who would rather not pay for an extra GPU or whatever on the die that we'd just end up disabling because we have a separate NVidia/AMD GPU on the PCIe bus, there is no 32nm die shrink on the horizon aside from a 6-core X58 chip? Reply
jonGhast - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - linkThere are some rumblings that we might see bloomfield and lynnfield get 32nm shrinks around the middle of next year.
No evidence or links but it's possible. Reply
mczak - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - linkHmm, clarkdale beating c2q in specfp:
"You can see that thanks to a competitive clock speed, aggressive turbo modes and Hyper Threading the 3.33GHz Clarkdale outperforms both the Q9400 and the E8500."
I'll fix this for you:
"Thanks to the low memory bandwidth available to the c2q due to FSB limitations, c2q scales terribly and is hardly any faster than c2d which allows clarkdale to beat c2q"...
Still, performance is certainly solid. There's no way however that Clarkdale will beat this core 2 quad in more typical multithreaded applications which aren't as bandwidth limited as specfp, for instance video encoding. But at least it will be somewhat close. Reply
CajunArson - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - linkWow, I'm so glad you are such a genius and are correcting those dumb Anandtech guys who waste all their time researching and benchmarking CPU technology! [/sarcasm]
Seriously, the FSB has never been a bottleneck on consumer systems, particularly on notebooks where the CPU is not clocked up the wazoo to begin with. The FSB was a limitation in 2+ socket systems which is why Nehalem came out... as Anand and many others pointed out when Nehalem was new, the primary reason for abandoning the FSB was that it did not scale to multiple CPU sockets. Now the point-to-point architecture is superior, but it's like having 200mph racing tires on a car that can't take advantage of them anyway: nice to have, but they don't make you any faster.
Just go back and look at the original benchmarks of the supposedly "superior" Barcelona when it came out: Using an on-die L3 cache to transfer data between cores on Barcelona was a blazing 2% (yes two whole percent) faster than the quad-core desktop conroes swapping data over the FSB... not much of a bottleneck. Reply
mczak - Sunday, September 27, 2009 - linkI'm not saying FSB is really that much of a bottleneck on consumer systems, the problem is that IN THIS SPECIFIC CASE with specFP it is (of course, specfp isn't exactly relevant for consumer systems) indeed a problem. Hence clarkdale with its two cores will not, as specfp would indicate, beat c2q in more typical multithreaded workloads.
Merely pointing out the comment about why clarkdale is faster than c2q in specFP indeed is bogus - sure clock rate, turbo (not much as specfp rate will use 4 threads) etc. help but fact is this would give the impression that clarkdale could achieve c2q performance which it will not (for multithreaded workloads) unless they are heavily memory limited like specfp, which is unlikely. Not that this is really a bad thing as that would be too good to be true anyway (the core of a core2 duo and clarkdale is very similar so this would be very much a miracle indeed). Reply
Inkie - Saturday, October 03, 2009 - linkPCMark Vantage comparitive scores are even better than SFP... Reply
GeorgeOu - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - link"Thanks to the low memory bandwidth available to the c2q due to FSB limitations, c2q scales terribly and is hardly any faster than c2d which allows clarkdale to beat c2q"...
Even a Core 2 quad no matter the GHz with a single socket isn't going to flood a north bridge controller and the FSB. Even a sub 2 GHz dual-socket Harpertown quad-core isn't really hitting the FSB/NB wall for the most part. Where Intel gets into trouble with the FSB is when they're running two sockets with two high clocked quad-cores. Reply
mczak - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - linkThat's generally true but not in all cases. In fact you can easily see some performance degradation even with dual-cores (the pentiums with only 800Mhz FSB) with specific apps (or of course any synthetic memory benchmark) so it's not surprising to see this issue come up with specfp. Fact is, if you've got enough memory bandwidth, specFP rate should scale perfectly with core count. According to results published at spec.org, a C2D E8400 scores ~30. A C2Q QX9650 (same clock) scores ~45. Clearly, that's not good scaling, and AFAIK this is solely due to lack of memory (or rather FSB) bandwidth.
It is incorrect to say the cpu isn't going to saturate the FSB. Even a 2Ghz C2D can already do that very easily as any memory benchmark will show, thankfully most applications aren't really in need of that much memory bandwidth, but specFP IS a memory bandwidth hog. Reply
mdbusa - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - linkI dont know about anyone else but I am thoroughly confused by all the different nomenclature used by intel. We have thees nams clarksdale, etc... then we have chip names? I5, i7 etc...., then we have 45 nm etc. P55 etc. blah blah
Now ill go read the article Reply
SenorB - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - linkJust guessing, but note that Field = 4, Dale = 2. Cloverfield was a quad-core proc too (before it was a monster movie). Reply
SenorB - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - linkMy bad, it was Clovertown, not Cloverfield. Still, I always thought it was a sly little joke on Intel's part: quad core, clover... or am I giving them too much credit? Reply
the zorro - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkintel graphics?
