Sharp and Japanese wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo have announced plans to begin selling a new 7 inch Android tablet with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor and a full HD display in July.
It’s called the Sharp Aquos Pad SH-05G and it’s a rather compact tablet with slim bezels around the display.
The tablet measures about 6.9″ x 4.1″ x 0.3″ and weighs about 7.4 ounces, making it smaller and lighter than a Google Nexus 7, for instance, even though it has a similarly-sized 7 inch, 1920 x 1200 pixel display.
Sharp’s new tablet has 2 GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a microSD card slot, an 8MP rear camera, a 2.1MP front camera, and a 3,900 mAh battery. It will ship with Android 5.0 Lollipop software, and the tablet will support WiFi and 4G LTE in Japan.
We haven’t seen a lot of tablets with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 810 octa-core processor. In fact, we haven’t seen a lot of phones with the chip either: that may be due to a number of reports suggesting it overheats too easily, which can affect performance. It’s possible that the chip could perform better in tablets than phones, since larger devices have more room for air to flow, which can help keep a processor from getting too hot.
Or maybe Qualcomm is right and there’s no real problem with overheating (at least in devices like the HTC One M9 which underclock the CPU to avoid the issue, taking a performance hit in the process).
After all, Sony also chose the Snapdragon 810 for its new Xperia Z4 Tablet.
via TabTec
On the heat issue, I doubt it’s airflow, because most tablets don’t have vents (at least the ones I’ve seen). They would have more surface area to conduct heat away from the device.
Yeah, hopefully, they use a metal back to vent heat, unlike Sony’s glued on glass / fancy plastic back, where the glue melts from the enormous heat generated just by operating the camera… (Xperia Z2)
Excellent size, looks like it would compete well with Huawei’s MediaPad X2.
And being from Sharp, its screen should be superior, not to mention the speed demon processor…
1920×1200 also makes it more useful for various productivity Software like Redstick among others.
I’d actually consider stopping by at a Japanese Airport to pick one up if it has a decent level of pen support.
Tegra K1 is the only way to go for tablets. And X1 when it comes out.
Do you mean, specifically if you play games on your tablet?
What would be the point in your opinion if you don’t play games and an “old” Snapdragon 800 ran everything without stutter or delay?
Is it more efficient? Does it get longer battery life?
We know Snapdragon is better, the “aenews” guy is probably drooling. 😉
I own plenty of Qualcomm devices. Galaxy S3 (Snapdragon S4 Plus), HTC One M7 (Snapdragon 600). Immediate family owns a OnePlus One (Snapdragon 801) and a Fire Phone (Snapdragon 800). Not sure what you mean by “eats for lunch” but OK… if you mean price-performance, I understand. I bought that HTC One M7 for $100 recently, and that was an excellent price. The Tegra K1 was released alongside the Snapdragon 805 and crushed it. Even the next-gen Snapdragon 810 doesn’t by far close the gap, though. So the Snapdragon 810 does not “eat the K1 for lunch”. I own the Nvidia Shield Tablet LTE and the Google Project Tango Tablet.
Nope I mean specifically versus this tablet and any other upcoming Snapdragon 810 tablets. Anything Snapdragon 600 and above is perfectly sufficient and silky smooth on AOSP for non-gaming and handles most lower-end games well enough. And the Snapdragon 800/801 handles pretty much all non-Tegra games.
So you’re saying anything since Snapdragon 600 is perfectly sufficient, so how is it better to buy a Tegra? It seems like your answer contradicted itself…
Its been years since I cared that much about the processor in a device. It should be current, but doesn’t need to be designed for gaming. A great display (like Sharp makes) and almost no bezel, keeping the tablet pocket-able is way more important to me than any particular processor. The aspect ratio on the Sharp is great for CAD stuff like Red Stick.
Maybe other manufacturers will use Nvidia’s chip, but Nvidia’s own tablet products look pretty ugly to boot… (not saying that the shape might not be great to handle for gamers, but I just don’t care about that as I wouldn’t bother to waste my brain cycles on an Android game in a million years)
How is it a contradiction? Makes little sense to buy a Snapdragon 810 tablet when you can buy a far faster Tegra K1 tablet for a far lower price tag. If Snapdragon 600/800 is sufficient for your usage, then there are tons of great deals for those devices around the $100-$150 mark.
