Android - Dual core.. advantages and disadvantages? Atrix vs P500

Sanav3

Adept
Hi guys,

I have been using a LG P500 for 7 months and have bought a Motorola Atrix recently and have been having a tough time comparing them.

Any galaxy s2, photon, HTC sensation users please post your inputs about how do you use the phones power?

1.) Screen size and resolution - Atrix.. I love the high resolution and bigger display size, but setting the screen density lower on P500.. its pretty much the same for applications - market, tapatalk, etc.. it only makes a difference in the browser.



2.) Games - I play games like doodle jump, angry birds, greedy spider, cut the rope and all these run perfectly fine on my P500 as well.

But the Atrix temperature rises to 55 degrees with simple game like greedy spider in 15-20 minutes whereas the P500 is never even hot to touch.

The high end tegra based games really suck the battery life which I can play only with a charger plugged in, I would instead use my laptop/tablet.

3.) Browsing, Flash - I prefer using a tablet/laptop as with a 4 inch screen I just end up zooming in and out.

I watched a 15 minute flash video from CBS.com and the phone was 55 degrees hot, surely not a good idea to continue using it like this.

4.) Skype/Fring - yes video chat works perfectly fine on the atrix but 30 minutes in a voice fring call and the atrix is like 50 degrees... never happens on the P500
5.) Home screen replacement apps .. adw launcher and Go launcher work perfectly fine on either of the phones.

The animations on the P500 are slower and not even close to the Atrix , but I am fine with half a second lag...

Now are there any more features of a dual core phone with 1 GB RAM that I am missing here?

I really really want to keep the Atrix, but I am currently inclined towards selling it. (I am currently in US and would be selling it locally :))

Another point can be ICS, but we already have the cool HC lock screen available via 'Go Locker' and the support for closing application is in built in 'Go launcher' as well.

And hardware accelerated animations would make the home screen and menus smoother.. but I love to keep changing the UI of home screen, so it would be of no use.

Any other advantages of ICS ?

PS: Both devices were used over WiFi, and the temperature in my current location is like 8-10 degrees.

Really long post, thanks for reading :)
 
Personally, I believe that there is only so much one can do on a mobile phone, no matter how powerful they get. The main reason being the small screens. Sure, it's cool to have Shadowgun running on your phone and showing it off to your friends but if you actually tried to play it while on the go, you would most likely find the controls clunky since your two thumbs cover the entire screen. Like you said, you'd be better off playing stuff like that on your tablet or laptop.

Everything you listed can be done on older generation phones and quite nicely too. My old HTC Legend ran all of those well enough. I use a Galaxy S now and when the S2 launched, I was tempted to upgrade right away but after weighing out the pros and cons, I decided not to.

It's quite simple. Don't look at what the device can do. Ask yourself what you will do with the device :) Now, if I could use an Atrix + ICS with NFC to pay for stuff at a restaurant, I'd go for it.
 
I have been asking myself why dual core . I guess now i have got the answer.
One question:
Is dual core experience same for all Dual core phones from LG,Samsung,Motorola?
 
Well, my Sensation does heat up, but to a max of 48C, very rarely. Only if im gaming with the charger plugged in. Otherwise, it reaches a max of 44-45.

The battery backup is around, 1 and a half hour of continuous Galaxy on Fire 2 or DGunners like games, before the battery hits a 20% low.

Browsing gives me around 3-4 hours over wifi.

IM using Sense 3.5 so nothing much to comment here, apart from the fact that its AWESOME!!

I dont use Skype as much. SO cant say.

Also the Sensation runs @ 1.2Ghz stock. And yes im using a custom kernel, which tend to heat up even more. This custom kernel offers the same performance @1.02 Ghz as the stock kernel @ 1.2Ghz . So if go down on the clocks a bit more, it should run even cooler.

Daily with moderate usage i tend to leech out around 16 hours of battery backup, before i connect it to the charger (At around 10-12 %).

This includes around 2 hours of phones calls, about 70 to and from messages. And about a hour of games (Fruit Ninja, Serious Sam, and the likes)
 
ViKiD said:
Well, my Sensation does heat up, but to a max of 48C, very rarely. Only if im gaming with the charger plugged in. Otherwise, it reaches a max of 44-45.

