The iPhone 6 Review • Hacker News Board

Re: The iPhone 6 Review

#131

Post by leonroy » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 10:01 AM UTC

Diwoto wrote: post #41

One thing I think Apple should do is to license Nvidia's GPU for their SoC. Especially when Maxwell is ready for mobile. Nvidia clearly wants to license it out and I think Apple would be the best one to take advantage of it. Apple seems to be pushing the GPU side of their SoCs quite a bit.

I've always been a HUGE fan of the PowerVR tech (the GPU inside the iPhone/iPad), even going so far as buying shares in the company when I was a kid (I was an odd kid).

From what I understand of the technology it was built with efficiency from the ground up as opposed to the nVidia tech of the time such as the TNT and Geforce which were designed for raw performance.

Good article about it: http://www.anandtech.com/show/558/4

I think Videologic/Imagination Tech patented the heck outta a lot of the techniques they came up with so wouldn't be surprised if they're ahead of the pack on efficiency.

Re: The iPhone 6 Review

#132

Post by ghshephard » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 10:02 AM UTC

richardjs wrote: post #79

georgespencer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> after putting it in my back pocket and sitting down on it > the bending issue is very real I'd suggest that the issue is that you're a guy who thinks sitting on $1,000 of glass and aluminium is a normal thing to do.

When did durability stop being a factor used to assess a phone's quality? As someone who is somewhat accident prone (and who doesn't want to spend too much time fretting about protecting my phone), it's something I care about. Granted, I don't this should be as big of an issue as some people are making it out to be, but I think the discussion should go beyond chastising owners for putting their phones in the wrong po…

Durability should be an important part of assessing a phone's quality. I think the issue here, is where do we drawn the dividing line on what's "reasonable" and "unreasonable" performance in that category.

I think it's reasonable to ask for phones that are water proof and shock proof. That is, a phone should be able to handle a dunk in the swimming pool, and should certainly be able to handle being dropped on a sidewalk. Both of those are every day events that happen to everyone. Until phones get to the point at which they can routinely handle both (neither of which any iPhone has ever been able to do), they come up lacking.

In addition, a phone should certainly not deform that much if it sits in a reasonable pocket.

On the flip side - I'm not expecting my phone to handle 200 pounds of force by me sitting on it on a hard surface repeatedly, particularly if there is hard edge/corner involved (which greatly increases the PSI the device has to handle). I also absolutely do not expect a phone to not deform if someone tries to bend it. People can bend freaking rebar, and I'm not expecting a phone to be structurally stronger than rebar.

That isn't to say you shouldn't be proud of your device if it can handle that amount of stress - I think it's definitely an advantage, it just isn't what I would consider the "minimum bar of performance for a smartphone."

Re: The iPhone 6 Review

#133

Post by leonroy » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 10:04 AM UTC

morbius wrote: post #42

The quality of writing has definitely dipped since Anand's departure. Though this review does contain a lot of information, it seems like it was written in a very sophomoric way.

First thing I noticed was how many authors it took to write that article. Believe Anand used to write past iPhone reviews solo - think they're gonna find it tough to replace him.

Re: The iPhone 6 Review

#134

Post by georgespencer » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 11:42 AM UTC

_superposition_ wrote: post #84

georgespencer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> after putting it in my back pocket and sitting down on it > the bending issue is very real I'd suggest that the issue is that you're a guy who thinks sitting on $1,000 of glass and aluminium is a normal thing to do.

To say you can't or shouldn't put your phone in your pocket is ridiculous. It is quite possibly the most common use case for a phone, and the design should take that into account. Full stop. The RDS is strong here, my friend.

Nobody is saying you can't put it in your pocket. What they're saying is that you can't sit on it.