Comparing the individual markers inside the total you’ll find a CPU score of 37,304, Memory at 10,922, and I/O at a staggering 10,566. Those are massive scores, on all accounts. The Nexus 4 comes in at CPU: 10,687, Mem: 7,612, and I/O: 4,340 if you’d like to know. With the HTC One’s combination of four Krait 300 CPU cores at 1.7GHz, an Adreno 320 GPU, and a performance boost well over the Snapdragon S4 Pro, this will very likely be the most impressive smartphone processor-wise you’ll have ever experienced.

We’ve also had a look at Sunspider working with the standard web browser on the device. Here we get a lovely 1195.2ms as a final result, this compared with the HTC One X+ (1215.4ms) and the Samsung Galaxy S III (1082.2ms) shows that web browsing is pretty much the same as it’s been over the past year. Then again – as above – this is not final software and anything could happen before the HTC One is released inside March, 2013. It should also be noted that the speed of the rendering on the HTC One (as well as the others here) were done at different times and under different conditions – so take it all with a bit of straw.

Also have a peek at our timeline below filled with hands-on experiences with the HTC One, complete with details from each of this device’s new features. With the HTC One, the company may well be entering a new age. One in which a single device really, truly is the hero – could it possibly be?

Here’s what we can glean from the listing: this handset has been codenamed “Godiva,” will be running Android 4.1.2, and is destined for Verizon. It’ll have a screen displaying at 1280×720, but we don’t know how big the screen will actually be. There’ll be a Qualcomm MSM8960 clocked at 1.4GHz under the hood, and that will be working alongside an Adreno 305 GPU. As far as specs go, that’s all we know, so a fair amount of this handset is still a mystery.

However, we might know what product line this device belongs to thanks to its model number. The original Stratosphere had a model number of SCH-I405 while the Stratosphere II was designated the SCH-I415, so it stands to reason that the I425 could be the Stratosphere III. If it is, then it seems that the latest in the Stratosphere line is headed to Verizon, and it may not be very long before it arrives given the fact that Smasung is testing things out in GLBenchmark.

Of course, we won’t know for sure until Samsung makes an official announcement. That could come at any time, but don’t expect a lot of fanfare for the SCH-I425, since it seems to be a mid-range phone. Still, we’ll update you if we hear anything new, so keep it tuned here to SlashGear for more.

[via Android Community]

This machine will take on Acer’s still-burgeoning smartphone attack across Europe and will likely hit the USA early next year as the company attempts to converge on the states. Inside this phone is a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 1.5Ghz processor running from 384MHz to 1.512GHz bottom to top. This processor is the MSM8960 and has been seen on several smartphones throughout 2012 such as the HTC One series and the Samsung Galaxy S III, not to mention the LG Optimus LTE II and the Motorola RAZR MAXX HD.

This machine will carry with it Acer’s own view of Android right over the top of Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean with connections to the rest of their smartphone and desktop computer universe. This means it’ll be working with Acer cloud services and will have many of the same manufacturer-specific software perks that Acer machines have worked with throughout 2012.

We’ll know more about this machine either at CES 2013 or Mobile World Congress 2013 – and lucky you, SlashGear will be live in-person to bring you all the heat. Meanwhile have a peek at the Acer tag portal as well as the portals for both of the events via their names right here in this paragraph (MWC link coming soon). It’s going to be fun and excitement from Acer all year through!

[via GLbenchmark]

Compared to the One X we reviewed back in April, HTC’s new top-end Android phone steps up to the latest version of Tegra 3, a quadcore running at 1.7GHz. It’s paired with 1GB of RAM and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with HTC Sense 4+; our review model is European-spec, which means no LTE.

We focused on some basic benchmarking tools most Android users are familiar with. First up, Quadrant Standard, which tests CPU, I/O, and 3D graphics performance; next SunSpider, a test of browser JavaScript performance, which gives a good idea of how web surfing compares to other phones, tablets, and even desktops; then Qualcomm’s Vellamo, which focuses on mobile web performance, examining HTML5 crunching abilities and CPU subsystem performance; and finally, AnTuTu, which looks at CPU, GPU, RAM, and I/O performance.

In Quadrant, the One X+ pulled ahead with a score of 6068, over 800 points more than the Galaxy S III, at 5207. The HTC did particularly well in the CPU and I/O subcategories, though the Samsung did much better in memory performance and 3D graphics. HTC’s phone put in a better showing in SunSpider, too, scoring 1082.2ms (lower is better) against the Samsung’s 1215.4ms. Neither managed to quite match the results we saw from the iPhone 5, however, which nipped underneath the 1,000ms boundary with a score of 914.7ms.

