Database Users

Xperia Review by the Unoffical SE Blog - 384 MB RAM Confirmed...

Hi,
Finally a really in-depth review - really! And like i pointed in the title:
"The X1 comes with a total of 384 megabytes of RAM memory. Only 256 megabytes is visible in the system, but this is because these 256 megabytes is strictly for applications. At boot there’s about 152 megabytes free.
The remaining 128 megabytes of RAM memory is used for both the video graphics and CPU. According to the MSM7200A datasheet, the graphics part of the chipset (presumably the ATI Imageon 2300 or 2700G chip) is capable of delivering up to 4 million 3D triangles per second, and 133 million 3D textured pixels per second fill rate. Furthermore, it supports OpenGL ES - link that up with the large amount of dedicated video memory, and you’ve got an awesome power horse or gaming machine."
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Best Regards.

Old news bro.

xmoo said:
Old news bro.
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new news for me though. I know at the system memory it only shows 256MB of RAM, but I didn't know there's 128MB of hidden memory for GPU, etc. In that case, I wonder if it's the same for other HTC device like HTC Touch Pro, or is this an unique architecture for Xperia?
I did observed that the memory after bootup, is much more for Xperia than HTC Touch Pro, maybe that 128MB of hidden memory is making that difference.

zenkinz said:
new news for me though. I know at the system memory it only shows 256MB of RAM, but I didn't know there's 128MB of hidden memory for GPU, etc. In that case, I wonder if it's the same for other HTC device like HTC Touch Pro, or is this an unique architecture for Xperia?
I did observed that the memory after bootup, is much more for Xperia than HTC Touch Pro, maybe that 128MB of hidden memory is making that difference.
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Yes, it is new to me too as it only states that X1 has 256MB Ram so it has the extra of 128MB memory hidden, no wonder it is faster compared to my previous Touch Pro.
Good Job, SonyEricsson!

xmoo said:
Old news bro.
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Sorry bro. Been out of the scene lately, and having seen this today was new to me.

That's no proof at all. We already knew that the Qualcomm chip has hardware acceleration capabilities. Even the Diamond and Touch Pro has it but there is a rumor that it isn't utilized because HTC didn't buy the license for it.
Until someone opens up the X1 and spots the exact 128MB memory chip (only the flash memory and the 256MB RAM chip have been spotted as of now) I won't believe anything. Information is rather dubious it needs to be cleared out by facts (and hardware pictures).
Also the source is rather biased too. The "unofficial SE Blog" as they call it, is SE friendly and will write anything will come to their mind to help SE image and sales. I've read the review and while I think it is overall detailed, on some points their objectivity is quite questionable.

Sounds good, but if Sony cant even get the freaking panels to work smoothly with low res screenshots, i doubt any other software will ever use this.
No game developer will limit his games to one phone, so they come up with rather simple games without 3d stuff...its not like with the iphone where millions of people have the same phone with the same hardware/software base...because of that, they have alot of great games that utilize the 3d hardware but i dont see that happening for any WinMo device.
There might an optimzed version of coreplayer or that PS1 Emu, well might.

XavierGr said:
That's no proof at all. We already knew that the Qualcomm chip has hardware acceleration capabilities. Even the Diamond and Touch Pro has it but there is a rumor that it isn't utilized because HTC didn't buy the license for it.
Until someone opens up the X1 and spots the exact 128MB memory chip (only the flash memory and the 256MB RAM chip have been spotted as of now) I won't believe anything. Information is rather dubious it needs to be cleared out by facts (and hardware pictures).
Also the source is rather biased too. The "unofficial SE Blog" as they call it, is SE friendly and will write anything will come to their mind to help SE image and sales. I've read the review and while I think it is overall detailed, on some points their objectivity is quite questionable.
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damn true, we have nothing but words.