Well “Android games” have come a long ways. There are quite a few great titles out there like Strangers: Odd World or Riptide GP2. On Tegra K1 specifically, you also have a few exclusives like Trine 2, The Talos Principle, and Pure Pool. I didn’t want to waste brain cycles on mobile games either… five years ago =).
In terms of aesthetics, I personally like the look of the Shield. It could be better, but especially with those large dual front-facing speakers, it looks pretty good. And the Nexus 9 is by no means ugly. I’m not sure why you mentioned aspect ratio. The Sharp and the Shield, as well as most Android tablets on the market, have the same 16:10 aspect ratio.
Snapdragon eats the poor Tegra for lunch. hehe.
The Snapdragon is very good, I’m glad it comes with Android too.
How about a 10″ model? Also, does anyone actually use the back camera? I can see the front camera for video chatting but it doesn’t need to be very high resolution. The back camera just seems to be an added expense with no purpose.
I work in downtown Chicago. Every day when walking around on my lunch break I will see at least one person using an iPad to take a picture of something. I don’t recall ever seeing someone use an Android tablet to do this, but I suppose that someone must. It always seems fairly ridiculous — it’s just like using your phone, only clunkier and with worse results! But people do it.
I use a Nook HD+ as a tablet, and haven’t spent 3 seconds wishing it had a camera in the back.
Everything about this is incredible but the memory. Couldn’t they have at least gone with the industry standard 3GB? What a sexy device otherwise.
3GB isn’t a industry standard, it’s a custom solution that only certain companies can afford… Companies like Samsung actually make memory chips and thus can usually afford to provide their own products with custom solutions but not everyone has their own FABs and have to pay extra for such features…
LP-DDR3 RAM also has issues with not being quite energy efficient enough to avoid significantly effecting battery life when you increase capacities beyond 2GB… 3GB is actually a compromise as it would be more normal to jump to 4GB… and keep in mind battery life is usually one of the priorities for mobile products…
But newer designs are slowly becoming efficient enough for them to start pushing higher capacities but we won’t really see wide adoption until they make the switch to the more energy efficient LP-DDR4 RAM and then we’ll start seeing a lot more capacity being offered but we may not see those options widely available until next year…
The 3GB RAM modules are a tray solution from TMSC, GF or Samsung’s fabs. They don’t increase power consumption because all RAM modules have the same power drawl regardless of their virtual capacity.
Incorrect assumption as you’re not factoring how the whole system would use the RAM…
Things like multitasking would increase with more RAM capacity, as well as the ability to run more powerful apps… Multiple apps alone can add up to a significant increase in power usage, especially if they use other hardware features like GPS, etc for location data, etc. and so it’s not just about how much power the RAM alone uses but the whole system…
Mobile devices rely heavily on power sipping most of the time to provide the range of battery life we’re used to now but a system running under load most of the time would not be power sipping as much and thus would require a larger battery to compensate…
But weight and size also have to be factored, especially with many pushing ever thinner and lighter designs…
Mind, offering a higher capacity storage of 32GB also means users could either have a lot of media or a lot of apps and the later can quickly increase power usage…
It doesn’t help that most OEMs in the mobile device market leverage capacity as a way to better leverage profit margins… Like charging $50 more for a doubling of storage capacity that only costs them $8-9 more, etc.
But factor that the higher capacity RAM is usually reserved for premium devices, which will also get other premium features like LTE, etc. and then most become too pricey to offer in the budget range or even mid range…
That’s not how an operating system works. RAM is always running at the same peak, it doesn’t throttle. An operating system caches and stores frequently used apps in the memory. All more memory means is a more efficient system.
Sorry but again you’re not understanding how the RAM can effect the rest of the device…
Mobile devices only really have long battery life because they’re usually well optimized to power sip most of the time… This means either very low mw power states or components being turned off until needed…
But when you have factors like more RAM then you run into issues like having too many apps running at the same time as the OS isn’t really optimized to limit unless you tell it to because it normally doesn’t have to… this reduces how easily the system can power down and power sip…
Just like having the screen on all the time having multiple components running longer means higher power drain… Especially on mobile devices that have lots of apps that make use of multiple sensors, GPS, etc. with each app queuing those sensors means they are active more often and thus not power sipping!
You’re only thinking in terms of how a PC works but mobile devices have to be more power efficient!
It doesn’t though lol, you should go to college. Android is Android, it is Linux. We built our own spin of Android for our enterprise (fortune 500 company) that manages fleets and franchise fees and scans/reports assets remotely. Android works just like Linux does on any device. A system is a system. You should take a few systems courses in college.