no thanks. Reply
MonkeyPaw - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkYeah, every new iteration of Intel graphics is always promised to be fully functional and competitive. Yet every time, they aren't. Their IGPs ship with stuff disabled or not supported by drivers. 3D is a joke thanks to what has to be a one-man driver team. 2D usually works great, but that was mastered that almost a decade ago. I really don't have high expectations of Larribee. From what I gather, it will require a 6 pin and an 8 pin power connector, and all Intel can do is show it raytracing QuakeWars. Raytracing is great, but developers are not going to abandon rasterization as long as game consoles use it! Reply
Camikazi - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - linkIntel BoxStation i3720, featuring Larrabee raytracing and i3 CPU, coming soon! That would take care of rasterization :P Reply
Ben90 - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - linkYea its fairly annoying; especially in the forums when people arnt the most educated that there is a difference...
I would love to be the person at intel responsible for creating their tick/tock drawings, must be the easiest, most secure job in the world...
Intel: Drawing boy! we need another tick tock picture now!
Drawing boy: Howbout we put some overlapping semi-circles
Intel:Perfect! That will work for another 2 weeks Reply
Griswold - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkWhat happened to the original tick-tock drawing boy? The one way back in 2006 who made that penis shaped tick-tock pattern - was he fired? Reply
kiwik - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - linkYou mean these tick-tock drawings?
http://tweakers.net/ext/i/1190631924.png">http://tweakers.net/ext/i/1190631924.png Reply
VooDooAddict - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - linkHe went to work for Disney. Reply
MadMan007 - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkPat Gaysinger decided to go to a different company. Reply
the zorro - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkthese days the tic-toc seems more like a tic tac. Reply
AnnonymousCoward - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkhilarious Reply
mdbusa - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - linkthe clarkdale processor includes nehelem and westmere features--
that really clears things up for me.
The problem is that when we go to buy a pc all we see is a processor name--i7 , i5, blah blah
shortark - Thursday, September 24, 2009 - link"The problem is that when we go to buy a pc all we see is a processor name--i7 , i5, blah blah"
No offense meant, but since I found Anandtech, I have never had to "go to buy a pc".
All the info you need in order to build your own pc, to whatever specifications is all right here. Anandtech has "roudups" for different budget levels to help clear things up.
It is sort of funny though, because I found the site originally after getting caught not knowing the difference between a "williamette", and a "northwood" when I tried to upgrade my own motherboard.
Since then I've overclocked the snot out of every chip I've bought.
mdbusa - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkGoing to buy a pc for me means going to the it mall to a pc shop and choosing the mb cpu etc... and then the shop will put it together for me. and yes I agree that Anandtech has great advice on budget and other systems. the pc shops have pricelists of cpu's mb etc..--nowhere will those lists include terms like clarksdale or westmere or whatever--the wont even mention nm size.
just choose your mb, cpu, video, ram etc... Reply
shortark - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkWith a little patience you could build your own, with more power, better warranties, and best of all lower price. And to help, sites like Newegg, or Tigerdirect use the codenames in most of their product listings, and newegg can seperate by socket type. You sould give it a try it's fairly simple since SATA, you don't have to worry about hdd jumpers anymore, so it's pretty much just matching up similar connections. The real value though is in overclocking. ie 2.4 P4 @3.2, or 2.4 E6600@ 3.3, or a 2.4 Q6600 @ 3.6, or my newest 3.0 E8400 @ 3.6 it's free performance, and that is whats got me so excited about each die shrink. Every time the die gets smaller, the easy overclocking potential goes up.
I'm looking forward to redoing and shrinking my HTPC, since my rig now is a full blown 680i Q6600 system, Not exactly efficient or quiet. sorry for the rant. Reply
taltamir - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkexcept, the article focuses on the laptop cpu... which, last I checked, you can't really build yourself. Reply
shortark - Friday, September 25, 2009 - linkEvidentally you missed page 1. blah blah blah" Intel Clarkdale Desktop Processors"....."socket LGA 1156"...or maybe it was the title you missed."The Real Conroe Successor: Clarkdale & All You Need to Know about Westmere", or maybe it was in page 1 where a simple table states "Clarkdale | Desktop | 2 | 32nm"
beside my response was agreeing that the code names are confusing. Reply
Electrician Conroe - Monday, July 23, 2012 - linkThat's amazing, but good news because it will give AMD a great opportunity to recover. They can sell a quad against any Intel dual as long as the base clocks have the same first digit. Nobody (statistically) is going figure that even a double-throwdown super-trick over-and-under hyperthreaded handshaking pair will beat four of a kind, across the board. It might be true, but it won't sell at Best Buy. Reply


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Motorola Droid 3 Review - Third Time's a Charmby Brian Klug on 7/30/2011 12:01 AM EST
84 Comments
Back to Article
EndlessChris - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkGreat review as always. Looks like this will be my new phone :) Reply
RaistlinZ - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkSharp lookin' phone. I like. Reply
vol7ron - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkI like this too, larger screen, nice looking keyboard, great looking device. It seems to have it all.
