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    Apple iPhone X: Qualcomm vs. Intel - Battery Life & Real World Implications (Long/Technical)

    October 30, 2017

    Apple iPhone X: Qualcomm vs. Intel - Battery Life & Real World Implications (Long/Technical)

    iPhone X: Qualcomm vs. Intel - Battery Life & Real World Implications (Long/Technical)

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 05:11 PM PDT

    As with the iPhone 7 and 8, Apple has two different SKUs of the iPhone X, A1865 for Qualcomm and A1901 for Intel. While the press has mostly focused on theoretical speed differences between the two, let's instead look at potential real world differences. Before we get there, some background:

    Apple while an innovator when it comes to SoC, camera design, supply chain, vertical integration, and smartphones in general, has been extremely conservative with regards to the cellular/RF side of the house. Apple has typically used a 1-1.5 generation old (when compared with Android devices) RF stack, whether it's for design, price or other reasons. As a result Apple has been late to the game or still hasn't enabled technologies like 3G, LTE, VoLTE, Wifi calling, EVS, HPUE, LTE-A, LTE-U/LAA, advanced antenna designs enabling 4x4 MIMO, etc.

    So why this matter?

    While the press talks about omgz Gigabit LTE is so much faster than 450Mbps LTE, which no one will hit in real life, nor do the vast majority of carriers have enough spectrum to achieve this, what the press isn't talking about, and what people actually care about is battery life. After the display, the two biggest consumers of battery are the SoC and the radios (modem, transceiver, power amplifiers). So what will the difference be between the two models?

    iPhone X - A1865:

    • Qualcomm X16
    • 14nm Samsung FinFET

    iPhone X - A1901

    • Intel XMM 7480
    • 28nm (TSMC?)

    As you can see, when it comes to the process, the Intel modem is 1.5 nodes behind the Qualcomm modem. A very conservative estimate would be just from the process itself, the Qualcomm modem will be at least 30% more power efficient. There's very little public information available on the transceivers, but given that the Intel PMB757 has the exact same dimensions and a mostly identical die, to the previous generation transceiver used in the iPhone 7, I would once again expect Qualcomm's WTR5975 to have a large battery consumption advantage.

    A second, potential issue, that will affect battery life is cell edge performance. As Cellular Insights excellently reported, there was a relatively big performance delta between the Qualcomm and Intel iPhone 7 models at the cell edge. There were many anecdotal reports that the Intel iPhone 7 didn't maintain a connection where the Qualcomm model did as well. Skeptics dismissed the report and complaints saying that in the real world, a 10-30Mbps difference isn't noticeable. Before we go into that, once again, some background:

    Phone radios use drastically different amounts of energy depending on what they're doing. For the vast majority of the time, your phone is in standby, sitting in your pocket, or on your desk, with the screen off. During this time, your phone's radio is in an idle state, camping on a nearby cell. When someone calls, a message is pushed to your phone, or you turn it on and start checking your email, your phone's radio is suddenly pushed into an activated state, and is using up to 100x the power compared to when it was idle. As a result of this difference, the phone's radio resource management software is always trying to idle as long as possible, and when active, transmit data as quickly as possible so it can complete it's task and go back to idling, just like a CPU. Now let's take the following scenario:

    You're somewhere with weak signal, and you pull out your phone to check the score of the game and watch some highlights:

    • With a good RF stack, despite the weak signal, you connect, download the data somewhat quickly, view the score, watch the highlights, press the power button, and the screen turns off and your phone goes back to idle.
    • With a weak RF stack, you connect, but the data takes a much longer time to download. Not only is your radio in a high power state for longer to download the same amount of data, you're also sitting around waiting, staring at your screen which has to be on longer as well (which is the biggest power suck of all). In an extreme case, your phone may not be able to maintain its connection with its current cell, which triggers a search for other cells to connect to, which one of the most power intensive things your radio can do

    Since Intel essentially has no other design wins other than the iPhone, we won't know how much of an issue this is until Cellular Insights or someone else does the same test with the 7480 vs the 7360. Hopefully there's been some improvement between generations but I'm personally not optimistic given the multi-generation lead Qualcomm has.

    So what this does all mean?

    • It's extremely likely, the Qualcomm iPhone X will have better battery life than the Intel version
    • What's the actual difference between the two?
    • The above is the million dollar question. Due to the nature of the real world, and real networks, this is something almost impossible to independently test without tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of dollars of equipment. With the demise of Anandtech, in general tech reporting as gone down hill, and I don't foresee anyone being able to do this type of rigorous, controlled testing.
    • To compound this, if I was a betting man, I would guess that Apple only sends out the Qualcomm version (ostensibly for network compatibility) to reviewers
    • My personal guess is that in the real world, there might be a difference of at least a few percent of battery life, potentially more depending on your usage of LTE vs. Wifi, if you're indoor vs outdoor, etc.