Also, think about it. A whopping 128MB VRAM for WVGA resolution? A desktop PC with 128MB VRAM on it's GPU could play full on 3D games at SXGA resolution easily. Doesn't sound logical to me at all if they put that much VRAM on this tiny device. Way too generous for HTC. 16MB or even 32MB sounds a lot more reasonable and realistic.

^ yep, I've also said that a few times here.....
so in the end I for one, can call SE is a liar here.

[Q] i9000 RAM=384MB LP DDR1+128MB oneDRAM?

I just found this picture
dev.odroid.com/wiki/odroid-t/pds/FrontPage/s_blockdiagram.jpg
So does it mean only 384MB DDR is available in system?
May be this is the reason why 305M ram shows in JP3 firmware.

That could make sense.
I wonder what the difference between them is?...Could one be dedicated to the GPU or in charge of background stuff?

Did anyone notice MFC 1080p 30 fps there?

That system block diagram isn't a Samsung official one, and frankly, i think it's wrong.
If the main memory in the Galaxy S was LPDDR1, we'd see lower GPU performance, MUCH lower. Memory bandwidth is everything when it comes to GPU on mobile devices like this.

Pika007 said:
That system block diagram isn't a Samsung official one, and frankly, i think it's wrong.
If the main memory in the Galaxy S was LPDDR1, we'd see lower GPU performance, MUCH lower. Memory bandwidth is everything when it comes to GPU on mobile devices like this.
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GPU RAM must be OneDRAM，OneDRAM is much faster than normal DRAM.
You can google "OneDRAM".

So I guess we might not really have 512MB of ram (as advertised)... isn't it? I mean, if these MBs are reserved to GPU use only. There will come a day when they will be needed for other use than graphics :|.

They are not reserved for GPU use only.
OneDRAM is like an intersection for routing information with as-little-as-possible blockades in the middle.
Splitting the memory to "conventional" ram and onedram is going against the very principal of onedram. I am having a hard time to believe they actually did that.

^Sbk79^ said:
So I guess we might not really have 512MB of ram (as advertised)... isn't it? I mean, if these MBs are reserved to GPU use only. There will come a day when they will be needed for other use than graphics :|.
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There is no official statement about RAM size.

I noticed the diagram says "TFT LCDC". That seems wrong, does it not?

coocood said:
There is no official statement about RAM size.
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This. You'll find a lot of press about the Galaxy S having 512mb RAM, but where does Samsung itself advertise this? I cannot find anything about it anywhere on Samsungs website. Maybe we should ask them?

GSMarena pressed on the issue when the phone was released, and samsung replied that there are indeed 512MB.

Lol....So do we actually know if it has 512MB of RAM or not? As some others have stated it might help explain why the Sammy has lag issues and the Desire does not..
BTW, I dont own either at present and am just going by what I have read in these forums.

That diagram also doesn't list wireless N, does that mean our phones don't have wireless n???

Pika007 said:
GSMarena pressed on the issue when the phone was released, and samsung replied that there are indeed 512MB.
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well..... using my onboard math processor I compuete that 384+128 = 512..
So samsung wouldnt have been lying if they had said there was 512.. even if 128 might be dedicated to the gpu or something else. 512+128 would have been nicer though.
I wonder if this diagram is accurate.

The picture is of ODROID-T which is a tablet style device for developers.
Its hardwares are quite similar to SGS but I don't think this block diagram should be showing exactly the same informations as SGS's.
Have a look at this site;
http://dev.odroid.com/wiki/odroid-t/

Well, the S5PC110 doesn't have the memory built in beforehand. It's changeable, the controller supports OneDRAM, LPDDR1 and LPDDR2. You can stick whatever you want in there.
Remember that only what's in the blue square is the actual SOC.

Kilack said:
well..... using my onboard math processor I compuete that 384+128 = 512..
So samsung wouldnt have been lying if they had said there was 512.. even if 128 might be dedicated to the gpu or something else. 512+128 would have been nicer though.
I wonder if this diagram is accurate.
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How does this differ from the HTC Desire setup? I know it has 576 MB RAM, but not sure how its split up...