Quadrant and SunSpider benchmarks:

As for Vellamo, the scores here were mixed. In the HTML5 side of testing, the One X+ did better, edging ahead with 1894 against the Galaxy S III’s 1615. However, the tables were turned in the Metal tests, with the One X+ managing 491 against the Galaxy S III’s 558.

Vellamo benchmarks:

Finally, AnTuTu. The HTC pulled ahead once more, though again not in all of the categories. In total, it scored 12,945, besting the Samsung in CPU, RAM, and I/O testing. The Galaxy S III, however, scored 12,082 overall, with better performance in the GPU category.

Synthetic tests of smartphone performance don’t tell anywhere near the full story; you can’t say from benchmark results whether a phone will necessarily lag in multitasking, or suffer frustrating pauses in keyboard responsiveness or when trying to open up a well-stocked inbox. They’re a good indicator of the raw potential of the smartphone, however: what well-written apps will be able to call upon to achieve great performance.

We’ll be running the One X+ through real-world testing ahead of the full SlashGear review, but already HTC’s new powerhouse has shown its mettle.

This device is more than ready to break up the fray that HP’s now lost Palm group left when webOS was filleted several months ago. Gone now is the webOS software universe – gone to open-sourcing, that is – and in its place comes Google’s mobile OS. With Android 4.0.4 in the benchmark here we can expect at least Ice Cream Sandwich when an HP smartphone comes to the market – or maybe even 4.1 Jelly Bean by that time if we’re lucky! This device also shows a lovely 1366 x 720 pixel resolution display with 1.5GHz on each of its Snapdragon CPU cores.

This news comes right after HP’s relatively new CEO Meg Whitman spoke up on how they’ll eventually have a smartphone to their name in the future. They’re in no rush, she assured, but they will be coming back with a solid device. You can bet that they’re not going to be making the same “mistakes” they made in the past when this device hits the field.

[Thanks for the tip Noor!]

Without getting too technical here the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 developer tablet kit contains a quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM and is running on Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich. This 10.1-inch display running a 1366 x 768 resolution is going to be put through its paces but for now here’s a quick glance at a few of the popular Android benchmark apps. Quadrant blew through the roof posting numbers nearing 8000, and AnTuTu clearly was ahead of the other quad-core options available today.

Being a developer based platform this tablet isn’t something any consumer will see, but we’ll still give a quick input on performance. Usual tasks such as browsing the web, scrolling through webpages, heading to the Google Play Store and more are all extremely buttery smooth. Android 4.0 ICS is on board, instead of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, but performance is still quite swift.

With popular tests such as Quadrant and AnTuTu we clearly see some extremely impressive results. Boasting nearly 8k in Quadrant was plenty exciting, considering most devices are lucky to break 5000 — those of which are all running Qualdcomm’s dual-core S4 processor. Anything older isn’t quite as lucky, and that includes some other quad-core options on the market. Vellamo, Qualcomm’s own in-house benchmark suite that focuses on web browsing also takes charge and scores well with their new quad-core. Results aren’t as chart topping as the others, but certainly shows some real progress.

While this is just a MDP device geared at developers, it’s already clearly beating the Nexus 7, and Samsung’s Exynos 4 Quad powered Galaxy S III easily. These devices don’t give us an idea of battery life so that is still up in the air, but Qualcomm promises “all-day battery life.” For now take a quick glance at the results below. We’ll continue to update with additional screenshots and more tests, but Qualcomm has another winner here to top the charts. We can expect to see the new S4 pro quad-core arriving in devices later this year.

There’s many different options when it comes to smartphones, tablets, processors, and of course benchmarks. The Android market space for example has multiple options available. We’re not going into specifics here, nor are we naming names — but what do these really test? Mobile benchmarks need to fully test the device from all angles, not just any one scenario.

Obviously we have multiple options from SunSpider, Linpack tests for CPU, Quadrant which seems to focus on graphics, and more. Qaulcomm not only wants to make the mobile benchmark space better for consumers, but for everyone. Being able to test every aspect including user experience with things like browsing, and video playback should all be included. Along those same lines these tests need to also take advantage of the increasing power being built into devices. Apps that will truly test all 4 cores of our smartphones and tablets. Qualcomm offers an option with Vellamo, which we’ve covered in the past and will surely be hearing about more throughout the day.

