really interesting to read you. thanks for your thought. 2010/6/10 c_c <[email protected]>
> > Hi, > I'm posting after a few months of taking a break from the FreeRunner - > which happened after I bought my wife a new Samsung Galaxy Spica - and > promptly re-appropriated ;-). The phone runs Android 2.1 on a S3C6410 > processor at 800MHz max. > > It was a nice opportunity to experiment with Android on the current > generation of phone hardware - having read about the hardware limitations > of > the FR too many times. And after my 3 month experiment I tend to agree and > disagree with a lot of what I've read. > > I really don't know how best to list out my experiences - so I'm going to > list what comes to my mind in no particular order :- > > 1. The Android (unofficial but optimised) build 2.1 takes longer to boot on > the spica than SHR on FR (kernel 2.6.29). The difference is about 10-12 > secs > - but significant. With the new SHR kernel - the diff could go up to 25 -30 > secs (I didn't measure). I wasn't expecting this and I would like to > conclude that :- > > a) SHR distro and the kernel guys are doing a great job - I just didn't > realise how much!! :-) > b) Samsung's kernel optmisation sucks :-/ > > 2. The Android theme is simpler and yet better looking than the default SHR > theme. Seems to me that using a lot of plain black with some appropriate > white and yellow makes android faster on slower hardware too. The Android > on > freerunner master images seem to confirm this - kinetic scrolling there is > more responsive and the overall GUI look is better. Perhaps we need a > simpler more Android like theme to get even better performance with decent > looks. > > 3. Android has a better browser. While I made Ventura to address this > partly, the new EFL port of webkit is still in progress 5 months after I > thought it was close to being released. Once that happens, I think its a > matter of time before the browsing experience on the FR is as good as the > best. > > 4. Running the Spica at 400 MHz bought out interesting results > > a) other than a delay in launching apps, post launch there wasn't much > difference in the performance. > b) there is about a seconds advantage that the faster processor speed > provides, and in most cases that > is enough to make the phone feel a lot faster. FR takes another 1-1.5 secs > (avg) during the launch of > most apps as compared to the Spica at 400MHz and that seems to be make it > feel like its really old. > c) startup times are crucial to the overall experience. > d) I tried making intone faster by pushing some pre init stuff out - and > the experience was much better > - but not stable (for intone). > e) Maybe some more work can go into making app startup faster on SHR (just > a thought). > > 5. The 640x480 resolution on the FR and the glamo chip are perhaps not a > great design decision after all - as raster has been saying all this while. > I wasn't convinced - but the qualitative difference between the spica's > screen at 320x240 and the FR at 640x480 starts to wear off really fast as > you get used to the larger screen and the faster experience on the Spica. I > love the FR screen, but it seems like without decent hw acceleration for X, > we wont be getting UI goodies and usability at the same time. > > 6. BUT :- > > a) I prefer the openness that SHR/linux provides over the better > experience > Android provides on the Spica. Android may have a lot of apps - but I > always > felt restricted with not being able to ssh, tether, run my own programs, > use > other linux tools and projects and generally mess around with the spica. I > ran debian on it (on Android) - but it just wasn't the same. I prefer the > freedom linux/X provides over Android any day. > > b) I think EFL is a much superior toolkit for touch screen experience over > a variety of form factors. It has the fundamentals in the right place, but > it seems like the cross-platform, semi-commercial nature of Qt is causing a > shift towards Qt in most embedded projects (Linaro, Meego etc). Of course > having better hardware to use with time is helping too. Now if only EFL > could get a few more commercial sponsors and a stable release roadmap with > specific dates - things just might improve. Canonical's decision to use EFL > for their netbook launcher was a great boost. And EFL needs better GUI > design tools - though editje seems to be moving in the right direction. > > c) It seems like having a faster processor is not that much of an > advantage > - unless you get to gaming (which also needs better graphics hardware) or > extensive mathematical calculations. Once you get to floating point > calculations, the integer only FR processor really gets stuck. > > d) The ability to use the radios on the FR easily is something thats a big > miss. Its painful to try using bt, wifi is better and the GPS seems best. > But none of the network management tools are really as easy as anything on > Android. Things just work with a click there (and perhaps a selection). > This > is the only thing I miss the most. > > e) As a mobile phone, I couldn't make out much difference between the > Spica > in comparison to the SHR on FR. I really didn't feel much difference in > making calls, storing contacts and using SMS. Maybe that's because my needs > are simple - no MMS's and I never use conference etc. As above, using a bt > headset is another matter all-together. > > f) I would love to be able to run SHR on the Spica. Is anyone looking at > porting SHR to different phones? Only, I doubt that samsung would happily > provide the required drivers. Then again, they had to release the kernel > sources - so maybe those could be used. > > g) I like the resistive touch screen's precision over the capacitive one. > But the capacitive screen seems more responsive and once I get used to > either - it takes a little while to go from harder but precise touching > (resistive) to lighter but larger surface area touching (capacitive) and > vice versa. > > h) The android development process is a lot better. The emulator helps > greatly during the developmental cycle and the documentation is > comprehensive. BUT - there are hardly any open source projects there. In > spite of the better dev tools, its faster to be able to use another > projects > code to start from / modify to develop your program than to start coding > from scratch. > > It would be great to have an emulator. At least a current toolchain will > help as compared to setting up the entire bitbake chain. > > > Overall, I think the FR is not that bad at all. I wish it had a better > graphics accelerator - but with a slightly more sober theme (mostly black) > and better radio management - I can see that it would be quite usable. > > The ability to use X and other linux programs is a huge plus for me. I'd > be > willing to trade the better UI/usage experience for the freedom here. > > The community here is also a lot more technical, open and collaborative. > The community around the Spica seems to have mostly end users. Or is it > that > only technically inclined people own FR's anymore? > > Just thought the community would like to know. > -- > View this message in context: > http://shr-users-discussions.2691941.n2.nabble.com/FR-vs-Spica-Android-tp5161366p5161366.html > Sent from the SHR Users discussions mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > _______________________________________________ > Shr-User mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.shr-project.org/mailman/listinfo/shr-user >
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