One thing, does it really have a 0.3MP front-facing camera? I would suspect 1.3MP would be more realistic, especially since there are probably economies of scale for that technology right now.
vol7ron Reply
Brian Klug - Friday, August 05, 2011 - linkVol7ron,
It definitely does have a 0.3 MP (VGA) front facing camera. http://developer.motorola.com/products/droid-3-xt8...
I'd like to see 1.3 MP sensors on the front for sure, but at this point it doesn't make sense until both the per-pixel quality is the same (same size pixels) and there are apps that can actually do some HD teleconferencing (like if Skype had support). We're almost there though.
-Brian Reply
Myrandex - Monday, August 01, 2011 - linkIt would be for me if it wasn't for this bastardization that Verizon did:
The obvious next part of the story is that WCDMA HSPA+ 14.4 Mbps connectivity. Unfortunately, Verizon has locked the retail Droid 3 out of seeing USA-based GSM/WCDMA networks with an MCC (Mobile Country Code) lock.
Why can't Verizon just allow the hardware to perform at its fullest rather than finding some way to lock it down? They have always been terrible about locking their phones in some way.
Jason Cook Reply
themossie - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkTried the Droid 3 in store the day it came out, mixed feelings about the screen.
Found it very usable for applications, not usable for serious reading (news, ebooks, etc). First time I've suffered eyestrain from an LCD screen with decent brightness and contrast. Droid 1 works great for this use case.
Brian, Anand and the rest of the AnandTech team - any opinions on this? Anyone else? Reply
themossie - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkAlso, thanks for the great review - business as usual at Anandtech! Reply
steven75 - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkIndeed. Can't believe he tried to equate this pentile display with less resolution in a larger screen size (significantly worse PPI) with the retina display. They aren't even close. Reply
bplewis24 - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkI'll trust the guy who looks at hundreds of phones per year over the hyperbolic masses who troll the internet.
I'll also trust my own eyes and science, which prove you wrong. Reply
Finraziel - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkWell, I'll also trust my own eyes, and the picture right above where Brian says he doesn't mind pentile too much really makes the droid3's screen look like crap compared to the lower resolution droid2 right next to it. My experience with other pentile screens also suggests there's absolutely no point in increasing the resolution only by using a trick like this, you end up with noticably lower effective resolution. I'd prefer an actually sharp screen over impressive specifications.
I really hope when the 720p screen phones come out in the next half year or so they wont be using cheap tricks like this. Reply
Lucian Armasu - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkI completely agree with you on this. Either raise the resolution for a normal LCD/AMOLED screen (RGB) or don't raise it at all if you're going to use Pentile. It makes the display worse overall.
It's like you're trying to increase sharpness of the display by increasing resolution by 30%, and then you use Pentile which *drops* sharpness by 60%. The end result is negative on the sharpness of the display. Reply
YoPete525 - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkHave you guys actually looked at the Droid 3 in person? Most elements on the screen still appear sharper than say on the Incredible 2, which has a relatively comparable 4-inch screen with the 800x480 resolution. You also have to realize that a higher resolution means more viewable content, such as more settings options on the same screen, or more emails in the same view. The increased detail is very noticeable on, for example, home screen icons, looking at the Droid 3 and then a phone with the traditional 800x480 makes icons on the smaller resolution screen appear comically large.
Solid colors, especially the green (which is in the battery icon), do look fuzzy, as well as a combination of lines on certain backgrounds, and colored text. But at least give the screen a chance in person before you write it off. In terms of overall screen sharpness, you're right in that the RGBW Pentile matrix isn't ideal, but it isn't as bad as you make it out to be. Reply
snowblind64 - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkLet's not forget there are benefits to a RGBW pentile screen. Battery drain is consistently well under 10% on my Droid 3 thanks to that extra white sub-pixel. Reply
themossie - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkFor some, it really is that bad.
I used it in person, spent a couple off hours in the shop playing with it. Compared to the Droid 1, on the Droid 3 I have to read text at a greater font display size / zoom level (the characters have to be bigger on screen) and as a result can fit less content on the screen than on the Droid 1.
Best comparison I can make: it feels like you are running an LCD screen at a very uncomplimentary non-native resolution. Try running a 1080p screen at 900p, it's painful to most any power user - you can still read and do work, but everything is fuzzy and hurts the eyes. Some people aren't bothered by this, others get headaches.
For UI elements, the screen is acceptable; for reading this becomes a problem.