Many enthusiasts and consumers alike might be hesitant to trust a benchmark built in house by any one party or SoC manufacturer, but we’ll be focusing more on Vellamo as the day continues. Another option could very well be Augmented Reality. As AR still hasn’t made a huge dent in the mobile space it surely is the future. Jon Peddie from JPR (research) briefly mentioned AR while speaking and stated it “will be the killer app,” and even went as far as to call it the mother of all benchmarks — as it stresses every aspect of a processor.

What do you guys think? Do benchmarks need to be improved for mobile devices, do they need to focus more on battery life and daily usage? Would an AR test be the ultimate benchmark? Stay tuned for more details on mobile benchmarks and Qualcomm’s new quad-core S4 processor.

Qualcomm has been a strong competitor in the mobile space for more years than we can remember. As I’m sure many of you already know, their powerful dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 is powering many of the most powerful smartphones available today. Devices like HTC’s One X (AT&T) to Samsung’s new Flagship Galaxy S III smartphone. These dual-core devices have extremely impressive performance from games, daily tasks, browsing, and of course battery life.

What separates Qualcomm from the others in the mobile market is part of what we’ll be sharing throughout the day here at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Mobile benchmark workshop. We’ll be hearing tons about their new quad-core adventures, smartphones, tablets, 4G LTE, and benchmarks — since we know you all love benchmarks. Stay tuned here at SlashGear!

Inside this device is a setup that will bring you no less than 5642 for an average score — of course this is the least revealing of all the scores you’ll get here with this synthetic test. The biggest beast here is the CPU score, this showing off the full power of the four cores inside Samsung’s newest Exynos – CPU score here is 12781. Next you’ve got a massive I/O as well as 7606, 2D at 1000, 3D at 2171, and memory at 4653.

Compare this to the benchmarks we’ve racked up with both versions of the HTC One X in our HTC One X AT&T review and you’ll find that there’s a streetfight going on right now. Note that I/O on the Galaxy S III here is as high as it’s ever been on a smartphone before. Impressive numbers from the next generation of smartphone prowess!

Have a peek at the rest of our Samsung Galaxy S III coverage in the timeline below – all hands-on deck!

Inside this app you’ll find that the Samsung Galaxy S III is indeed running Android 4.0 as expected along with the Samsung Exynos 4212 dual-core processor running at 1.4GHz. It’s still been a toss-up as to whether or not Samsung would move forward with their quad-core chip for this device or not – here it appears that they’ve made the half-step up to the 4212 where the last model (Galaxy S II) just had the Exynos 4210. This new processor has not yet been seen on any other in-market device.

The display on this device will be 4.7-inches according to this benchmark and will be a massive 1280 x 720 pixel resolution. The front-facing camera will be 2-megapixels strong while the back will be a newly minted 12-megapixels. And we’re suer it’ll be a fantastic 12 as each Galaxy device before this has taken the number of megapixels its touted and made them all count – this except for the Galaxy Nexus for which the general consensus sacrifices a bit of quality for shutter speed.

Click gallery thumbnail for larger view.

This Galaxy S III benchmark result shows the device to be working with GSM / WCDMA and does of course support GPA and A-GPS as well. We’ll be at the big reveal event on the 3rd of May in London – follow us here in the main news feed on SlashGear for all the details!

Not all of the test categories are populated, but there’s enough to get a good idea of the Galaxy S III’s abilities. It comfortably outperforms the HTC One S, one of the faster graphical performers on the market today, and Samsung’s favorite target, the iPhone, also struggles to match the new Galaxy in several of the categories.

What does it all mean? Smoother gaming, better multimedia and a device that holds out through more of your average two-year agreement without leaving you looking enviously at newer devices in your friends’ pockets. The Galaxy S II found particular favor with Android modders for its overclocking potential, there being plenty of room to squeeze performance out of the Exynos dualcore chipset with unofficial ROMs.

It’s worth remembering that this is a prototype device being benchmarked, which means likely non-final hardware and almost definitely non-final software. That could well indicate even greater performance increases by the time the final model is ready for store shelves.

As for when that will happen, Samsung is expected to unveil the Galaxy S III – including a new S-Cloud service to take on Apple’s iCloud, and perhaps even a new tablet – on May 3 in London. SlashGear will be there to bring back all the news as it’s announced!

[via PCWar]

Pentile displays have prompted much confusion and frustration among smartphone buyers in recent years, with many considering the screen technology to have marred otherwise excellent devices. The system uses a system of alternating red and blue pixels in-between green pixels, the dropped pixel leading to arguments that the Galaxy Nexus and other devices can be grainy in their text reproduction and show speckling in pictures.