Sorry but you’re wrong, Android is not just Linux… It mainly only uses the Linux Kernel and that doesn’t matter anyway because what I’ve stated would affect any mobile device regardless of what software it is using!
The Linux Kernel also wasn’t originally designed for mobile devices… Desktop systems are power hogs in comparison… Also, a OS is more than just the Kernel and unlike desktop Linux, Android makes no use of GNU…
Again, look up how mobile apps work… Never mind the simple fact that when you make a system work harder it naturally uses more power!
Mobile devices have to be extremely efficient in order to provide good battery life… anything that gets in the way of that efficiency shortens the battery life!
Really, do you think using the GPS, etc sensors come at no power usage penalty? You think the Modem, WiFi, etc uses no power?
Mobile apps not only uses up system resources but also make use of more components than they do in a typical PC and you are still refusing to look at the whole system and how it all works together… So stop pretending you know what you’re talking about!
There’s a difference between book knowledge and real world experience…
Compared to everything else (CPU, GPU, Display, etc.), amount of RAM doesn’t make a significant difference in battery life.
You might want to actually read what I’ve posted because I clearly pointed to how the RAM effects the rest of the system!
Components in a mobile device don’t operate in isolation of each other!
You have more RAM, means you have more space for apps to run in memory, which prevents apps from being closed/terminated as often, which means they’re active longer and when apps are active they’re causing the device to use more power!
Mobile devices only have long battery life if the device can go into low power states and suspend or even turn off components that aren’t always needed… but more apps running means fewer chances for the system to go into low power states, remaining in high power states longer, having larger total work loads, having more components being active when they should be turned off, etc…
It’s bad enough having just one or two apps queuing the GPS, for example, for location data but have a bunch doing the same and that means the GPS is running a lot more than it’s resting and that means it’s using power that negatively impacts battery life…
Just like leaving your screen on longer quickly shortens your run time, for a mobile device anything that prevents power saving will negatively impact battery life!
Even on a PC, it’s like comparing the difference from gaming and only watching a movie… but the difference is even more so for a mobile device… Say you want to just watch movies for a flight… a mobile tablet can be very efficient and hardware accelerate the video while having pretty much the rest of the SoC off or very low power state…
This is one of the reasons why the Surface 3 can get up to 10 hours playing media but only 7-8 hours for web browsing because the various loads of web browsing end up drawing more power than a consistently low power draw of a dedicated activity that can let most of the system rest… While a heavy work load, such as trying to be productive or just gaming can reduce the run time to a mere 4-5 hours and if you get the 4GB model then that lets you push the limits of the system even more and a system being pushed under a constant/large load isn’t power saving and thus using more power…
Really, does anyone even bother to think this through?
The most significant factor that affects idle battery life is the deep sleep frequency, which is in turn maximized by minimizing the number of wakelocks. I believe deep sleep is the lower power state you are talking about? More RAM doesn’t significantly change deep sleep frequencies. On a side note, I manage background apps with Greenify. In Lollipop, wakelock management is better handled by default.
During active usage, power drain is most directly related to the frequencies the CPU/GPU are running at, and the display itself also affects power consumption.
I own a Project Tango Tablet with 4GB RAM. I have not noticed any significant difference in deep sleep frequencies between the Tango and my Shield (2GB RAM).
Again, you’re only thinking of the hardware but not thinking it through for how the whole system works with apps and everything… especially on a mobile device with most mobile apps looking for location data, sensor data, accessing the cloud, etc.
All of which effects how often the device can go into low power states…
And the fact is most people don’t manage anything with their devices, besides which such solutions aren’t the natural function of the OS and thus a natural issue that as a user you have to not only be aware of but know how to deal with as well…
But most people just install apps as is on their devices and don’t realize that the permissions they provide can add up to multiple apps running at the same time and only when the battery drain hits them would they know anything is amiss…
Having more limited RAM means it’s more likely a app will be kicked out to make room and thus not running than a device that isn’t as restrictive on resources… and since that has been the case for years it means many people won’t be used to needing to be more aware of what’s using power on their device…
So you’re not the typical user, as you clearly pointed out you protected yourself with apps like Greenify…
While OEMs have to identify with issues that effect users who don’t really alter their devices in any way… Most users will never side load a app, they will never root their device, they will never go out of their way to customize their device besides maybe a 3rd party launcher but many stick with whatever comes with their device and thus that’s the reality most face!