I'm glad (and jealous) the Droid 3 screen works for you :-) I want a new slider that beats my OG Droid! Reply
RavnosCC - Monday, August 01, 2011 - linkAgreed! I played w/the phone side by side with my D1 on all my favorite sites, reading the same content... trying to find a comparable zoom level on the D3 that didn't make the text look horrible was near impossible on most of the sites I frequent. I think Moto needs to seriously rethink the idea that increasing specs while effectively lowering quality will become the future :( The trade-offs aren't worth it, imho. Reply
relativityboy - Thursday, August 04, 2011 - linkAs a posessor of the D3 I can say my D1's screen looks much better. Reply
Brian Klug - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkSo you have to keep in mind that the photo actually is a 100% crop that I supplied to just show the differences in the subpixel matrix between RGBW and RGB.
I've been pretty critical of PenTile RGBG in the past, and admittedly RGBW still isn't as desirable as straight up RGB, but it definitely is a way to emulate higher equivalent resolution. The other RGBW advantage is of course the reduction in power (just keep the W subpixel in the on position when displaying white) and thus requiring a less powerful backlight.
Again, I'd definitely prefer a true qHD 960x540 display like what HTC has on the Sensation/EVO 3D, but this isn't too bad compared to how RGBG looked on the previous generation of AMOLED displays, if nothing else because the vast majority of webpages render with sharp black edges properly.
-Brian Reply
Lucian Armasu - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkIt's because of the Pentile Matrix. It makes the screen fuzzier. I wish manufacturers would stop using it. It's not a trade-off I'm willing to make over whatever benefits Pentile brings. Reply
hwarrior - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkToo bad Droid 3 is Verizon linked.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/18/motorola-xt860-... Reply
jjj - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkMotorola will be using 2 LTE chips in it's 5 LTE devices planned to be released this year (Xoom, Bionic,1 more phone and 2 more tablets).One of the chips is developed by Motorola and the other one ... no clue really but Motorola might not want to kill battery life by using Qualcomm so maybe ST-E or Icera. Reply
jigglywiggly - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linki'd sell myself
This phone lux nice, do want, I just wish it was on at&T Reply
7amood - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkwhy don't I see any galaxy s2 in the comparison charts and where is the galaxy s2 review from anandtech?? :/ *waiting* Reply
Brian Klug - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkWe actually just got an SGS2 in this week (international version) and I'm busily working on the review for that device ;)
-Brian Reply
Omega215D - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkI got to spend some time with this phone and it is pretty nice but doesn't feel as solid as the Original Droid nor look as elegant. Thankfully the Droid 3 got it where it counts performance-wise. The phone crashed when activating the camera and required a battery pull but that was only once. If I didn't have my Thunderbolt (which is doing well on battery life now) the choices would be Droid Incredible 2 or Droid 3 as they are both international phone. That would change if Verizon decides to get more WP7 phones.
I liked the review. It's very detailed and unbiased, unlike the sorry excuse for a review from PhoneArena which shows it's clear Apple bias. Reply
Johnmcl7 - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkI'm extremely disappointed there's not even one phone of this class and type for sale here, there's rumours of an HTC Doubleshot with a keyboard but still no sign of it. I've been trying the software keyboard on a Tab for a while but I can't stand it, I much prefer the N900's physical keyboard which leaves me stuck for the moment for an upgrade.
John Reply
Brian Klug - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkI guess you could always spring for the Chinese version, but hopefully there's a Milestone international version equivalent coming soon.
-Brian Reply
piroroadkill - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkAw man, even my Desire HD has 768, and it actually gets put to use.
Why cheap out, Motorola?
That said, as much as this looks great, I'd never recommend it due to Motorola's anti-modding community stance. Oh well. Reply
Ben - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkI'm wondering if "The Droid 3 has excellent ambient noise cancellation during calls, again thanks to the two extra antennas which are no doubt used for processing. I'm not sure what IP is beyond the Droid 3's noise rejection hardware, but clearly it does a good job."
Should read as "The Droid 3 has excellent ambient noise cancellation during calls, again thanks to the two extra microphones which are no doubt used for processing. I'm not sure what IP is behind the Droid 3's noise rejection hardware, but clearly it does a good job." Reply
Brian Klug - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkYeah I got antennas and microphones sort of confused there, thanks! Fixed now!
-Brian Reply
Bob-o - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkIt's awesome they included a row of numbers at the top, I hate switching when entering mixed input. But why, oh why did they not put the usual secondary symbols on the number keys??! You know, !, @, #, $, etc. That's standard!!! What were they thinking??! Groan. . .
> What feels neglected is how anemic the hardware keyboard auto-replace engine is.
> Compared with the gingerbread and even Motorola multi-touch keyboards, the hardware
> keyboard has an almost non-existant auto-replace engine for fixing misspelled words.
This makes me question Android's software stack. Why would each device (whether physical or virtual) have to implement this functionality? This should be a filter on input, no matter what device the user is using to enter data. . . and so it should work identically no matter what keyboard is being used. Stupid. Reply
RoninX - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkI'm guessing that people who prefer a physical keyboard (like myself) would rather manually correct spelling errors than deal with overly aggressive autocorrect algorithms.
I currently have a Droid 2 on a one-year contract that's eligible for an upgrade, and I'm strongly learning toward getting a Droid 3, due largely to the excellent keyboard.
