well, then i guess your gonna be stuck with crappy phones soon.

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The basic problem is, we have the technology to cram 12 cores in a cell phone if we wanted to, but at the end of the day it has to run off a battery.

Current battery technology is underwhelming.

compressing / transcoding / recompiling etc. is not advised on such a device at this point in history.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

I have a Droid 2...only had it about a month but it's great. I love the keypad, as I hate typing on a touchscreen. Very easy to use, seems to work great. Also seems decently rugged...I carry it in my pocket, sometimes with change or keys (accidentally, they belong in the other pocket), and it doesn't have a scratch yet.

It's not 4G or LTE, but it also was pretty cheap. Flash video is definitely nice...I can stream Sabres games on channelsurfing. Even works on 3g if the signal is strong enough.

Tethering is nice too (although you have to either pay Verizon, buy an app, or root the phone).

You can have your 'awesome' phone that lasts for 90 minutes on a single charge. I'll take my slightly less awesome phone and be able to actually use it all day.

You want to transcode and compress video while mobile? A shitty netbook is a better option than a cell phone.

People still run single core computers for gaming and all that jazz.

Just because you have multiple cores, doesn't mean it's automatically awesome. Just makes multi-tasking more efficient is it. As I've said, you won't find a difference in speed from a 1ghz dual core and a 1.2 ghz single core, or at least not with the naked eye, and if you can, then you aren't human.

I agree with Tom, I'll take my slightly less awesome phone that lasts all day over my super awesome phone that last an hour.

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i like how people automatically assume that with advanced processor technology, battery technology will continue to stay the same. and people seem to forget that the one of the iphones drawbacks is their terrible battery life, the same people who keep shouting "battery life!" in the wake of advancing technology. of course, those with dual cores who worry about battery life could go out and get a larger battery. cant do that with an iphone though.

clearly, there is a reason for these phones to be dual core. this isnt just some guy sitting around saying... mmm, im bored, toss another core in there.

i understand the concerns about battery life, and the first few dual cores will probably be shitty in battery life. im willing to bet that as these phones come out, they will advance battery technology.

ps: im a litte behind. NVIDIAs 3-D dual core is available for phones this spring, quad core for phones this fall. holy shit!

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Phones are gaming devices, too.

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Wheelhouse

yeah, i play baseball on mine alot. its like a gamegear!

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I'm not automatically assuming that...it's a plain fact.
If battery technology followed Moore's law we'd all be driving $6000 electric cars and have little fuel cells in our wrist watches.

Processor technology development outpaces almost all other technology.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

i dont buy it. not for a minute. battery technology will improve as cell phones improve.

i was discussing this with phil earlier. remember old calculators that had the solar panel on em? couldnt we throw that on a phone, so it uses recharges the battery while out, thus slowing down the rate of resources being used? it cant be that simple, can it?

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Don't buy it then. Ed and I don't know anything about technology. We've both only been doing it for a living for 15+ years each.

It's only been this way since the late 90s. Batter tech lags behind processing power. The gap has closed for sure, but there's still a gap.

No, the amount of power needed for a phone would require quite a large solar panel and it would be a hassle.

I'm not sure how much power said cell phone needs, but the batteries on my blackberry is a 3.7v lithium ion battery, I really wish I could find out the maH it outputs and then figure out the size of a solar panel big enough for it to power the device.

If it were that simple already, we'd have them in phones, or having a phone run purely off of solar power.

Here is your answer as to why it would not work.
http://www.ehow.com/how_4720927_volts-a ... panel.html

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it's not really a debate...what's in your phone right now?
Lithium Ion?

That's late 70's early 80's technology.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

so then, if the gap has closed, wont it continue to close?

so then why are these companies developing all these great new processors (the tegra 3-d dual core is supposedly done, and the tegra quad core should be released in phones this fall) wouldnt a better battery option be on the way? i believe so. they wouldnt be working on it and releasing them if it wasnt the case in someway.

its not like a phone that would die with a single core processor in 24 hours, is magically going to die in 6 from the same usage with a dual core.

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Mobile class processors are used in other things besides phones. One of my owner's side companies sells a digital signage product that's nothing more than a small form factor PC with mobile class components. Same thing goes for laptops/netbooks.

There's also the matter of price point. Depending on supply, there are times that faster, multi-core mobile processors are significantly cheaper per unit at wholesale than slower single core chips. There's also a significant drive in the mobile processor space to lower the power consumption of these multi-core and system-on-a-chip setups to make the more feasible for use. They're getting closer, but not there yet.

The push isn't to make battery tech better. The push is to make the chips more efficient.

A lot of the advances that are going into new processors and specifically mobile processors is in the field of of power savings and efficiency.

CPU's are evolving around the problem but that can only work to a certain extent...and we're close to it.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

i read today they are working on new screens that demand less power to use.

i also read today the first 3-D phone is already out.. in INDIA of all places.

also, dual core. the only dual core out right now is NVIDIA dual cores, which, correct me if im wrong, they are more battery efficient, right?

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verizon iphones reviews in. its a little slower, but it doesnt drop calls like ATT.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/02/03/ ... n&hpt=Sbin

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When ATT's 3G is working, it's pretty damn fast, and I'm happy with it.

But there are times it fails to load, or lags.

Verizon's 3G, while not as fast as ATT's best moments, is more predictable, and IMO, will result in a more satisfactory user experience.

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Wheelhouse

I have never dropped a call on my AT&T Blackberry, but I never use my phone to call, haha.

Still can't wait to get my iPhone, and 46% faster with AT&T, hahahahahaha that's huge.

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