Btw, the Tango tablets has a pretty hefty (for its size) 18Whr battery… the phone version definitely has a hefty battery at 11.1Whr… In comparison the Nexus 7 2nd gen tablet has a 15Whr battery… So that good battery life is also because you frankly have a pretty big battery in that device…
The amount of RAM doesn’t significantly impact deep sleep frequency. Apps running in the background do.
Greenify is a normal app. It works better with root but does not require it. Anyone can install Greenify. I just pointed out Greenify as it is an excellent way to manage background applications.
Again, the amount of RAM effects the Apps… what part of that do you not understand? There seems to be a cut off on some people’s logic here when seeing how everything works together!
While nothing that doesn’t come with Android is a normal app! It’s not a natural function of the OS unless it’s pre-installed or otherwise part of the natural function of the OS as it was designed!
And again, most people never alter their device! What part of that don’t you understand either?
OEMs have to design their products to the vast majority who use their products and most of them just use as is out of the box!
I don’t see your point. Are you saying I shouldn’t recommend Greenify? Deep sleep frequencies aren’t significantly impacted by amount of RAM. What affects them are wakelocks and background processes. I just recommended Greenify. Has nothing to do with the discussion.
No, I’m pointing out what normal people would go through when using the device!
This all started by pointing out one of the reasons why we haven’t seen more RAM offered on mobile devices up till now and why 3GB is a compromise between 2 and 4GB capacities…
Power consumption is one of the reasons… and what the discussion has focused on but there are others like costs and OEM leveraging profit margins along with storage capacities.
RAM, like most components in a system, doesn’t operate in isolation but works with other components… Specifically the CPU and GPU, especially in mobile devices that make exclusive use of integrated GPUs and thus rely on system RAM for video memory and shares in the bandwidth with all others that access memory… and all of them work together when running software, which is what people do when using their devices!
Mobile apps have plenty of apps that can run in the background while the device is otherwise in a deep sleep mode… The system also occasionally partly wakes to check to see if there are any updates, etc…
The more apps making use of this may not mean the system checks more often but does mean there would be more reasons for the device to stay awake when there are multiple apps looking to update, get newer data, etc… and thus the times it can remain at rest gets reduced and thus the system starts to use more power…
Again, most people will never alter the base behavior of their device… One of the reasons why most carriers get away with installing their own custom launcher, etc. is because of this and people will just use the device as it comes but pretty much no one will go to the trouble of finding and installing a app that will in turn limit what they’re doing…
Sure, it would be great if everyone knew what they were doing and everyone took all the precautions they should but that’s like hoping people would be more careful with Windows, never log in as administrator, use hard to crack passwords instead of easy common passwords, etc.
But just because there are a few who do it right doesn’t change that most don’t and the majority is what is being discussed!
OEM’s have to worry about the average user, especially as they end up with bulk of the tech support when things go wrong and that just adds even more costs to them to deal with…
Really, apps like Greenify wouldn’t even exist unless what I stated was true… more apps and services tends to lead to greater power consumption and reduced battery life… but a treatment isn’t the same as a cure and with most people not taking advantage of such solutions it means it is a problem…
More RAM still doesn’t cause greater power consumption. Like you just said, “more apps and services tends to lead to greater power consumption and reduced battery life”. More RAM doesn’t influence those factors. Deep sleep frequencies aren’t affected by more RAM. More RAM doesn’t hold any significant impact on battery life.
Sorry but you couldn’t run more apps and services without having more RAM… It causality! One leads to the other! And more apps and services definitely effect the battery life otherwise you wouldn’t need Greenify at all!
People already have issues with devices they run for a long time and have ended up collecting a lot of apps on despite most of them still having very limited RAM capacities but as the capacities increase in the average device then the number of apps and services that can be left running increases as well…
With more RAM the OS has less reasons to turn off apps to make room for running and launching more apps… So fewer get turned off on most systems… and given that most people aren’t running any 3rd party apps to help make sure such problems don’t get out of hand then a lot of people will be running into the battery drain issue, especially as they make more use of their device and install more apps and services…
This is also being coupled with an increase in storage capacities offered, which also means more apps in total can be on a device, which makes it even more likely users will run into battery drain issues…
Pretending that adding more RAM has no effect is basically turning a blind eye to how the devices work… It doesn’t matter if the RAM itself doesn’t use more power but it does matter when the RAM allows the rest of the device to use more power as it tries to meet the demands of more and more apps and services!