I'll have to see the Pentile screen in-person before making a decision. I find it interesting that some people find the Pentile effect imperceptible, while others find it unbearable.
I'm also curious about the Samsung SCH-i927 dual-core Exynos slider. Reply
hackbod - Monday, August 01, 2011 - linkAuto-correcting input from a hard keyboard is actually very different than from a soft keyboard. A soft keyboard's auto correction is deeply tied to the key layout, and tables built to map specific tap positions on the keyboard to the possible letters that may be intended.
The Android IME architecture *does* allow the IME to perform the same kinds of text processing operations on physical keyboard input as it does on touch input. However, in practice, a soft keyboard IME is designed around processing touch input, and you probably wouldn't want it to do the same processing of hard key input because the result would be poor. Reply
jvchapman - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkNo 4G = Useless. Reply
bjacobson - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linklooks like the display is still sunken down under the gorilla glass like on the Droid1 and Droid2? The more I use others' phones (Samsung Galaxy, Iphone, etc) the more it bugs me on mine...significantly increases glare. Reply
bjacobson - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkThe dragging down notifications bar animation, on all the OMAP based phones I played with, runs at 20-30 FPS best case.
The Samsung Galaxy animation for it is much smoother for whatever reason.
This is the biggest beef I have with android phones; I play with my friend's Iphone 3gs and it's still smoother than the latest android hardware... Reply
Mumrik - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkI really don't get why we have to have those sucky touch buttons under the screen when they could be proper physical buttons. Reply
Myrandex - Monday, August 01, 2011 - linkI agree. I miss call start and end buttons personally.
Jason Cook Reply
anandtech pirate - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkonly 512mb of ram? I'm sure throwing in another 512mb wouldn't have added much to the cost. and I bet the performance boost would have been worth it.
also..... whatever happened to the evo3D review?.... just wondering like a lot of other people Reply
tipoo - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkDoes anything indicate 512MB currently bottlenecks Android or its apps? We just moved away from 256MB not so long ago, after all. Reply
anandtech pirate - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkhmm, I was thinking about the Sensation vs. Evo3D, one has 768mb of ram while the other has 1GB or ram. The sensation suffers from noticeable lag on the homescreen where as the Evo3D is much smoother. this might be a sense 3.0 problem though as it's a resource hog. Reply
themossie - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkThe extra RAM makes a huge difference when it comes to multitasking.
With my Droid 1 the home screen always reloads when I leave an application, and true multitasking is impossible as I can't keep multiple applications in memory.
Droid 1 is significantly hampered by 256 MB. Droid 2 has 512 MB. Droid 3 should have more. Most of the Many competitive phones have 768 MB+ - (offhand the Droid Incredible 2 and MyTouch 4g) or 1 gb (Evo 3D, Atrix 4G) and RAM is cheap...
512 is acceptable now, but don't think in terms of today - what will the minimum requirements be to run Android in 1 year? 2 years? Reply
Reikon - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkI was wondering about the Evo 3d review too. Didn't Brian say it was supposed to be out weeks ago? Reply
mike8675309 - Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - linkI agree... More memory. The dual core Moto Atrix comes with 1gig of RAM. Verizon has been notoriously stingy with RAM in the phones they deliver. Reply
bishless - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkI saw "Wetmore" in the maps screenshot and instantly thought, "Holy crap, this writer is in Tucson!"... I looked a little closer and saw Ruthraff and felt proud enough to reveal my detective skills in the article comments... Then a couple pages later, there's the weather widget obviously displaying "Tucson". Heh.
So much for detective work.
I see you're aware of Cartel Coffee Lab... we ought to meet for coffee sometime! Reply
Brian Klug - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkYeah, always been here in Tucson ;)
I hang out at Cartel a lot, absolutely!
-Brian Reply
GotnoRice - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkWhile having numbers on top is sort of nice, they failed hard when it comes to the most basic element- the orientation of the QWERTY keys
Look down at the keyboard right in front of you. The "S" key in the middle row should be directly above the gap between the "Z" and "X" keys. It should straddle the gap between those keys almost perfectly.
Yet on the Droid 3 the "S" key is almost DIRECTLY on top of the "X" key. Simply put, the rows are misaligned.
The reason people like a QWERTY keyboard is because it's a layout they are already familiar. That fact is incompatible with the idea of randomly adjusting the rows in relation to each other as if it's arbitrary; it's not.
They got this mostly right with the Droid 2 keyboard, how did they get it so wrong with the Droid 3? Reply
Pete_ - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkCheck your facts: the Tegra 2 chipset does not support LPDDR2 (333/266 MHz) and is limited to only 133 MHz DDR. I've owned the DX2 and returned it for the Droid 3... proof is in the pudding. Reply
Brian Klug - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkHmm, I'm not sure about that: http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-2.html then look under Memory Frequency.
We've independently confirmed a few times them using LPDDR2-600, for example on the Optimus 2X. Reply
ol1bit - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkI'm glad you posted so many photos, but the blue tint on the flash enabled photo is terrible.