The battery backup is around, 1 and a half hour of continuous Galaxy on Fire 2 or DGunners like games, before the battery hits a 20% low.

Browsing gives me around 3-4 hours over wifi.

IM using Sense 3.5 so nothing much to comment here, apart from the fact that its AWESOME!!

I dont use Skype as much. SO cant say.

Also the Sensation runs @ 1.2Ghz stock. And yes im using a custom kernel, which tend to heat up even more. This custom kernel offers the same performance @1.02 Ghz as the stock kernel @ 1.2Ghz . So if go down on the clocks a bit more, it should run even cooler.

Daily with moderate usage i tend to leech out around 16 hours of battery backup, before i connect it to the charger (At around 10-12 %).

This includes around 2 hours of phones calls, about 70 to and from messages. And about an hours of games (Fruit Ninja, Serious Same, and the likes)

Thanks for the advice, I rooted the phone and underclocked it to 700 MHz.. the temperatures are down to max 45 and all the games are still playable exactly same.

I can see the difference in the Main menu and homescreen scrolling.. its not as fluid as 1 GHz.. but thats a price I am ready to pay.

The only advantage of a dual core is multi tasking, I am able to switch between a running game, browser and other applications.. don't have to always press the back button to close every application.. a necessity on a P500

I will update this post as I find more advantages.
 
Sanav3 said:
Thanks for the advice, I rooted the phone and underclocked it to 700 MHz.. the temperatures are down to max 45 and all the games are still playable exactly same.

I can see the difference in the Main menu and homescreen scrolling.. its not as fluid as 1 GHz.. but thats a price I am ready to pay.

The only advantage of a dual core is multi tasking, I am able to switch between a running game, browser and other applications.. don't have to always press the back button to close every application.. a necessity on a P500

I will update this post as I find more advantages.

What about battery life?
 
I am currently using the phone only at home, to be precise.. testing it over WiFi.. No SIM card

With 30-45 min of browsing, over an hour of tapatalk/facebook/games, about 60 min of voice calls on fringe and 2 account with push mail always on it lasts about 2 days.

Should last at least a day on normal usage with a SIM card
 
Update:

So I have packed the P500 in a box, will sell it when I get back to India.

The Atrix is super fast for switching between apps, and I can install endless number of applications .. with P500 the internal memory is just 170 MB.

After using a high end phone for few days, going back to P500 made me realize how slow it is :)

And for the CPU temperature problem, I bought SetCPU and underclocked the processor to 800 MHz and I drop it to 600 MHz whenever the temperature goes above 50 degrees.

The web-top functionality is killer, just to brag about it.. because I still did not a real opportunity to utilize it.

And the fingerprint sensor is amazing, you don't even have to look at the phone to unlock it :D
 
am I the only one to have a cool atrix?

doesnt cross 40c even with hour of gaming.. Alsphalt 6HD, samurai vengeance etc.

Dunno if it would go higher as I never played longer..gets boring on a handheld device.

Otherwise it idles around 30-33c

Im on Cynogen mod.

Battery best has been 83Hrs without data or wifi. Otherwise 40hrs with moderate usage. Battery life is not so great with other roms. I lose biometric scanner and webtop with cynogen but the trade off is worth it for me.
 
The temperate monitor app detects cpu as omap 3430, I hope my readings are wrong :)

What app do you use for monitoring temperature?

My battery temperatures are exactly in line with your temperatures ;)

when was your phone bought? Mine has warranty till aug 2012, so its not an old batch or something...

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
 
One of the advantages of the Atrix is the Lapdock. If you can find one between 125-150$, it's an amazing piece of accessory. But not worth at 200$ :( .
 
archat68 said:
One of the advantages of the Atrix is the Lapdock. If you can find one between 125-150$, it's an amazing piece of accessory. But not worth at 200$ :( .

yeah, im planning to switch to ICS based device eventually but upcomming quad core monstrosity is stopping me from buying galaxy nexus.

even last time google went with already in use SGS based specs and now this one with specs closer other dual cores...right when quad cores are about to be released.

btw, congrats on your touchpad deal... i was late by a few mins i guess :(

pm me if you dont buy it :lol:
 
@madnav

Was looking for a TP long time - finally got it at an affordable price. Let it come to me, if I don't like it for any reason I'll give it to you for the price I paid plus shipping etc :) .
 
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