Well, I checked before posting. Google for an official press release from Samsung Australia. Xda is not letting me post external links due to my low number of posts. However, I love my S. I'm just saying that this mem thing is starting to smell a little bit of i7500, from a customer relations' POV. Let's just hope we actually have a different design and that, as rumors say, new kernels will unlock all available ram.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

I also found a tear down analysis of Korean version galaxy s.
The author said it has "4Gb NAND+3Gb DDR+1Gb OneNand",which is incorrect.
Some comment below said it is OneDram actually.
If not for the OneDram,How can samsung declare 90M triangles/sec instead of powerVR's figure of 28M triangles/sec.
OneDram is more expensive than DDR.
I guess samsung does't say anything about RAM because it's a different structure,and hard to explain.

gosh i have been lurking on these forums to buy this phone
but with this memory issue it seems like the OMNIA II all over again
there the phone was advertisied with 512mb but only so little was left to the user!!
samsung samsng oh samsung!

Xperia X10 is more future proof than galaxy s

From teardown of i9000, it has:
512MB SLC Nand, and (384MB LPDDR + 128 MB [2 piece 166Mhz Mobile DDR] ) OneNand, all packaged on a MPC with the PowerVr+Hummingbird core.
Then a 16GB piece MoviNand (samsung's version of MLC based eMMC), all manufactured by samsung.
If it's right, then all the galaxy s phones (i9000(m), vibrant, captivate.. etc) only have 512MB of true fast Nand rom, could be the cause of the lag issues.
Although I don't have a teardown of the Fascinate and Epic, I'd assume they are the same as the GSM versions, with the exception of a 1GB/2GB MLC nand replacing the 16GB MoviNand (ie. they have only 512MB SLC Nand too).
Samsung is very smart when it comes to lowering the BoM and ip costs in building this high spec android phone.
By comparison, SE Xperia X10 has a 2x512MB (1GB total) fast Micron SLC Nand rom, 3 piece 384MB of LPDDR (166Mhz, x16*2+x32) higher bandwidth than i9000's. Nand + Ram made by Micron (which makes superior ic's compared to samsung).
HD2, and Sprint Evo 4G all have the same MCP made by Hynix; Google Nexus One and Htc desire share a MCP made by samsung, even though they have different specified Ram amounts (512MB vs 576MB), could be caused by the different allocations of available OneNand?
It is very likely, that the minimum requirement for Android 3.o is not 512MB ram, but 512MB rom, (Android, like Maemo, is very good at memory management). I'd say that the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is actually more "future proof" than the i9000, and the HTC phones released so far.

hopefully what you analyzed is true! I really don't want 2.1 to be the last software update on my X10.

SEMC said:
It is very likely, that the minimum requirement for Android 3.o is not 512MB ram, but 512MB rom, (Android, like Maemo, is very good at memory management). I'd say that the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is actually more "future proof" than the i9000, and the HTC phones released so far.
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You had me until here. There is no "minimum requirement" listed for Android 3.0, since it hasn't been announced yet.

iead1 said:
You had me until here. There is no "minimum requirement" listed for Android 3.0, since it hasn't been announced yet.
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No, the next version of android hasn't been officially announced, but I think you'll find that future android devices running high end branch of android from SE (and other manufactures) will at least 1GB of nand rom.

SE Xperia X10 has a 2x512MB (1GB total) fast Micron SLC Nand rom
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can anyone explain me this part .....

For example, an OMAP4440 based 864*480 (Sharp panel for SE, a first i think ) device that's in the works ...

This may be pulling the strings bit too far but are U max from esato?
If yes, is there any truth in the psp phone rumor? Also, what are the next devices, the X10 successors lined up for in terms of Processor and GPU?
Also the galaxy S has a better CPU and GFX card, so the better RAm in the X10 wont do to make it more future proof.