Avoiding that would be a major boon for the Galaxy S III, and be in keeping with its other hyperbole-prompting rumored specifications. There’s been talk of a ceramic casing for the new phone, replacing the glossy and textured plastic, along with a roughly 7mm-thick body and a quadcore processor. It’s also expected to feature NFC, with Samsung rumored to be using it as an Olympics 2012 mobile payments promo device.

Meanwhile, there’s also apparent confirmation that a device previously tipped to be the Galaxy S III, the Samsung GT-i9300, is indeed a midrange device with an unusual screen resolution, rather than the true next-gen flagship. According to benchmarking spotted at PowerBoard, the GT-i9300 runs a 1.4GHz Exynos dual-core and Mali 400MP graphics with a 600 x 1024 screen, just as was reported over at Android Community last week.

In fact, the GT-i9300 is believed to be the Samsung Galaxy M, and have a 4-inch display. The 1024 x 600 resolution is unusual, more akin to what we’ve seen on netbooks than phones, but would put the Galaxy M in-between the WVGA of the Galaxy S II and the 720p of the Galaxy Nexus.

Exactly when the Galaxy S III will launch is still unclear, though at least one Samsung executive has apparently said that an April launch is still in consideration.

[via Electricpig and via Bright Side of News]

The handset is running Android 4.0.3 – presumably with HTC Sense 4.0 on top, as we saw in recently leaked video footage - though the rest of the specs all come from previous rumors. The One S is believed to have 1GB of RAM and HSPA+, an 8-megapixel camera, 4.3-inch display and WiFi b/g/n, along with GPS and Bluetooth.

Of course, the device we’re particularly interested in is the handset believed to be the HTC One X, aka the HTC Edge, which is expected to use NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 quadcore chipset. That, as NVIDIA has been discussing earlier today, has in fact five cores, with the fifth used for power management.

We’ll know more when HTC takes the wraps off of its new range at MWC 2012 next week; in fact the HTC press conference is only days away, on Sunday. Expect all the news you need to hear as soon as we know it!

[via Android Community]

The phone racked up 4412 points in the new Quadrant benchmark. That makes the X3 significantly faster than the Samsung Galaxy Tab that scored roughly 2200 points, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus scored only about 2000 points, and the Nexus S scored about 1500 points. The X3 from LG will be a high-performance device indeed.

The X3 has a 4.7-inch screen with a resolution of 720 x 1280, 2000mAh battery, and 16GB of internal storage. The device also has a microSD slot for memory expansion, a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera, an eight-megapixel rear camera, and it runs Android 4.0.3. One interesting thing is that the phone that was benchmarked was running Android 4.0.3 and showed a 2.6.39 kernel.

[via Android.Modaco]

While the OSZ Octane has been promised to achieve read / write speeds of 560MB/s for reading and 400MB/s for writing, it appears that reviewers have found this to be not all that far off from the truth. Have a peek at the specifications in this new OCZ offering first, then see what the real deal is.

OCZ Octane Specs
128GB (OCT1-25SAT3-128G) $199.99 ($1.56/GB)
256GB (OCT1-25SAT3-256G) $369.99 ($1.45/GB)
512GB (OCT1-25SAT3-512G) $879.99 ($1.72/GB)
1TB (OCT1-25SAT3-1TG)

• 512GB Formatted Capacity: 476.94GB
• Indilinx Everest platform
• Up to 560MB/s Read (1TB Capacity)
• Up to 400MB/s Write (512GB and 1TB Capacity)
• 512MB Onboard Cache
• 25nm Intel Synchronous NAND
• TRIM Support
• SATA 6Gb/s interface
• NCQ Support up to 32 Queue Depth
• 9.5mm, 2.5″ form factor
• Dynamic & Static Wear-Leveling, and Background Garbage Collection
• 8 channels with up to 16-way Interleaving
• Power Consumption: 1.98W active, 1.15W standby

Let’s have a look at a few different perspectives here, each from different sides of the internets, starting with PC Perspective’s Allyn Malventano who comments on both the contents of the package and the size along with a couple results in a chart below:

“The Octane comes packaged like many other SSD’s out there, with a few extra presents like the “My SSD is faster than your HDD” sticker seen with Vertex units. … 1TB – in a 2.5″ form factor SSD! HDD’s hit this mark not too long ago, and while a 1TB Octane will most certainly cost a pretty penny, there’s something to be said for SSD’s so rapidly catching up to HDD’s for a given form factor. … Octane did well in sequential transfers with HDTach, but remember this particular test hits drives with a string of sequential (QD=1) IO, a notorious weakness of SandForce controllers.” – Malventano

