

Device specs have become meaningless - owlmusic
http://drewb.org/post/12516915527/device-specs-have-become-meaningless

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joakleaf
Please. They have always been meaningless.

In the 80s we were trying to compare Amigas, PCs and Macs. Well the PC had
faster scrolling in its word processors, because it used text-mode graphics
(the entire screen was 4KB, so it could scroll fast). The Amiga and Mac had
wysiwyg, but rendered slower because of that. You picked what you felt was
important; UX or compatibility.

What was the point of comparing 80x86s with 68000s. What was the point of
comparing RAM when the software using the ram was different. Or how about
screen resolutions? I had a PC with 1024x768 pixels which was more than the
Amigas, but hardly any software used the resolution or supported it. My
friends' amigas had tonnes of software -- That all ran of floppies.

In the 90s it was PowerPC vs. Pentium debate. We never found out which was
faster, and we didn't really care.

Specs are useful if the software/system running on it is identical. They
didn't become any more meaningless or meaningful than they were 20 years ago.

What we want now is the same thing we wanted 20 years ago. Responsive
software! The specs will not tell you if it is responsive or not, but it can
often give you a hint as to which of two devices with identical software is
more responsive.

It is just that you cannot easily compare apples and androids, just as you
couldn't compare Macs and PCs, or even cars from different brands using specs.

... This is nothing new! But perhaps people are just realizing it... again!

~~~
mikeleeorg
I was just about to say the same thing. If you look outside the innovator &
early adopter markets - to the early & late majority markets - you'll find a
lot of confusion over specs. They'll glance them over, then make a choice by:

1) The brand

2) The price

3) The look & feel of it

4) A friend's recommendation

5) A salesperson's recommendation

They might glance at specs, not to make a hard analytical comparison, but to
rule out what they fear might not be a good machine. Then, with their top
choices, it's other factors that influence their purchase decision.

------
ZeroGravitas
Strangely, I saw the the exact opposite reviews of the devices (i.e. Nook
Color Tablet was slick, Kindle Fire was choppy). I guess that's why people
throw in the stats, at least they are objective on some level.

Engadget:

"the Fire never delivers smooth, seamless performance."
[http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/14/amazon-kindle-fire-
review...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/14/amazon-kindle-fire-review/)

Verge:

"There’s nothing worse in a tablet than a choppy interface, and the Fire seems
to be completely chop-free." [http://gizmodo.com/5844623/amazon-kindle-fire-
tablet-will-co...](http://gizmodo.com/5844623/amazon-kindle-fire-tablet-will-
cost-a-shocking-199)

~~~
camtarn
The two publications were reviewing different things, if you slightly expand
the Engadget quote:

"...the Fire never delivers smooth, seamless performance. While Amazon's own
carousel of recently used items is slick and smooth, we had inconsistent
results with APKs we sideloaded on here. Amazon's own media players work well,
but third party ones that offered better compatibility with file formats
universally did not. That said, 2D games like the omnipresent Angry Birds ran
without issue, and simple 3D games like Fruit Ninja had no problems either."

~~~
ZeroGravitas
"never" vs. "completely" seem to suggest that they were talking about the same
thing i.e. the device holistically. The fact that they partly contradict
themselves just reinforces the point about subjective reviews, particularly
from websites that are pageviews led.

------
Udo

      Devices, at least contained devices, are obsolete. New products can’t be
      built or reviewed without human context, the messier the better. Performance 
      can no longer be measured with instruments, only with humans, which makes
      both engineering and reviews particularly tricky.
    

It's easy to get carried away with thoughts like these, forgetting that this
wonderful "new" paradigm is based on some huge tradeoffs. I think it's
dangerous to turn your back on actual technical improvement in favor of
papering over insufficient capability with an internet link and some
proprietary services.

------
udp
I don't agree -

You look at the CPU and GPU specs to see how fast a _game_ will run, not
something like Siri. You look at the storage to see how many MP3s you can fit
on there, not how many calendar entries.

Sure, a lot of the applications are moving to the cloud, but I never really
expected the specs to make much difference to the speed of simple applications
anyway (well, if they do in this day and age, something is seriously wrong).

~~~
Terretta
I don't agree. Consumers will be mostly web browsing, checking email, and
consuming media, with web browsing having the most noticeable lag between
intent and rendered result. Consumers hope the CPU spec correlates to that
use, because e spec tables don't usually show amusing else.

Consumers are really dumb about spec lists. How else would the computer
industry get away with marketing laptops or monitors by inches instead of
megapixels?

------
JoshTriplett
If you want an _appliance_ , then sure, you don't need to bother with specs;
you shouldn't have to care about the processor speed of a dedicated music
player any more than the microprocessor in a microwave.

If you want a _computer_ , however, then specs matter quite a bit, because
they determine how fast arbitrary general-purpose programs will run, and
whether they can run at all.

Personally, when I buy a smartphone, I want a computer, not an appliance. If I
wanted an appliance, I'd buy a non-smartphone, and I indeed wouldn't bother
checking the performance specs.

------
brudgers
Specs have always been somewhat meaningless for consumer oriented
products...e.g., "You buy horsepower but you drive torque."

------
ctdonath
Spec sheets are an excuse, at least insofar as they're used as advertising.
They're a presumptive admission the product is inadequate, rattling off a
bunch of numbers in the hopes the customer will overlook the factual
inadequacy. If the product does what the customer wants, the customer doesn't
need (or want) specs.

------
arjn
IMO - there is something here, at least with respect to handhelds/mobile
devices the user experience is what counts. However things such as battery
life still matter since they directly tie in with user experience. Also
processor specs could indicate potential video performance or some some such
thing that people care about.

Slightly off-topic but the OP left out this portion of the same gizmodo
article referenced :

"After the event, I got a chance to play with the Nook Tablet some more. Maybe
the first device was glitching or running too many apps in the background, but
the second unit was much more fluid and responsive. It still had some
lagginess, and web browsing wasn't amazing, but it was definitely better.
eBooks and magazines especially. Long story short, it was much more in line
for what's expected in a $250 device."

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geori
There's a clear reason for the death of the spec. The NYT mentioned a few
months ago, that software has improved the speed of calculations much more
dramatically than hardware did. Is anyone surprised that the closed systems
are winning!?

"the White House advisory report cited research, including a study of progress
over a 15-year span on a benchmark production-planning task. Over that time,
the speed of completing the calculations improved by a factor of 43 million.
Of the total, a factor of roughly 1,000 was attributable to faster processor
speeds, according to the research by Martin Grotschel, a German scientist and
mathematician. Yet a factor of 43,000 was due to improvements in the
efficiency of software algorithms"

~~~
camtarn
And at the same time, our computers and other devices don't have significantly
faster interactive response times. I find it a little depressing that my
Android phone - which has a faster processor and more RAM than my first three
PCs - still has interface lag. Just like cupboard space, computation expands
to fit the available capacity.

------
JulianMorrison
You need specs to handle the churn of incoming and outgoing data, multitask
your apps, draw the local part of games, etc etc. Even devices that amount to
mere terminals, are not _dumb_ terminals.