Yes, SE will release Gingerbread for X10 in 2013 - after the machines take over.

More than any device specs holding back updates for existing phones is that SE & others don't want to give you a free update. Why would they want to provide you with a update to prolong the life of your phone, when they could sell you or your provider a new one for actual money . Future proof is a myth built in obsolescence is the reality.

Am I correct in assuming you are associated with Sony Ericcson somehow (SE-MC as your nick)? I only ask because it clearly creates a conflict of interest for you to decide between both devices fairly.
NAND imho is considered to be flash, not RAM. Samsung officially said that they had 512MB RAM. In the case this unit didn't have 512MB LPDDR, it would mean they lied during the announcement: http://www.samsung.com/ph/news/newsR...ype=globalnews , as the OneNAND/MoviNand site differentiates between flash and RAM too. I have emailed them though to ask specifically.
We never really had issues with Micron or Samsung RAM at the Apple reseller I worked at. Micron might possibly be better, but you probably wont notice any differences unless you start over-clocking.
You forget that the i9000 has a MUCH faster GPU (90million triangles vs the X10 one), 802.11n, BT3 and REAL multitouch. Also, if you are writing an article, shouldn't you perform your own teardown so you can be 100% sure of what you are writing about? Anyway, in almost any synthetic benchmark at the moment (not that they matter), Galaxy S is ahead. The X10 however is probably ahead in photo quality.
Both phones are suited towards different audiences really, and both have their own benefits. I'd expect the Galaxy S to have a longer useful timespan though.. Sony Ericsson 9 months after announcement have announced plenty of new phones, but haven't even updated Android to 2.0. They clearly have the resources, but their priorities seem to be capturing more of the market, rather than helping their existing customers. If anything, SE's attitude suggests A3 wont be ported to the X10. The X10 likely never attracted the kind of people who will port Android 3 by themselves either (1.6 is too old for developers). Sony Ericsson also have a strong history of using software to upsell customers.
Anyway, it depends on what your requirements are. Neither Sony Ericsson nor Samsung are known for great long term software support, ROM's for Froyo have already been leaked by Samsung for the Galaxy S, whereas, there is very little evidence that SE are actively working on upgrading theirs (seriously, by now they should have at least gotten 2.0).
Despite my uses for a camera Flash, I ended up settling on the Galaxy S though. It's up to people to make their own choice, but I personally believe that the SE is the better long term choice.

Yes, SE will release Gingerbread for X10 in 2013 - after the machines take over.
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Impossible cause the worlds gonna end in 2012. No Gingerbread for us x10 users.
Sent from my X10a using Tapatalk

se_dude said:
is there any truth in the psp phone rumor? Also, what are the next devices, the X10 successors lined up for in terms of Processor and GPU?
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Not very likely is it, with psp neXt gen coming . The 2 divisions operates quite independently. However, an android device (running a 'high end' branch of android ) is currently in internal testing, based on TI's OMAP4400 series, and paired with LPDDR2 I believe, since the performance put that of samsung's i9000 to shame. I don't know if this is the *supposed* psp phone, but it does have an unusually wide aspect ratio screen (864*480) which could suggest a gaming 'portal' is coming to select future se devices.

andrewluecke said:
NAND imho is considered to be flash, not RAM. Samsung officially said that they had 512MB RAM. In the case this unit didn't have 512MB LPDDR, it would mean they lied during the announcement: http://www.samsung.com/ph/news/newsR...ype=globalnews , as the OneNAND/MoviNand site differentiates between flash and RAM too. I have emailed them though to ask specifically.
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Nand is not 'considered' to be flash, it is flash. OneNand is just a mcp with 'flash' + ram. The problem is, on samsung mobile's own devices, i9000 in particular, are some custom mcp's that are not publicly available. There are some mcp's used here which have comparable public offerings (from samsung semi), the application processor for example; but even they are slightly different. Making analysis a bit painful, some purely based on experience.

