111–120 of 159 posts
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Don't you pay a double lossy compression penalty? 1). .mp3 or .aac throws away data 2). Transmitting over bluetooth recompesses and throws away more data I think in principle Apple could avoid one of these with AirPods if the the iPhone7 streamed .aac/.mp3 as a custom Bluetooth codec, but I haven't heard if they wen that route.
> Don't you pay a double lossy compression penalty? Yes, in the sense that the results are doubly compressed. No, in any meaningful sense that I would have an issue with. The headphones have the appropriate BT codecs for high definition audio (the 3 even more so, aptX et al), and the end results have been on par with my wired AT-50x. You can try double and triple compressing a 320mbps mp3 file and you'd hardly notice…
1) Your headphones have good codecs, but they are only used if they match an iPhone supported BT codec. For example AptX will not work with iPhone.
2). Yes double compressing .mp3s is not as bad as it sounds, but double compression can be worse with two different codecs. For example I believe iPhone uses SBC codec for Bluetooth, which is pretty different from .mp3/.aac.
I would be interested in knowing if AirPods solve this by doing .mp3 or .aac pass through.
Hardware feature table mentions WiFi, but not the LTE modem and radio which is far more important as LTE has to deal with skyscrapers and buildings with stone and steel which conveniently block LTE signals, population density, and spectrum consumption has been dramatically increasing year to year. The unit has the Qualcomm X12 modem but that modem doesn't cover AWS-3 (Band 66) which is a very large swath of spectrum,…
Apparently iPhone 7(+) does not have the antennas for 4x4 MIMO / 256 QAM which the Samsung S7 does provide for. http://cellularinsights.com/samsung-galaxy-s7-the-first-4x4-...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12678124
LG V20 which should be shipping by end of Oct does support AWS-3 (Band 66) http://cellularinsights.com/lg-v20-the-first-aws-3-capable-s...
These issues are important to extend signal and to make better use of spectrum in areas with large buildings and high population density.
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Maintaining a consistent level of quality is the main technical difficulty, see: Android
Arguably the phones with open bootloader have the best Android experience out there (Nexus line), so I'm not sure if Android here is the best counterargument.
In fact, I think that somewhat proves my point, it's no coincidence the hardware Google has the most influence over has the best experience.
And it's no coincidence they gave up on just influencing the phones and went as far as manufacturing a phone with the Pixel, all in chase of the perfect experience
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Don't you pay a double lossy compression penalty? 1). .mp3 or .aac throws away data 2). Transmitting over bluetooth recompesses and throws away more data I think in principle Apple could avoid one of these with AirPods if the the iPhone7 streamed .aac/.mp3 as a custom Bluetooth codec, but I haven't heard if they wen that route.
> Don't you pay a double lossy compression penalty? Yes, in the sense that the results are doubly compressed. No, in any meaningful sense that I would have an issue with. The headphones have the appropriate BT codecs for high definition audio (the 3 even more so, aptX et al), and the end results have been on par with my wired AT-50x. You can try double and triple compressing a 320mbps mp3 file and you'd hardly notice…
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> Don't you pay a double lossy compression penalty? Yes, in the sense that the results are doubly compressed. No, in any meaningful sense that I would have an issue with. The headphones have the appropriate BT codecs for high definition audio (the 3 even more so, aptX et al), and the end results have been on par with my wired AT-50x. You can try double and triple compressing a 320mbps mp3 file and you'd hardly notice…
CD quality doesn't throw away data that your ears can hear, thanks to the Nyquist sampling theorem. If your ears can hear better than 20khz I'd be very surprised.
Yes, Didn't say it throws away data "that our ears can hear" but that it "throws away data", period (which is true). And not just frequencies but also dynamic range.
That said, a high quality mp3 also doesn't throw away data that "our ears can hear", not with absolute physical certainty (as in Nyquist et al), but with psycho-acoustic research level certainty. (I say high quality because lower quality mp3s trade more usable signal for space savings).
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> Don't you pay a double lossy compression penalty? Yes, in the sense that the results are doubly compressed. No, in any meaningful sense that I would have an issue with. The headphones have the appropriate BT codecs for high definition audio (the 3 even more so, aptX et al), and the end results have been on par with my wired AT-50x. You can try double and triple compressing a 320mbps mp3 file and you'd hardly notice…
I generally agree but: 1) Your headphones have good codecs, but they are only used if they match an iPhone supported BT codec. For example AptX will not work with iPhone. 2). Yes double compressing .mp3s is not as bad as it sounds, but double compression can be worse with two different codecs. For example I believe iPhone uses SBC codec for Bluetooth, which is pretty different from .mp3/.aac. I would be interested in…
The headphones do support AAC BT streaming though, which IIRC is Apple's slant on AptX.
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Thank you! This is the kind of detail I would have expected from AnandTech. It's a bit disappointing that they'll use the great teardown work provided by iFixit and Chipworks but not capitalize on it by actually analyzing the guts of the phone.
They used to do deep dive the on chip architecture too. I guess now that anand is no longer there maybe their mission has changed.
This was very nearly called part 1 of the iPhone 7 review.
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To be fair, the Pixel is a horrible value, as it doesn't seem to be as significantly better than what it's replacing relative to the significant increase in price.
Is the price difference that significant? To me, the difference between a $1000 phone and a $400 is less than $1 per day (I keep my phones for 24 months). A buck a day is something I can afford and am willing to pay it for even a modestly better phone. I would guess a lot of HN readers are in a similar position. I wish Google would have come out with something much better even if it would have been more expensive tha…
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This. The trackpad is just about the only thing keeping me on apple hardware these days, but it's a much bigger deal to me than I'd have ever expected. It seems they are the only company that can figure out how make a mobile pointing device that doesn't make me want to throw the computer at a wall.
MS nailed it with the Surface Book btw.