
Analyst: RIM PlayBook tablet's performance comes at a cost - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/12/analyst-rim-playbook-tablet-performance-comes-at-a-cost.ars
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st3fan
I don't believe this is simply because of QNX. QNX sits at the lowest layer.
If something is draining massive amounts of power then it sits on top of QNX.
Like maybe for example ... Flash?

Two things:

I think they have simply underestimated the power that a dual core CPU
requires. Apple has optimized this to death. If the world would have been
ready for efficient dual core ARM CPUs then we would have seen those in other
tables too, no?

They went for a very nice user interface. Stuff animating, multitasking,
movies playing in thumbnails on the home screen, etc. Compare this to what
Apple did with the iPad: it's interface may be a little sober, but it is all
about being energy efficient.

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wmf
_QNX sits at the lowest layer._

Thus if it wastes power with something like timer ticks or poor power state
management, that can't be fixed in a higher layer.

 _If the world would have been ready for efficient dual core ARM CPUs then we
would have seen those in other tables too, no?_

There are a bunch of dual-core phones and tablets coming out next year. If
they all have poor battery life we can blame the hardware.

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dman
Any data supporting the assertion / speculation presented in the article ? Do
RTOS's really present such an additional overhead that it shows up as a
significant difference in battery life ? Keeping in mind that the LCD screen
consumes a large part of the power budget of the device, so any inefficiency
on the CPU is a tax on a small part of the overall power budget).

~~~
wmf
Phones spend 99% of their time idle, and idle power management is actually
pretty difficult to do well. Linux people have argued about this extensively,
with different algorithms making a multi-hour difference in battery life.

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foobarbazetc
Called it: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1734189> :)