Even the video has a tad of blue tint compared with the Cannon.
I wonder if they will do an update to fix that with this phone, or if this is just a jump step phone with no marketing, just to keep money flowing in till the Bionic comes out? Reply
7amood - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkthat's nice to hear
please don't forget to talk about the screen problem
It's really hard to accept that my perfect SUPER AMOLED is not perfect.
It's harder to accept the fact that samsung don't give a f*** about me since they already have my money. Reply
takumsawsherman - Saturday, July 30, 2011 - linkOn the GL benchmark, it shows iPhone 3GS running faster than iPhone 4. Is this correct? If so, why do you think iPhone 4 is performing worse on the test? Reply
Ryan Smith - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkGLBench runs at the device's native resolution. The iPhone 4 is 4x the resolution of the 3GS. Reply
Lucian Armasu - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkIt looks like OMAP is on the way out from the market, though:
Now the fight will be left between Nvidia, Qualcomm and Samsung. Reply
martyrant - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkMy VP wanted one, so we both got one the same day. I don't talk on the phone as much, but after a week I did a conference call on it and it drained it from 80% to 15% in under an hour. I also just left it on a charger last night, saw it go from 30-90%, went to bed, got up and just checked it (while still plugged into the charger) and it's back at 30%. Did you see any strange anomalies when running your battery life tests? My VP loves the phone, but hates the battery--his dies all the time and so does mine. It seems like while your tests look awesome, the real life performance of this phone is nowhere near in line with those tests when it comes to battery. I have tried max battery saver, just about everything---had to get the VP an extended battery pack and he still doesn't know if he can continue to use this phone because of the battery issues. Reply
martyrant - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkIt went to 20% from 30% while writing that comment, while plugged into the charger. Hot, right? Reply
josby - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkSame here. I bought mine the day they were released in stores, but I've been anxiously awaiting the AnandTech review of it because I knew it would include battery life comparisons. I came from a T-Mobile G2 (running Cyanogen7) and have all the same apps, with the same update intervals set, on my Droid3 as I had on the G2, yet the battery life is very noticeably worse. It can barely make it from morning til night even with very light usage.
In fact, I always left my G2's wifi on, yet the Droid3 still doesn't last as long even if I leave wifi off.
Yet, the G2 does considerably worse than the Droid3 in the battery life tests in this review. Reply
Brian Klug - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkThat's odd - I wonder what kind of signal environment he was in when he made that call. Could you find out what Rx signal strength was in dBm?
The only part of the entire cellular architecture that has a power control loop is the phone->base station, and when you're in a low signal environment the phone can increase Tx power to be "heard" by the base station and thus hurt battery life considerably. We always test in areas with at least -75 dBm or better.
-Brian Reply
photoguru - Monday, August 01, 2011 - linkI had major problems with my battery life until I realised that the power adapter for the Droid 3 requires 5.1v at 850mA which is quite a bit higher than most chargers. Mine actually died while browsing the web and being plugged into a Belkin usb charger.
Also, theres an issue with programs not turning off once you exit them. Task killers should fix it but I actually just went through the programs and manually adjusted which ones can continue to run in the background. Now my battery lasts almost twice as long as it did before, and quite a bit longer than my droid 1 and droid 2 global. Reply
anandtech pirate - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkhow about the Evo3D? Reply
Brian Klug - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkAnand is still working on it, he's been super busy but hopefully it's next in his pipeline. ;)
-Brian Reply
vision33r - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkUsing a gimmick technology to upsize the resolution cheaply. Having used the Atrix for almost 6 months I am sick of looking at it. Luckily it was for work.
Looking at Pentile LCD for a long time is almost like watching a 3D movie without the glasses on. Your vision starts to strain and you will see the colors around the font.
FAIL/. Reply
kesh27 - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkSeems like a lot of negativity toward the type of display. I have a D2G I like a lot and will likely upgrade to this or something very close months down the road. Sweet the D3 doesn't require a fork and incorporates global use (minus the US carrier lockout).
Perhaps a little more subjective review of the new display, such as fatigue or annoyance after watching 30m of video or continuous use of a variety of apps? Maybe a small panel review of something similar to balance opinion?
As to hackability, I bought a G1 when they first came out and had it strung out on Cyanogen as far as hardware could take it, only because OTA updates weren't every coming from T-Mo. Finally got a global phone with specs I wanted for future travel. Have honestly had no need to do any hacking other than a root for Titanium Backup (freezing bloatware), ok maybe occasional wifi tether too. If you want a phone to hack, get a hackable phone. I like this line because it runs everything I want very well, and keyboards rule. Reply
synaesthetic - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkMan, screw you Moto. Bunch of effin' liars.