Never mind how the SoC designers are making use of increased RAM capacities to offer higher performance… iGPU solutions make use of system RAM for the video memory, and the more bandwidth the RAM has the higher the performance and energy load the CPU and GPU can generate…
Also, more RAM means eventually we’ll see more powerful apps offered and more powerful apps means higher system loads… like the difference I pointed out between simply watching a video from being productive or gaming…
Battery life on a mobile device can go from weeks on a charge to down to just a few hours depending on how the system is used and how much RAM is available effects how the system can be used!
So lets stop pretending the RAM has no effect… at best you can say it has no direct effect but it has plenty of other ways it helps to allow the system to use more power!
“With more RAM the OS has less reasons to turn off apps to make room for running and launching more apps… So fewer get turned off on most systems… and given that most people aren’t running any 3rd party apps to help make sure such problems don’t get out of hand then a lot of people will be running into the battery drain issues.”
That’s not how memory management works. The OS always uses RAM to its fullest potential and you will have cached processes and inactive information that will be readily available when you use an app as opposed to having to fully reload all the content from the internal memory. More RAM does not increase the number of processes running in the background. In fact, having less RAM means Android’s built-in task manager will have to kill processes more often, reducing battery life.
Again, it’s not just any one part!
Really, you wouldn’t need Greenify if the OS always used the RAM efficiently and didn’t allow power consumption to get out of hand!
So lets stop with the nonsense of what the system doesn’t do and start facing the fact that the entire system works together and is why power draining issues can even occur!
And killing processes doesn’t reduce battery life! Maybe it may be iffy if the app or service needs to go through a lengthy update each time it is turned on but usually at worst it just wastes time and effort as you have to wait for the app or service to reload instead of just switching back and forth between apps but as long as the app wasn’t running in the background then it makes little difference if it’s killed or suspended… and it definitely isn’t a waste if you don’t need to turn it back on and then it can stay off and not use any resources…
It’s actually keeping processes active that reduces battery life because only when they’re active is the system under load and a lot more than just the RAM is running when the system is under load!
This is why Greenify puts apps to sleep to help prevent them from draining battery when you’re not using them… It just doesn’t usually have the time waste of killing off a process and then restarting it later… but many other similar apps do kill off processes to help save power…
But without more RAM you couldn’t increase things like multitasking or use as many heavy apps without needing to free up resource space…
So saying RAM has no effect is like saying people will never use their device to its fullest potential… When pretty much everyone pushes the limits of their devices!
Really, you’re basically assuming these devices will never get pushed to their limits but without anything to really limit them, like Greenify does, then the majority of users will eventually end up with battery draining issues with devices with more RAM because it won’t limit them as much and they’ll eventually start pushing the limits one way or another…
The issue is actually going to get worse as things go along because as devices get more powerful they’re also being allowed to do more…
The ability to run multiple apps side by side is something that is slowly becoming a reality for Android… there are multiple custom builds that allow this, companies like Samsung enable it for their note line, and there are other applications and they’re only going to push multitasking once more RAM becomes more common…
I could go on but you really should get the point by now…
You can believe what you want to believe, but more RAM should not significantly decrease battery life.
By itself, no, but again my point is how more resources allows the system to be pushed harder via the apps and services that run on it!
So…?
I never said anything about battery life with the Tango. I just pointed out that deep sleep frequencies were not signifcantly different.
And you used a specific device that specifically has more battery capacity than most other devices in its range!
Sorry but that does effect perception of battery life when you use a device for comparison that would naturally compensate for increased power usage by having more battery capacity!
Why are you talking about battery capacity? I am talking about deep sleep frequencies. Increased RAM does not lower the PROPORTION of time the device spends in deep sleep.
Everything being talked about is in terms how it ends up effecting battery life… You stated you were comparing to the Tango Tablet to show that 4GB had no effect but you neglected to factor that the device has a larger capacity battery than many similar tablets with only 2GB of RAM have in comparison…
This obviously shows you were making an assumption because the only way to definitively find out if a difference in device configuration has an effect is to have two or more devices with near identical configurations to compare to… Every contributing factor has to be factored to determine if there is any actual or lack of change in performance, etc.
The Tango will obviously show less of a difference if it has a larger battery to compensate… So of course these details matter!
