TI omap 850 vs intel xscale processor

mkennedy

hi.
please can someone tell me which is the "better" processor, the TI omap 850 or the intel xscale.

half of the reviews of the TI omap i read say it's crap, the other half say it's better than a 400mhz+ intel xscale processor.

for example, i just read a review of the htc prophet/imate jamin by mtekk saying this device which uses the TI omap was a lot quicker than the xda atom which has a 400mhz processor and the xda exec which has a 500+mhz processor and it can run skype no problem.

then i hear more mixed reviews of the imate kjam/htc wizard which also uses a TI omap processor, some saying it's too slow, other reviews praising it.

i know the TI omaps conserve power and lead to longer battery life but for pure grunt can the omap truly compare to the intel xscale processors? is it the case that they will run most apps fine but you just can't multitask with them?

can someone put me out of my misery and finally set me straight on this?

any advice much appreciated.
thanks.

Spipov

right. im talking from my own experience from using the jam, kjam, xda 2, and various pocket pcs (ipaq 416mhz, dell axim x50v).

the ti omap is more towards phone and pocket pc demarcation, that is a part of the processor is reserved for the phone part, which makes it run at lesser speed, therefore saving battery life.

a pocket pc with 400mhz intel xscale on the other hand just runs at the set speed. it does impact on the life.think about a laptop. u leave a program running therefore the whole laptop has to be running, huge battery drain.

anyway, in terms of function, the omap is fine. im using a kjam again and i love it. people say it runs at 180mhz, no bother, use omapclock to overclock it to speeds up to 240mhz, which is more equivalent to a pda at 624mhz. however, battery drain again.

i personally use it at the set 180mhz, all my stuff runs fine. when i need skype (which people say doesnt work - but it does, with a few tweaks), i set the processor speed to 224, and well, its perfect.


i can get about 2-3 days on standby only, 2 days with calls, texts, and 1.5 days if i listen to mp3s the whole day. i even use it to read books, and it goes down 1% every 20 mins.

all in all, i think its a good processor. head over to xda-developers.com and read on the wizard. ull be suitably impressed. i highly recommend it.

you can multitask with any windows mobile pocket pc. (compared to older palms - up to t3 that i had - dunno about newer ones). - sometimes its good to reset to get ur memory back, some programs might cause a memory leak, and ur device gets sluggish, but ive noticed thats the case with xscales as well.

mkennedy

Spipov wrote:

right. im talking from my own experience from using the jam, kjam, xda 2, and various pocket pcs (ipaq 416mhz, dell axim x50v).

the ti omap is more towards phone and pocket pc demarcation, that is a part of the processor is reserved for the phone part, which makes it run at lesser speed, therefore saving battery life.

a pocket pc with 400mhz intel xscale on the other hand just runs at the set speed. it does impact on the life.think about a laptop. u leave a program running therefore the whole laptop has to be running, huge battery drain.

anyway, in terms of function, the omap is fine. im using a kjam again and i love it. people say it runs at 180mhz, no bother, use omapclock to overclock it to speeds up to 240mhz, which is more equivalent to a pda at 624mhz. however, battery drain again.

i personally use it at the set 180mhz, all my stuff runs fine. when i need skype (which people say doesnt work - but it does, with a few tweaks), i set the processor speed to 224, and well, its perfect.


i can get about 2-3 days on standby only, 2 days with calls, texts, and 1.5 days if i listen to mp3s the whole day. i even use it to read books, and it goes down 1% every 20 mins.

all in all, i think its a good processor. head over to xda-developers.com and read on the wizard. ull be suitably impressed. i highly recommend it.

you can multitask with any windows mobile pocket pc. (compared to older palms - up to t3 that i had - dunno about newer ones). - sometimes its good to reset to get ur memory back, some programs might cause a memory leak, and ur device gets sluggish, but ive noticed thats the case with xscales as well.

fair enough.
thanks for the comparison.

so, no problems listening to mp3s then?

what about movie playback on apps like betaplayer/realplayer/wmp and running satnav apps.
Do these run without a glitch, do you know?

as for omapclock is this free and is it an easy-to-use/well integrated piece of software? or is it fiddly/unwieldy?

and as for skype you say the device DEFINITELY needs to be overclocked to run, is that right?

thanks again.

Spipov

ok. i havent really played a movie on it to tell u the truth. only have a 512mb card. but ive heard tpcmp works great. dont use the windows media

http://tcpmp.corecodec.org

running satnav shouldnt be a problem really. (now this one i have no clue coz well, i aint got a car nor a gps receiver. yet!), just try to find that online.ive read a few things on it, and not a lot of users reported problems using gps and satnav programs like tomtom and copilot with it. itll kinda drain ur battery a bit though.
read on here:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=50904&highlight=satnav

omapclock is free yes.its a small app, abt 14kb that u can just set ur processor speed with. i wouldnt recommend going over 240. some devices can crash at higher speeds and not work (soft/hard reset gets it back fine).
here's the link to the program:

http://rapidshare.de/files/30180962/OmapClock_0.2.rar

Skype works. out of the box (just downloaded) ull notice its not great. however, there are 1-2 registry tweaks that turn on and off certain audio codecs which make them work.

it works at 180 mhz, but it works REALLY well at 220mhz

mkennedy

thanks for that.
i'll check those links out.