UNLOCK IT NAO. And the one on the Droid X2 also! Reply
Undersea - Sunday, July 31, 2011 - linkMight be silly to some but coming from blackberry which I could sort email to droid 1 which I couldn't, I hope to heck you can sort outlook email Reply
hillsurfer - Monday, August 01, 2011 - linkWe just upgraded my wife's line to the Droid 3, and the fact that it isn't LTE is one reason we chose it. We still have the unlimited 3G data plan, which we'd have to give up if we switched to LTE, which isn't available in this area anyway, and won't be for some time.
Just wanted to point out that some "improvements" come with a price. Luckily, Motorola and Verizon Wireless didn't include LTE as an improvement. I suspect we won't have that choice much longer. Reply
funoptics - Monday, August 01, 2011 - linkGreat review, AnandTech! It could be top notch, however, if you included the only thing that seemed to be missing: a discussion of the performance and capabilities of the motion sensors. Some smart phones have gyros, the Droid 3 does not. For users of smartphones working with augmented reality applications, this is very important. Reply
photoguru - Monday, August 01, 2011 - linkOne thing that most people have overlooked is the fact that they put a 16GB card hardwired in it and also gave us a card slot for a second card! I loaded mine up with 48GB of class 10 storage goodness :) Reply
nitink - Monday, August 01, 2011 - linkthis phone have a great potential unleach its power get full hd games with sd card data..at:
http://nitin-xyz.blogspot.com/2011/07/free-and-ful... Reply
araczynski - Monday, August 01, 2011 - linkI had the first droid for about a year when it first came out, found the keyboard sliding mechanism to be a joke. poorly engineered, namely due to easily trapping dust/fine particles of sand (or gold;)), and the rail mechanism just wearing away at the back surface, making it look cheap and abused after only a few uses.
would never use another phone that uses the same engineering, which this seems to be just like.
i like my droid x at the moment, much nicer screen, and i'll take the onscreen keyboard over worthless sliding any day. Reply
Myrandex - Monday, August 01, 2011 - link5th row keyboard looks very nice. I did compare one in the store to my Touch Pro 2, and unfortunately I still have to side with the touch pro 2. I tried typing out a sentence and the button size of the touch pro 2 just seemed to reign supreme. It is in the right direction though!
Jason Cook Reply
Johnmcl7 - Monday, August 01, 2011 - linkThat sounds promising, if they're going to make a Chinese version they may produce an EU version as well given they're producing the hardware anyway.
John Reply
aggiechase37 - Tuesday, August 02, 2011 - linkI have the D3. Couple things:
1. Gingerbread keyboard does NOT come preinstalled, nor does Angry Birds.
2. I have issues with lag coming back to the homescreen. This is especially persistent with the camera app
3. I also have issues with framerate drops swiping through homescreens and the app drawer. Minor, but noticeable. Hardly as fluid as Anandtech boasts.
4. Something should be said about the screen being much more view-able in direct sunlight, moreso than any screen I've seen so far.
5. Camera lowlight conditions are considerably improved over D3's predecessors.
6. There are issues with the led flash causing a blue tint when snapping pics with NO light, like utter darkness. But seriously who does that?
7. 3rd party launchers are not compatible with Moto's widgets.
8. Moto's launcher eats 40mb's of RAM, seems a little excessive.
9. Task killer included on the phone. Is Moto insane??? Reply
relativityboy - Thursday, August 04, 2011 - linkI ordered one of these the day they came available. Coming from a rooted, very customized CM7 D1 I was a little underwhelmed. While there's no question the D3 is capable of more at the limit my D1
* felt good in the hand. I don't care for the hard edges of the D3.
* had excellent performance (I lucked out - low voltage ChevyNo1 kernel @ 1.1Ghz). With swap and a fast SD chip I didn't have the launcher reloading all the time.
* had very good battery life (1.5-2 days of med/lite use)
* felt much smaller in the pocket
* actually had better performance in tasks like scrolling the contacts list, and rendering pages in opera/stock browsers
* The radios on the D1 have better reception. I'm not talking about bars on a screen or stats in a test bench. In my office people often complain about dropped calls, poor wifi in the bathrooms(yep), etc. I had no idea what they were talking about until I switched to the D3.
* the touch screen seems less sensitive that on my D1.
I'm sure some of my complaints are related to immature software, but things like radio reception shouldn't be related to that. I've had a number of kernel panics, and display resets.
Maybe I got a bad phone, but I'm not sold on the D3. Reply
relativityboy - Friday, August 05, 2011 - linkToday I'm completely frustrated with this piece of bunk. Seriously. This phone is crashing, getting worse, can't get a GPS lock to save it's life.
On the bright side, with the kinds of problems I'm having it might not all be buggy software. Reply
amankumar - Thursday, August 04, 2011 - linkwant some super cool android HD games to unleash its potential, here's the link:
http://nitin-xyz.blogspot.com/2011/07/free-and-ful... Reply
Death666Angel - Thursday, August 04, 2011 - linkHey! I just wanted to comment on the last paragraph of this review. I personally had a Touch Pro 2, bought it in August 2009. It has a pretty good keyboard, when the reviewers are to be believed. And although the touchscreen was resistive and thus not as easy to navigate as modern capacitive touchscreens, I hardly ever used the keyboard. Unless you type unusually long emails or are in the business of typing up reports on your smartphone, the tradeoff you have to make for a keyboard smartphone isn't worth it in my opinion.