Yes exactly. How it affects battery life. Not talking about battery capacity. Your argument is essentially that more RAM reduces the time the device spends in the low-power state. I am saying the proportion of deep sleep is not significantly different between my Tango and Shield. What affects whether or not a device enters deep sleep is wakelocks and background processes. Amount of RAM doesn’t influence deep sleep proportions.
Again, how can you state this when you don’t account for the battery capacity in the comparison?
Battery life is also effected by the capacity of the battery… the more capacity it has the longer the system can run under a given load but if you’re comparing two devices with dissimilar loads and dissimilar battery capacities then you’re not making any actual relevant comparison… all you can say is they seem to run about the same but if one has a larger battery and still only gets the same run time then it actually means it’s using more power as otherwise it would run longer under the same loads!
While the amount of RAM again effects how many apps and services you can have running, how much memory bandwidth is available to the CPU and GPU, which in turn determines how hard they can work as well as how much performance you get out of the system…
There’s lots you’re ignoring frankly… Sure, RAM by itself doesn’t do much but RAM doesn’t run by itself in a system that is running apps and performing tasks…
Every activity that the RAM allows, like running more apps at the same time, increases the total system load and thus increased the total power usage, which means shorter battery life…
You’ve failed to realize that this is an inherent problem with pretty much any mobile OS and 3rd party solutions need to be acquired to compensate but those solutions aren’t perfect either as they limit multitasking, they limit how quickly you can switch between apps, they make it more likely you will have to wait for a app to reload when switching between apps… Some apps require running all the time would be crippled by such apps and not work as intended… etc…
So even discounting that most people wouldn’t use most 3rd party solutions, for various reasons that most people never alter their devices, etc, there are also reasons for people to not want to use them as they only cure one type of problem by potentially providing another in exchange…
It’s actually pretty funny that it appears to be so many who want to over simplify the issues, isolate the hardware to single components that apparently never work with the rest of the system, and pretend there is no issue at all…
I still don’t understand what battery capacity has to do with anything. I’m talking about the proportions. It doesn’t matter that device A has 10,0000 mAh and Device B has 2000 mAh. I’m saying both spend X% of the time in deep sleep. Their deep sleep proportions are not significantly different. I see no reason why having more RAM could decrease the proportion of time a device spends in deep sleep. That is affected by wakelocks and background processes as I’ve stated and you’ve stated many times. A greater amount of RAM doesn’t significantly alter battery life.
Again, having more RAM means you can have more apps and services running… many of those apps can in turn remain active when the system is otherwise in a deep sleep…
Features like Always Connected Standby means the system still has minimal activity at set intervals and if there is an update then the system wakes up to perform the update and thus reduces the time it remains in a deep sleep… even with the screen remaining off these update periods can add up as multiple apps and services can add up the times the system updates…
If you remove Greenify and other precautions you’ve taken to prevent the device from running too many apps or services, you know like how most people would be running their device as it was sold to them! Then these additions can add up and cause a power draining issue…
While again, you would be less likely to notice a battery drain issue if the device you are comparing has a larger battery as that would compensate for an increase in power usage…
And regardless, even if there is no effect on deep sleep then when the device remains awake more apps and services still means larger continuous load potential for the system the moment you wake it and not just when you’re actively using it…
Even negating that effect, you’re system isn’t using the same amount of power when you have a browser running with just one tab versus running the same browser with more than a dozen tabs open!
And that’s just one of many examples!