I have a X10a but let's face it.
Galaxy S is the better smartphone now and will be in Q4 too.
While X10 will run 2.1, Galaxy S will run 2.2 which will give better performance.
Who cares about long distant future?
Next year, this time, probably only 20% of the current X10 'geek' owners will still have the X10.
The rest will move to better smartphones 1.2Ghz, 1.5Ghz, dual core, etc.
The usual, non geek, owner won't care anyway if he has 1.6, 2.1, 2.2, 3.0, etc as hong as he can make calls, listen a few mp3s and take some nice snapshots.

Even the galaxy s has a life span so don't think that it will get 3.0 since Samsung support stinks
Sent from my X10a

If Android 3.0 will be "standalone" (only rumour yet) you dont need SE to install it in the X10.
Yes, the i9000 have better specifications, better graphic card, but and the construction? next year, half will had problems... they are having problems now.
I have changed HTC to SE because of all the problems i had with HTC, GPS no working, vibrate not working, etc etc... i'm tired of these problems.

consolation said:
Yes, SE will release Gingerbread for X10 in 2013 - after the machines take over.
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At 8:30 am, SE became self aware.

anjo2 said:
If Android 3.0 will be "standalone" (only rumour yet) you dont need SE to install it.
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Not with with a locked bootloader you won't!

andrewluecke said:
You forget that the i9000 has a MUCH faster GPU (90million triangles vs the X10 one)
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Bah... you should consider stopping repeating other people's **** when it makes no sense.
According to those numbers, that phone is like 2 times faster than a GameCube
Now if you look at GLBenchmark, it's not quite 90 millions per second, but more like 7 millions textured triangles per second while the snapdragon seems to cap at around 2 millions in all tests, and the older power VR in the droid does 2.5 millions.
The Galaxy S is thus quite faster in those benchmark.
Now that's a benchmark, in actual games/apps, you don't care about that, what you want is your framerate to stay higher than 30fps, and in this case what you get is more like 30.000 textured and lit tris per frame max on a snapdragon (X10), 37.000 tris on a PowerVR (moto droid) and around 65.000 on a Galaxy S.
So it's certainly faster like a bit more than 2 times faster than the older snapdragon, but those "90 millions triangles per second" are totally made up.

SEMC said:
Nand is not 'considered' to be flash, it is flash. OneNand is just a mcp with 'flash' + ram. The problem is, on samsung mobile's own devices, i9000 in particular, are some custom mcp's that are not publicly available. There are some mcp's used here which have comparable public offerings (from samsung semi), the application processor for example; but even they are slightly different. Making analysis a bit painful, some purely based on experience.
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Or assumptions/guessing, as it seems to be in this case..

[Q] When will we see the full use of the 512mb of ram?

So many froyo roms in development section, but still Vibrant showing 324 (more or less) of ram available? Isn't froyo suppose to fee that part of ram up that is not being used in eclair?

I think some of it is reserved for the GPU
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

There's a thread in the i9000 section about this. The short version is that all that RAM you can't see is reserved for various parts of the device to use. The radio uses some, the camera uses some, the GPU, etc.. It sucks that that memory is reserved even if you aren't using the GPU, for example, but that's how it is. They have a kernel patch over there that attempts to free up some of it by reducing the allocations. It seems to work without causing problems, but time will tell.
So the answer to the question is NEVER. There is 512MB of RAM in the device, but you won't be able to use all 512MB for user progams ever. This is no different than most off the shelf computers, they advertise 4GB of RAM, but the internal graphics takes 512MB, and other devices in the machine often do the same thing. Would it be nice if manufacturers wern't allowed to advertise this way? Maybe. However, Samsung isn't doing anything that isn't "industry standard". IMO they should all be advertising user-available RAM rather than installed RAM, but then people would ***** that the OS takes up some RAM, so you will never make everyone happy.

I would be unhappy if I thought we needed more RAM, but honestly I've never seen my Vibrant even get close to low.