My Galaxy S2 is hardly bigger (125mmx65mmx8mm) than the Droid3 and significantly lighter (117g). I probably wouldn't win a typing contest when we had to type a whole page. But SMS, comments, short email reply I'd win.
The only thing the keyboard on my TP2 was useful for was as a gamepad for my Mega Drive emulator. I played through Soleil on it. But I have already played through Legend of Zelda and am 80% through Secret of Mana on my SNES emulator on the Galaxy S2 using the overlayer gamepad. With some USB-host gamepad support it will be even better.
So, to summarize, I would never buy a keyboard smartphone again because the cons outweigh the pros for me. (Only the Playstation phone looked interesting....) Reply
EEWdad - Sunday, August 07, 2011 - linkIt is very refreshing to see a comprehensive and unbiased review of this update to the Droid 2. Many other reviews I've seen on web have largely dismissed the Droid 3 as a worthy product -- mostly due to the absence of 4G/LTE.
It was nice to see AnandTech's combination of device performance metrics and hand-on impressions to used to objectively assess the capabilities of the Droid 3 -- much different outcome from the other reviewer's rather subjective opinions. From what I can see from this review, I think the hardware performance, 3-D interface, keyboard, web browsing, wi-fi, video, photos, phone voice quality and noise-canceling capabilties are pretty darn impressive.
My wife has had a Droid 2 for about a year now -- I think it's been a reasonably good smartphone. Since getting hers, I've been wanting one for myself; after reading this review, my confidence is high -- I've taken the plunge and ordered a Droid 3 for myself.
Please, keep up the good work! Reply
2therock - Tuesday, August 09, 2011 - linkCannot Wait For You To Get A Bionic Reply
Zaniyah - Friday, August 19, 2011 - linkI just love my Droid 3 and the navigation system on it works fantastic. The pictures are excellent. It took me a while to get use to it, but there were so many positives that outweighed the negatives. It is worth every dime I paid for it. Honestly, I love everything about my Droid 3. Reply
burkex90 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - linkBuyer beware!!!!
There are only two chargers that will work properly with the Droid 3. They are as follows,
The P617 and the P510
The P617 should come in the box with the car dock and cable. Every end of the cable has a tag
with a picture of what it should be plugged into. On the large USB end of the cable it shows a picture of the P617 car charger, period end of story use this charger only!
When I ordered my car dock through Verizon $60 and change after taxes, the charger was missing. I was told to contact Motorola, they sent me a P513 charger as pictured in the article above. This charger is capable of charging the battery only, using navigation will cause the phone and battery to overheat considerably.
The P510 will charge the battery and run the phone independently of each other, leaving you with a fully charged battery after using navigation or other apps. The same goes for the P617 which should be included with the package as it is indicated on the cord.
The P510 information about its ability to run the phone independently while charging is available on the Motorola store website, click on the device then click more info. But you shouldn't have to do any of this if you received the P617 charger.
The P513 car charger fried my phone.
Please pay attention to what charger you intend on getting, the 513 ultimately cost me a $122 repair bill from Motorola.
Good luck,
Michael Burke Reply
rinyin - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - linkDroid3 still uses the QC MDM6600 GPS, and not the TI. It's the first to support GLONASS as well as GPS satellites, which is one explanation for performance gain. Reply
MISSY7X - Sunday, December 04, 2011 - linkJUST WANTED TO SAY THANK YOU FOR SUCH AN AWESOME OVERVIEW OF THE DRIOD 3 GLOBAL PHONE. I AM BEING SENT THIS MODEL BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO SEND ME 5 DROD GLOBAL 2'S ALREADY WITHIN ONE YEAR! NEVER DUE TO WATER DAMAGE OR DROPPING...INSTEAD ITS BEEN AN AWFUL OHONE FROM THE START. SO MANY PROBLEMS WITH EACH ONE VERIZONA DN ASURION HAD TO SEND ME. THEY ARE SENDING ME THE GLOBAL 3 MONDAY AND I WATCHED YOUR VIDEO AND READ YOUR SPECS AND THE IMPROVEMNTS. I APPRECIATED YOUR HONESTY AT THE END AS WELL ABOUT THE ONE THING YOU REALLY DIDNT LIKE AS WELL AS THE GALLERY CLUTTER :). ANUWAY, THANKS FOR EING SO THOROUGH AND HONEST!!! ~ MISSY ~ Reply
MISSY7X - Sunday, December 04, 2011 - linkSO SORRY FOR THE MISSPELLING OF MY COMMENT...I SHOULD HAVE PROOFED FIRST...LOL! THX AGAIN! ~MISSY ~ Reply