Running with that example, more RAM means more tabs can remain open at the same time, each can be updating, streaming, etc. and that can cause more and more system resources to be used… Add location service orientated sites like maps, etc and you can add GPU, etc data being queued as well, further adding to the potential higher total power usage… Never mind a multitude of other apps and services that can also be running at the same time…
All versus devices with more limited RAM that would normally prevent such increased usage and thus prevent such sustained power usages…
For phones, especially, as people use them as multipurpose devices… people tend to use a multitude of different apps and services that can cause more and more of the different components in the typical device to come under use and the more being used means the more not being put into a deep sleep or even turned off to save power…
Just like leaving your BT and WiFi on while traveling, every bit of added hardware that’s running instead of sleeping or off adds to the total power usage…
Sure, there are exceptions… there are people who would make no use of the extra RAM and still only use their device for very basic usage or, like you, know how to limit the device to prevent things getting out of control but the exceptions to the rule don’t change that most users would be effected…
Up till now OEMs had to consider how the increase in RAM would effect the average user… Never mind how much has to change with the switch to 64bit…
Predominantly 32bit only software is another reason why most mobile devices haven’t gone to 4GB or higher yet… the Switch to 64bit hardware hasn’t meant a immediate switch to 64bit software, except for Apple… but even they have kept RAM capacities limited with the iPad Air 2 being the first to offer 2GB of RAM… despite many complaints of running out of RAM errors when they first went 64bit…
In many ways the OEMs have been specifically limiting how much we can multitask with mobile devices, or at least carefully balancing how much can be handled, to help make sure the average user doesn’t wind up with a system with a battery draining issue…
Thus why we really won’t see a big increase in RAM capacity offered for mobile devices until they start switching over to the more efficient LP-DDR4 RAM by next year… it’s not only more energy efficient but also lets them put more capacity in a smaller space… thus why they’re considering jumps in capacities as high as 16GB, at least for max possible configuration option… doesn’t mean they’ll actually offer it in a commercial product but it’s on the table once they make the switch…
Along with more efficient versions of Android, better 64bit support, etc. then it would be a lot easier to offer more capacity… Until then 4GB will be treated as a premium offering even if it’s configured in a otherwise mid-range device and most devices will still offer less capacity…
“Running with that example, more RAM means more tabs can remain open at the same time, each can be updating, streaming, etc. and that can cause more and more system resources to be used… ”
Not how it works. Try playing a video or other content on one tab and switching to another tab. The output will stop. Android does not feature the same level of multitasking as desktop operating systems.
“All versus devices with more limited RAM that would normally prevent such increased usage and thus prevent such sustained power usages…”
That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. That’s not how RAM management works in Android. More task killing due to low memory would more likely decrease battery life. And more RAM does not magically make more processes run in the background. RAM will always be used to its fullest capabilities with cached information so when it is needed again, the information does not need to be read again from the internal memory.
Sorry but you wouldn’t need Greenify if everything froze that wasn’t being actively used!
Android may not have the capabilities of a desktop OS but neither it as limited as iOS and as it has developed Android has slowly started to support even more multitasking… the feature Samsung uses to enable Windowed mode for some of their Note models is actually a standard Android feature, it’s just not enable by default but its an optional feature of Android…
While this video clearly shows that 4GB devices are capable of more multitasking than 2GB devices…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqk75-xE27c
There are also apps that have permissions to continue activity in the background, even when the screen is off… they may pause but they’re still doing some activity…
Things like push notification can use a little extra bit of system resources and power for each app or service they represent… Not everything necessarily turns off when you turn off the screen of a mobile device…
When did I say everything froze that isn’t used? I pointed out an inaccuracy in your argument since Android doesn’t feature the “same level of multitasking as a desktop operating system”. I’m not sure what your point is here. I’m pretty sure I’m the one who advocates more RAM. Like I said, more RAM means more cached information and tasks killed less aggressively.
I never stated that Android would have the same level of multitasking as a desktop OS… that is what you tried suggesting I meant… and the freezing is what you suggested with…
But again, Android is capable of running multiple tasks at the same time and background processes can quickly add up… So it doesn’t really matter that multitasking is more limited than a desktop when you still deal with increased usages and apps taking up resources even when in the background…
Android mainly just tries to keep too many things from running at the same time but it doesn’t outright prevent everything from running…
Push notification is just one example of things that can run all the time and is never paused!
And again there would be no point to Greenify if background apps were truly all paused!
There are basically two ways Android apps avoid being killed in the background, which has a parallel with iOS with the limited Background APIs.
The Broadcast Receivers component lets apps wake up for a short time to run some task or another, and then shunts it back to a background state. This is useful for location check-ins or file syncing.
While the other way is to forcibly maintain an app in the background as the Service component. An app that is running as a Service can run indefinitely and
should almost never be killed by the system. This is what makes Android
multitasking unique.
Regular processes will be ended before a service, and a developer can further indicate a Service’s importance by running it as “foreground,” but this requires a notification icon to be persistently visible in the notification bar. You will see this behavior with automation apps like Locale as well as with music playback.
So there are instances where something like a music app can continue to play even in the background and even when the device is otherwise in a deep sleep mode…
Again, I could go on about all the various ways apps can make use of more RAM and continue to run in the background and the multiple ways apps and services can end up using more power over time but my point should be clear by now!
Wrong Cybergusa.
Go back to School, you need some education.