Next see what Kevin OBrien of Storage Review had to say on another synthetic benchmark test by the name of Iometer, with the single chart showing off a Workstation 4K model profile, with results below:

“Our last section of synthetic benchmarks looks at the performance of each drive in enterprise profiles, including database, webserver, file server, and workstation. One of the main benefits of this test over other synthetic benchmarks is the mixed workload with both read and write transfers as well as varied transfer sizes at the same time. These are also scaled from a queue depth of 1 to 128 to fully stress the drive in a demanding environment. As you can see below the OCZ Octane stayed close to the group in the lower queue depths, but couldn’t scale up as high under a multi-threaded workload; although it did manage to stay above the Crucial m4 in all but the webserver test.” – OBrien

Then of course no review series based mainly in benchmarks would be complete without a visit by Anandtech’s Anand Lal Shimpi himself. Check out Anand’s review for a rather in-depth and interesting story on the history of OCZ if you like, otherwise just read this snippet on how well the drive works with their heavy workload test:

“When put to the test the Octane does not disappoint. It’s within a couple MB/s of the SF-2281 based Vertex 3, and effectively one of the fastest 6Gbps drives on the market today. I included the old Indilinx Barefoot based Corsair Nova V128 to show just how far Indilinx has come here.” – Anand

Look like a winner to you?

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus runs a dual-core processor from Texas Instruments, the OMAP4, clocked at 1.2GHz for each CPU core right out of the box. This device is running Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich in as vanilla (aka untouched by Samsung or any carriers for the interface) as possible, this showing off Google’s vision for the most advanced mobile operating system on the planet. What you’ll find in the benchmarks is that while this device may be the hottest handset on the market right this second, it’s not necessarily the best at taking tests.

NOTE: the image above is taken from our review of the Philips Fidelio AS851 working with the Galaxy Nexus right out of the box, the both of them.

The scores you see here don’t necessarily mean that the device is more or less powerful than any other in any more than a very general way, but you can get a basic idea of what its capable of by comparing the numbers to those we’ve collected in each of our reviewed devices found in the upper right-hand column of your browser. You can instantly see how well this device does against the common Samsung Galaxy S II score in CF-Bench, noting that while Java and Overall scores beat out the GSII by a narrow margin, the Native score remains on top for the Galaxy device. What this tells us is that the two devices are surprisingly similar in their ability to take this same test even though they use processors from different manufacturers.

The rest of the tests, without getting in to too much detail, basically put this device and its built-in web browser up there with the top tier of mobile devices out today without placing it 100% clearly at the very top. That spot is still reserved for the upcoming ASUS Eee Pad Transformer PRIME with the first quad-core mobile processor on the planet: the NVIDIA Tegra 3. We’ll see how that continues to add up against the Galaxy Nexus SOON we hope!

Also be sure to check out the rest of our ongoing hands-on series with the Galaxy Nexus as well as Ice Cream Sandwich to round out your tasty day, and be sure to ask us any questions you’ve got on either one!

More Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (first features feature)

Galaxy Nexus Unboxing & Hands-on:

What this system aims to do is test out developers chops, mostly from a manufacturer standpoint, and see that they can perform well in a series of tests that see CPU and memory, Javascript, HTML5, canvas rendering speed, scrolling, network access, and more. When you run this benchmark suite, you’ll be able to choose from amongst the handful of test you want to perform, be they in Rendering, Javascript, User Experience, Networking, or “Advanced.” Each of these categories can be found in a section of the app called Pick Tests. And pick them you shall, for this test not only has the ability to show you your final cumulative score, it can give you the results of each individual test separately, all in a series of quite simple and well-designed screens. Well played!

You can even go to System Information and get specs on your device you’d never otherwise be able to access in a non-rooted machine, this being rather helpful for reviews, if you know what I mean, of devices taken care of by people like you know who. Latest Numbers give you the results of every test you’ve just taken, while Compare shows you how you rank against their stock scores. System Information is the button you want if you want to see some junk about your own device, and MORE has all the shortcuts to webpages of the developers, about and pick websites (for the tests) that you want. It’s also got access to Tutorial Mode, Override Safeguards, the Acid3 Test.