    So why does Apple do this?

    • The Intel RF stack is likely $5-7 dollars cheaper per device than the Qualcomm equivalent which is huge when you look at the overall BOM
    • Modems are critical, complex, and difficult to engineer. Even Intel with all of its expertise, and resources, is still licensing DSP IP from Ceva for their basebands. Just as Apple is supporting LG to prevent a Samsung monopoly in the OLED space, Apple is supporting Intel (until they do it themselves...) to prevent a Qualcomm monopoly. Unfortunately consumers suffer in the short term.
    • None of this stuff is sexy, marketable, or generally something consumers care about, so Apple can get away with it
    • You've all seen the litigation between the two companies so I won't touch that

    Note: I am not an expert and this info is all pulled from publicly available resources. If you have differing information/expertise/opinions I'm all ears!

    submitted by /u/throwawaynoprivacy
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    As someone who has 24/7 sweaty palms due to hyperhidrosis, I'll say that Face ID is a godsend.

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 06:43 PM PDT

    Hyperhidrosis is a condition that causes people to sweat excessively, often from their hands, feet, and/or underarms.

    Because my hands are practically always sweaty, Touch ID almost never works for me. Face ID will mean that I no longer have to dry my thumb desperately against my shirt and scrub the iPhone home button dry when it's almost my turn in line to pay for something using Apple Pay, only for it to fail anyway and ask for my passcode.

    Seriously, it's such a relief for someone with this condition.

    submitted by /u/Durendal_et_Joyeuse
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    Collection of early in the wild iPhone X videos

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 02:20 PM PDT

    I gathered most of the videos that people have made on the iPhone X early. I will probably update with more as more people get them early. If I'm missing any or if there is any you would like to share/add, feel free to leave a reply with the link.

    Silver - Box: https://twitter.com/venyageskin1/status/924281414971019265

    Silver - Short Unboxing: https://Instagram.com/p/BazdonnnClk/

    Silver - Store Demo: https://twitter.com/venyageskin1/status/924647901611151361

    https://www.instagram.com/p/Ba1cfjNFQJ_/

    Silver - Setup Activation Screen: https://instagram.com/p/Ba2LXi-Hyju/

    Silver - Box + iPhone + Setup Screen: https://instagram.com/p/Ba1_CS2nrSJ/

    Space Gray - Back of iPhone: https://instagram.com/p/Ba1-7ORhgMy/ (Edit: Dummy unit, according to comments)

    Pics:

    Space Gray - Box Front/Back close-up: https://instagram.com/p/Ba2dGVkHC0f/

    UPDATE: Silver - Full iPhone X Unboxing video (Store Demo): https://youtu.be/ZBAygHcM6Uk

    submitted by /u/YoungSandwichhh
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    I miss the 4/4S Bumper :-(

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 05:37 PM PDT

    IMO it was one of the best, minimal and affordable cases ever.

    First off, I know there are a ton of third party bumpers, but I loved the original Apple one. I actually got one for free due to "antenna gate" back in the day. The rubber edges provided grip and protection, and the aluminum buttons kept the premium feel of the iPhone. I really with Apple would bring them back for the newer phones 🙁

    If anybody finds one for the X that is a clone of the original Apple one, including aluminum buttons, please let me know!

    submitted by /u/Hrhnick
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    iPhone X promotion wallpapers.

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 04:18 PM PDT

    With the iPhone X around the corner, wanted to share these stunning wallpaper look-a-likes used in Apple's promotion video. I think these look way more beautiful than the exclusive wallpapers you'll get on the X. Just wanted to share this for people who'd love to have these. These will look fantastic on that OLED screen 😍

    http://www.idownloadblog.com/2017/10/15/iphone-x-marketing-video-wallpapers/

    submitted by /u/LiquidPirateCat
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    Apple is now blocking iPhone X activation until Nov 3rd

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 01:49 PM PDT

    EDIT: Mirror - https://twitter.com/AaronAMason/status/924744661746380801

    Link: https://twitter.com/VenyaGeskin1/status/924737579387322369

    I guess with all these recent leaks especially from carrier shops in Italy, Apple has decided to block activations for iPhone X till November 3rd!

    submitted by /u/ssrij
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    Today in Apple history: Scott Forstall forced out of Apple

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 07:27 AM PDT

    Facebook listening on iPhone?

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 03:07 PM PDT

    iPhone X order cancelled.