Sorry but this has been a fact of life for mobile devices for years… you might want to get some real world experience before shooting off an invalid opinion!
You’re right Zepid.
Try looking up what most power saving apps are doing?
Autorun Manager, etc are specifically to limit the number of apps that are running and how many resources are active at any given time…
But guess what happens when you don’t have those type of resource management apps and more RAM?
You have a device that will be running more apps and services that will increase the usage of sensors, GPS, WiFi, BT, 3G/4G, more CPU and GPU cycles, etc. all of which increases the power usage of the device!
Even the natural process that most mobile OS perform that normally suspends apps that are not being actively used takes more than several seconds to take effect and means those apps are still using up resources as you’re using another app… and that’s not counting apps and services that don’t follow that process and can run all the time in the background…
Unlike a PC a mobile device isn’t running everything all the time and thus efficiency has a lot more to do with what can be kept off or in a low mw power sipping state…
So anything that allows the device to not power sip will increase power usage! It’s very simple!
Many people install apps on their phone, often not realizing that some of them are automatically configured to launch upon boot, and they keep running in the background. In fact, many of them automatically launch connections like Wi-Fi, GPS or your data connection… these are often limited by how limited the RAM is in most mobile devices but more RAM means the device won’t have as much a limit and thus means even more apps and services can be running, especially as most people tend to install more when they know they have the room for it…
All Zepid is thinking of is just the RAM itself in terms of how a PC would work but again it’s the whole system that determines power usage and more RAM does effect how the rest of the system is used in a mobile device…
Sure, the user can prevent this with resource management apps, not giving permission for apps and services to run in the background, etc. but most people don’t and the defaults result in greater power usage without the natural limitation of limited RAM that normally prevents too much running at the same time…
Really, you wouldn’t see the recommendation of checking what apps are running for improving battery life for mobile devices if they had no effect!
I hate to jump in here, but I really doubt you can generalize. Having more RAM would mean that it would be less likely an app would need to be closed and then reopened–saving battery. But it might also mean an app no longer really being used would be open, needlessly wasting battery if it’s still doing something the user doesn’t care about–wasting battery. I doubt either change is significant, unless maybe it’s a really poorly written app wasting a lot of power.
Closing and re-opening a app only really saves time… eMMC isn’t a big power drain like a HDD, and it’s really the app activity that’s causing the increased power usage which it would only do if it is in memory and active!
Problem is once a app has permission it usually runs whenever… this is normally limited by the limited amount of RAM but when you increase capacity then the number of apps running and killing the battery life increase…
Most people aren’t aware of this and thus don’t know to go into settings and each app settings to limit activity, like making sure they’re not running while the screen is off, etc. or not always checking location data, etc…
But this is one of the reasons why there are apps specifically for freeing up memory and making sure apps are off as they do effect battery life…
I said the opening apps probably wasn’t significant, but perhaps you can help me with the second point. The Chrome browser for Android is one of the worst offenders on my phone. I have to either manually close it or bring up the bookmarks page to make sure it doesn’t keep updating a webpage when the screen is off. Where is there a setting to change that?
Chrome has a known issue with refreshing/reloading on even devices with 3GB of RAM… partly because it tends to use more memory per tab than many other mobile browsers but also because apps compete for available memory and if you’re switching between apps, or even tabs, then something can get kicked out and thus needs to reload…
You can go into “chrome://flags” and find settings like
“chrome://flags/#max-tiles-for-interest-area”
Then tap the box marked ‘default’ and select a higher value. like 256 or 512 if the first one doesn’t have an effect…
This gives more memory reserve for Chrome but has the downside of leaving less for other apps that may be running…
But if the tweak has a negative effect then reset to the default, simply relocate the flag in the link above and set it to ‘default’. Hit the relaunch prompt and everything will be as it was.
Alternatively, many sites are set to auto-refresh via javascript and thus disabling javascript can help prevent this…
While, if you’re using a auto killer app then make an exemption for Chrome… and of course try to limit the number of tabs you are using and news sites, etc that would naturally refresh regularly…
A new tablet from Sharp but no Pixtronix screen? Interesting.
The TabTec article says this tablet has an IGZO display. Isn’t that what they developed with Pixtronix? I’d imagine if Qualcomm was already involved with the processor, they are also responsible for building the display.
The original source said LCD, which is a different tech.
Also, I don’t know that Pixtronix can make a screen with the resolution mentioned above.