With this test, manufacturers are testing both he performance and the stability of their devices. Our good pal Sy Choudhury, Qualcomm Director of Product Management informs us that while Vellamo was originally developed for internal testing and was indeed used by Qualcomm workers to test as many aspects of web browsing as they could, proving over time to be a fair and non-bias set of tests that’d work to improve not only devices working with Qualcomm chipsets, but any device, as proven by the results of the tests you find after collecting your final score in the test.

The top score on the chart generally ends up being a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (with an NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor inside), but my colleague Cory Gunther from Android Community has already made quick work of that with a swift overclocking of his Motorola XOOM tablet, beating the Tab’s score of 957 with a cool 1181. Below you’ll see the sweet score yours truly got with the new myTouch 4G Slide from T-Mobile. It’s a dual-core as well, running a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor under the hood, but you’ll quickly see it simply doesn’t add up when it comes to the slightly bigger guns in this game – ALSO note that it’s not overlocked in anyway, so that matters too.

And what is the deal with these tests? What does Qualcomm say they really are? Have a look:

Rendering, See The Sun Canvas: Tests the performance of HTML 5 Canvas-based graphics.
Rendering, Deep Sea Canvas: Tests the performance of HTML 5 Canvas-based graphics.
Rendering, Aquarium Canvas: With many simultaneous objects, this stresses the performance of both the HTML 5 Canvas-based objects and the JavaScript engine.
Rendering, Pixel Blender: Measures the web graphics-related bandwidth available for blitting and blending operations.
JavaScript, Surf Wax Binder: Tests the array performance of the browser’s bindings between the Browser and JavaScript engine
JavaScript, Sun Spider (Online): Measures JavaScript performance using Rev 0.9.1 of the industry standard Sun Spider suite.
JavaScript, V8 Benchmark (online): Measures JavaScript performance using rev 6 of the industry standard V8 benchmarking suite.
User Experience, Ocean Flinger: This is a test that tests scrolling smoothness and performance using a demo news site.
User Experience, Image flinger: Stress tests the browser scroll performance when using a page made up of dense images. May take a minute to load.
User Experience, Text Flinger: Stress tests the browser scroll performance using a text-heavy web page. May take a minute to load.
Networking, Networking Loader: Repeatedly loads and reloads a sample web page to determine HTTP networking stack performance. This happens quickly, and hence you may only see the base color background.

Sounds like a pack of red hot apples to me. We’ll be using this test in future device reviews (where applicable) and I’m sure our sister site Android Community will be using it for ALL reviews too. Can’t wait to see how the EVO 3D fares, right? How about the Sensation 4G, the Galaxy S II, the Asus Eee Pad Transformer?! Wild stuff!

You can participate in the collection of all sorts of benchmarks with this app on all the different devices you own by downloading the app in the Android Market right now [for a total cost of ZERO] Good deal!

BONUS PROTIP: In Finnish mythology, Vellamo is the goddess of the sea. She’s often pictured as a mermaid and here we’re talking about web surfing. Hang ten!

One of the platforms that AMD is current working on is dubbed Bulldozer. A few pics of a Bulldozer processor engineering sample that is in the wild have surfaced. As you can see, the markings on the CPU have been covered to keep some aspects of the CPU secret. Some details have surfaced though. The model number is FX-8130P on CPU-Z and FX-3214 in HWiNFO32.

We can tell a few specs from the screens too, the part is a 32nm processor with 8-cores and has the Zambezi codename. The clock speed is 3GHz and it has an 8MB L3 cache and support up to DDR3-1866 memory. The processor was also overclocked by the leaker to a blazing 4.36GHz and passed Super-Pi at that frequency meaning it’s fairly stable. The leaker OBRovsky also showed off the boards that will support the processor. This sounds like a very nice processor.

[via Expreview]

BAPco says that AMD has been a long running member of the group and participated fully in the two year development cycle of SYSmark 2012. BAPco says that each of the members of the group gets one vote on any proposals made by another member firm. AMD is said to have voted in support of over 80% of the SYSmark 2012 development milestones and was supported by BAPco in 100% of its proposals put forward.

BAPco goes on to state that they are disappointed that AMD has chosen to violate the confidentiality agreement signed in an attempt to talk people out of using SYSmark 2012 to assess the performance of AMD machines. I feel a lawsuit coming on in this case.

PCMark 7 will be offered in three versions. The Basic edition is free and offers unlimited runs of the main test suite and the ability to browse results and store one result online. It will launch on May 3. The Advanced edition is $39.95 and can be pre-ordered right now. It supports over 25 workloads and you can store unlimited results online.