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 09:59 AM PDT

    Just woke up this morning with a call and an email from my credit card company. They automatically blocked my purchase of the iPhone x due to "fraudulent charges." I stayed up until 3. I got my order through Verizon before Apple even started selling them. All week I've been told a November 3rd delivery, but now it just says order cancelled. I have to reorder this. I'm so mad right now. Is there anything I can do to get my order back? Or am I just stuck having to make a new order and waiting for possibly months?

    submitted by /u/SeveralChunks
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    First iPhone X unboxing? From Mexico

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 09:15 PM PDT

    Seems to be a store phone because it has the Face ID app. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBAygHcM6Uk

    posted by https://twitter.com/VenyaGeskin1

    submitted by /u/yeyeman9
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    Today I was in a car accident going over 60mph and my brand new 8+ (no case) flew out the window.

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 05:40 PM PDT

    The motherfucker still works.

    submitted by /u/MojaveWalker
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    When getting a call we should be able to just swipe it away without hanging up (if we don't want the person to know we hung up) instead of waiting on the callscreen until the other person stops calling you.

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 03:35 PM PDT

    Is the Amazon Prime Video app still coming to Apple TV?

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 05:11 PM PDT

    Earlier this year we got reports that the Amazon Prime Video app may be coming to Apple TV's. It was even reported that Apple TV's are being relisted on Amazon.

    However, I'm no longer seeing Apple TV's on Amazon - does that mean the app is also not coming to the app store any more?

    submitted by /u/weiga
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    iOS is 35% of US Market, but Apple products are owned by 64% of Americans - Where's the breakdown?

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 09:59 AM PDT

    Hi all,

    I'm appreciate your help understanding the breakdown of Apple hardware in the US market.

    TechCrunch revealed that iOS makes up 35% of the smartphone industry. However, CNBC reported a poll that 64% of American households own at least one Apple product.

    If the iPhone is Apple's best-selling product, and only makes up 1/3 of the smartphone market, the largest tech gadget industry, where are the other sales coming from?

    My first thought was Apple computers, but those only make up 7% of the PC market. My second thought, and most likely scenario, is from the iPad which makes up 25% of the tablet market.

    What are your thoughts?

    As an aside, even though I'm an Googler, I'm part of the 64% because my wife owns an iPhone and iPad.

    submitted by /u/GeneralELucky
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    How to backup and restore text messages to your new iPhone with a "fresh" install

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 05:18 AM PDT

    iPhone X OLED vs iPhone 7/8 LCD screen quality difference - will the OLED look significantly better than the LCD screens we are used to?

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 05:51 PM PDT

    Has there been any discussion on how the X's OLED screen looks in comparison to the 7/7 Plus and 8/8 Plus? I went ahead and put in for an upgrade from the 7 Plus to X via the IUP, but upon thinking over the weekend, I'm a little concerned over the smaller size in terms of video playback vs the 7 Plus.

    The one wildcard is the OLED screen. Do we have any idea of how much a difference the OLED will be compared to the screens we've had on the Plus models? I'm fine with smaller size if the X's screen quality makes up for it. Otherwise, I may decide to cancel my preorder (I have several weeks to decide either way).

    Anyways, any thoughts are much appreciated. I don't know much about the difference between LCD and OLED, so I'm not sure what sort of the quality difference I should be expecting. Thanks!

    submitted by /u/tx2005
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    Why is the front page of the Thailand Apple website monochrome?

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 07:18 AM PDT

    Can we just take a moment to reflect how amazing phone camera technology has come?

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 11:10 PM PDT

    So in anticipation my 64GB iPhone X's arrival, I decided I would start doing some house-cleaning of my photos. Something I have never done since 2012 apparently. I can't believe how shit the photos were on the iPhone 4. Just about every photo was blurry. Of course picture quality went up over time. But we've come leaps and bounds to where I am now (iPhone 7) and especially a round of applause for the live-photos feature, which lets you select the best picture of the bunch too.

    I am not a photographer, and I don't take many photos every day. But when I do take spur-of-the-moment photos, I want them to be worth keeping. I am so looking forward to creating more memories with my iPhone X which has an even better camera. This has by far been one of the highlights of smart phones for me and it's worth every penny. Does anyone else feel the same way?

    submitted by /u/FrostyFire
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    Glad to see developers optimizing their apps for the iPhone X!

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 08:11 AM PDT

    TrueDepth Camera Production Issues Stabilizing, Shouldn’t Affect Next Year’s Models

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 09:25 AM PDT

    iMac Pro hands on

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 10:31 PM PDT

    Optimized apps for iPhone X on launch day?

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 07:31 AM PDT

    What apps beside the apple ones could be optimised at launch?

    Edit: and the ones apple presented at their keynote

    submitted by /u/slinpictures
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    Anyone else’s phone freezing up when trying to share something?

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 07:15 PM PDT

    iPhone X pictures from camera

    Posted: 29 Oct 2017 10:36 PM PDT

    I've been searching for iPhone X pictures and the quality of the portrait pictures. My friend has a pixel 2 and the camera is amazing on that phone. I want to compare them to the X. Has anybody seen pictures taken on the X?

    submitted by /u/OCDGaming
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