I don't mind the RAM issue as I'm not having issues (yet), what I don't like is the internal storage.
On the Vibrant it's not too bad since we have 16GB, but for something like the G2 where they advertise it as 4GB, but you only have access to ~1.5, that's just not cool!
Eventually there'll probably be some kernel tweaks or something that'll free up some of that internal RAM, but I don't forsee anyone coding for it until they actually need it themselves (nothing speeds up development more than personal interest....why do you think the dev ROMs are so much better than the Samsung ones).

"Tango's" new 256MB App Limit - Are Venue Pro users screwed?

So I've been looking into getting a DVP when I came across the problem where no one really knows how much RAM it has.
Since the phone sees it as having 256mb while advertising says it has 512mb, I think the following will be a problem:
http://www.wpcentral.com/windows-phone-tango-limitations-officially-confirmed
Will DVP users be limited on the available apps? If so, this is a big turn off on me getting the phone.
-edit-
Did I jump the gun and miss the part where the NoDo update fixed it to properly read 512mb?
Someone please confirm
-edit-
Also, can anyone tell me if the Wifi issues are fixed with the latest updates?
Just wondering before I go for it.
Thanks!

The VP always had 512mb ram, it merely wasnt displayed properly in the launch version of WP7.
You must be confused on what tango as a whole is, it allows manus to push out lower spec phones while still being able to use wp7 on them.
Previously they required 512mb ram (among other things), you couldnt make a wp7 phone below the spec requirements.
There's currently no phones out based on the 'low-end' specs, and those would be the ones that cant run high mem apps. the lumia 610 isnt even out yet (unless i'm mistaken).
There's ultimately only 3 available WP7 chassis (that all manus base their design off of):
WP7 Launch: QSD8250 + 512mb ram (1st gen snapdragon)
Chassis update 1: MSM8255 + 512mb ram (2nd gen snapdragon)
Chassis update 2: APQ8055+MDM9200 + 512mb ram (2nd gen snapdragon) (current high end for WP7)
Upcoming tango chassis: MSM7227A + 256mb ram (low-end 1st gen snapdragon)
The new low-end tango devices will be based on hardware of compariable age to the WP7 launch chassis, but that wont affect any current and future owners that arnt using a low end device.
The low end chassis isnt really interesting except for those that want a really inexpensive WP7 device (it makes sense too, it sounds like a good way to increase marketshare). WP7 is two full generations behind, as 4th gen snapdragons are rolling out now.
Very least it'll be more energy effecient as the update2 chassis uses two chips, the first is the SoC/CPU and the 2nd is a seperate modem. 4th gen snapdragons have LTE built in and are 28nm, so they're going to be faster and more energy efficient (those two are multiplicative and not merely additive, a faster chip that uses less energy gets stuff done faster and uses less energy in that less time).
Though there doesnt seem to be a terribly large library of things that can push hardware on WP7. WP7 does have the smallest library currently because it's the smallest marketshare out of the 3 major OS's.

The first part of your response is what I was looking for I think.
I get the point of what Tango is, with allowing lower spec units and all. I was just worried about this one little detail:
"Windows Phone Marketplace app restrictions – Some processor-intensive apps have memory requirements, and will not work on phones with 256 MB of RAM."
Since I was reading everywhere that the DVP reports to the OS as having 2xxMB ram, it would have problem with apps down the road. The app would read that it has 2xxMB and deny download.
But from what I can understand from your response, if you have the latest updates on the phone (7.5 Mango?), you should not have a problem.
So it should show 4xxMB granted everything is up to date and everything will work fine and dandy?

All current WP7 devices have 512mb ram period, they dont show all of it because the gpu takes up a slice of the system ram.
This is true for any device that has a gpu but the gpu doesnt have it's own memory to work with.
MS takes this into account, only newer low end devices will not meet the ram requirements.

Well there I have it. lol
Thanks!
Now on the hunt for a DVP!