The Pro edition is also up for pre-order at $995. This is the version for commercial users and has all 7 PC tests and 25 workloads. All of the versions will launch on May 3 barring any delays. Futuremark is the same company that makes 3DMark.

Traditional benchmarking, Blaze suggests, is generally custom-created and doesn’t relate especially well to the real-world. SunSpider and other tools, the company claims, don’t reflect actual user experiences. Instead, Blaze used a homegrown browser wrapper app – available to try from its site – to time loading speeds on 1,000 different sites, loaded onto an iPhone 4, Nexus S and Samsung Galaxy S. The eye-catching “52-percent faster” figure is based on median load times across all of the pages: on iPhone it was 3.2 seconds, whereas on Android it was 2.1 seconds.

The report also points out in the appendix that their tests on both devices were not actually done in the devices browser themselves but rather used the proprietary software Blaze created, noted above, to track the browsers performance.

Nonetheless, Blaze also cites individual site performance, and some of the differences claimed are considerable. WSJ.com, for instance, took 7.5 seconds on Android and 17 seconds on iPhone during its testing. When we repeated the tests using the Blaze timing tool, however, we found an iPhone 4 loaded the WSJ site faster than the Nexus S every time. Blaze CTO Guy Podjarny re-ran the WSJ tests at SlashGear’s request, and found median load times on 18.4 seconds on iPhone and 13.4 seconds on Android; not, he admits, the 10 second gulf previously observed, but “still a clear difference.”

Podjarny concedes that there can be significant differences depending on when you test and with what connection, but insists that there’s more to browser performance than pure JavaScript speed. He describes the Android browser as “smarter in more ways than just JavaScript,” for instance in how it handles image downloads. While the iOS browser seems to download images in the order they appear on the page, the Android browser “seems to use intelligence when choosing which images to download first, trying to download as much from the same server at once as possible.” Meanwhile on Android CSS or JavaScript files, as well as other resources, can be downloaded in parallel, while on iOS, Podjarny says, they happen one at a time.

Interestingly, during the Blaze benchmarking process, the company says it has seen various sites (and benchmarks) that “indicate Nitro is sometimes on and sometimes off.” It’s too early for them to say anything conclusively about it, but Podjarny suggests it maybe be down to memory issues. JavaScript performance alone may be more hyperbole than you’d think, however. Comparing Android 2.2 to 2.3, the JavaScript boost is marginal: an almost 40-percent increase in JavaScript engine performance led to just a 10-percent boost in page load time.

In the end, as Podjarny agreed, the value of benchmarking is always impinged upon by the nature of real-world connections. Blaze used a “fast WiFi connection” at night and during weekends where it could be more confident that network usage was low, but of course that’s not a consistency upon which mobile users can rely on. Stand an iPhone 4 and Nexus S user next to each other and, even on the same cellular network, they could well see different performance from the dumb pipe itself. That’s before it even gets to the rendering engines on either platform.

Podjarny tells us Blaze isn’t conclusively saying that specific sites take longer on one device versus another, but that the testing “does conclusively say which device generally loaded web apps faster.” To that we’d add our own skepticism, both of the inconsistencies in results from Blaze’s software wrapper and the nature of mobile device benchmarking as a whole. We’re also confident that both Apple and Google will continue to polish browsing technologies in the attempt to bring the best possible experience to their users. One thing’s for sure, the battle of the mobile benchmarks is unlikely to go anywhere as manufacturers and software developers compete to brand their offerings “the fastest browsing experience.”

Blaze’s research is available here; we’d be very interested to hear SlashGear readers’ thoughts on it, and how the results match your own experiences with mobile browsing.

SunSpider, for those unfamiliar, tests core JavaScript performance with a variety of tasks intended to replicate real-world behaviors. So, it generates a tagcloud from JSON input, a 3D raytracer, performs cryptography tests and code decompression, and other tasks that might be encountered in everyday browsing.

In SunSpider, a lower score is better, and the iPad 2 proved more than 4x as fast as the iPad overall. The original tablet scored 8594.9ms, while the iPad 2 managed 2121.7ms. Among the individual benchmarks the iPad 2 scored 263.4ms in 3D testing (vs 1202.2ms), 265.0ms in access (vs 1247.1ms), and 142.8ms in cryptography (vs 572.7ms).

Now, there’s more to browsing than just JavaScript of course, but this is a pretty first fantastic showing from the new Apple slate.

Click the image below for the full-sized results; the iPad 2 is on the left, the iPad on the right.

The entry-level 13-inch with the 2.3GHz Core i5 CPU scores 5900; the entry-level version from early 2010 managed 3351. The improvement for the 15-inch and 17-inch versions is even more impressive, with the entry-level 15-inch jumping from 4866 last year to 8804 on this year’s quadcore 2.0GHz Core i7. The 17-inch goes from 5837 to 10026 with its new quadcore 2.2GHz Core i7.

As you’d expect, the faster versions of each MacBook Pro do even better; the full graphi is below. It’s worth remembering that Geekbench only tests CPU and memory performance, not graphics card and HDD, so a speedy SSD and potent GPU will make a difference in real-world usage, but from the outset it’s clear the new MacBook Pro line means business.

Video after the cut

We ran Quadrant Advanced on the Adam, and the Tegra 2 powered slate scored 1,836. Now, before you panic, you have to remember that Froyo hasn’t been optimized to take advantage of multithreading, so the number isn’t going to be fully representative of real-world performance. It’s an issue we’re going to see increasingly with dual-core devices like the Motorola ATRIX 4G and LG Optimus 2X.

On top of that is Notion Ink’s own Eden multitasking system, which doesn’t use parallel processing – instead, it only kickstarts the second core when the first core is full loaded. That helps battery life, by minimizing power consumption when two running cores aren’t essential, but it doesn’t do Adam any favors when it comes to on-paper benchmark results. The short of it is, though, that this is one slick, fast-moving tablet, and Notion Ink has done its homework getting the customizations working well.

Notion Ink Adam Quadrant Benchmarks:

Notion Ink Adam Flash Performance:

Engadget was just sent the video of the PlayStation Phone being run through the test. The result isn’st as great as some may expect, or want. At 24.4fps, it doesn’t put the device at the top of the heap. However, something of note: this isn’t final software. So, it’s certainly possible that by the time the PlayStation Phone is ready to ship to waiting customers, that benchmark gets a significant upgrade. In any event, if you want to see the PlayStation Phone, or Zeus Z1, work its magic through the test, go ahead and check out the video below.

[via Android Community]

If you are one of the geeks that have been looking forwards to getting your hands on the new app some sad news has been announced. Futuremark has decided to delay the launch of 3DMark 11 to patch some bugs in the program. Futuremark’s Oliver Baltuch wrote in an email, “Over the weekend we made the difficult decision to postpone the launch of 3DMark 11 by a few days. Our aim is to provide accurate, reliable and consistent results from the start. With that goal in mind we taking some extra time to fix a couple of difficult bugs rather than patching the benchmark immediately after release. It might take one day, it might take one week but either way we’ll be in touch again soon to confirm the new launch date and send you your review copy and complimentary press license. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”

Some rumors are expecting the app to launch on December 3, which is only a few days from now. Consumers that have pre-ordered the new app will see a delay as well. However, in an effort to help make the delay a bit more palatable for folks the Futuremark team is offering users a free copy of its online shooter Shattered Horizons.

Via Eteknix

Given NVIDIA’s emphasis on multimedia with Tegra 2, there’s unsurprisingly an HDMI port on the Star. Meanwhile there’s a WVGA capacitive touchscreen and a customized version of Android 2.2 Froyo, though of course there’s no word on what version the Star will run when it eventually launches.

We can hope that’s Gingerbread, the release of which is believed to be imminent, and which will hopefully bring further speed improvements to get the most out of the Star. Other hardware specifications are in short supply, as are release dates and price.

[via Android Community]

The DROID X on Froyo scores 1,370, edging ahead of a Google Nexus One running 2.2 and – most importantly – a good hundred points over the same smartphone running Android 2.1 Eclair.  That adds up to a generally faster overall experience day-to-day, and when you consider Froyo also brings with it Flash 10.1 Player support we won’t argue with that.  More DROID X Froyo feedback over at Android Community.

The benchmarking tool in question is found buried in 7Zip, which crunches through ZIP archives to figure out how speedy a processor is.  The N550-based Eee PC 1015N scores roughly double what an Atom N450 machine can manage, but also bests Intel’s Core 2 Solo SU3300 chip by a similar margin and edges ahead of the desktop Atom D510 and Atom 330 processors.

Gratifying stuff from the 1.5GHz Atom N550, and we’re growing increasingly interested in this latest generation of netbooks that might manage to do more than basic browsing tasks and similar.  The Eee PC 1015N – which admittedly has a second-gen NVIDIA Ion GPU – managed to decode a 1080p HD video with under 20-percent processor load.