Cell Phones Pina Threads....

[kakatiya]

[b] How it really works? Anatomy of Micromax, Karbonn, Lava etc.[/b]



[indent=1] From nothing to 12th Largest manufacturer of Mobile devices in the world (and 3rd largest in India), Micromax has achieved a good goal in just 5 years. Micromax has entered in cell phone market in March,2008.(company debut in 1991!). Almost same history with other brands like Karbonn and Lava-Xolo.[/indent]
[indent=1]Have you ever questioned that : How come these companies sell extreamly feature rich phone at very low price compared to Samsung, HTC, Nokia etc brands?[/indent]
[indent=1]Well lets take an Example and understands How Exactly this 'low price tag' thing works in this cell phone industry. (we'll also see that how not so techie people are being fooled by the specs given by these companies like Micromax,Karbonn etc)[/indent]
[indent=1]In this example, we're going to compare 2 phones namely the recent release of Micromax : [url="https://www.facebook.com/notes/harsha-rag-are/secrete-behind-low-cost-cellphone-products-in-india/508849862516144#"]Canvas 2[/url] smart phone and the good old Samsung Galaxy S2 and also take reference of Xolo A800. I won't go 'that' much into technical side because I don't want to bore you but yes, You can always follow the link if you want a best possible logical explanation at technical side.[/indent]
[indent=1]First Thing First, the features of the phone and the main factor : Price.[/indent]




Features


Micromax Canvas-2/A110


Samsung Galaxy S2


Processor


1 GHz Dual Core Processor


1.2 GHz Dual Core Processor


RAM


512MB


1GB


Screen and Resolution


5" ; 854 x 480p


4.27" ;800 x 480


Battery with Talk Time and Standby Time


2000mAh; TT-5Hrs(2G);

SBY-T 180Hrs(2G)


1650 mAh; TT-8Hrs(3G);

SBY-T 710 hrs (2G), 610 hrs (3G)


Price :


10,200 INR


26,000 INR


[indent=1]Here, a regular customer can easily be fooled by the specifications that Micromax Canvas-2 is delivering in just half of the price. 1GHz Dual Core, 5" screen and huge battery life with Android 4.0 OS.One can easily buy this smart phone and directly compare it with old champions like S2 and galaxy Ace or even with Xperia Series by Sony. But Is This Phone really delivers as per its performance? Have Micromax and Lava etc cracked the code? Lets see it with the detailed study of their specifications. [/indent]







Full Extended Features of Processor and GPU


Micromax Canvas-2/A110


Samsung Galaxy S2


Processor : Name


MediaTek 6577


Exynos 4 Dual ⑤


: Clock Speed ⑦


1GHz Dual-Core


1.2 GHz Dual-Core


: CPU Implementation ④


Cortex A9 (based on ARMv7)


Cortex A9 (based on ARMv7)


: Memory Type


DDR2


DDR3


: Year


2008


2011


: Semiconductor Tech ①


45nm


32nm


: Overclock/Underclock Spec ②


Underclocked(@ ~800MHz) Not Overclockable


Overclockable upto 1.4GHz


GPU : Name


PowerVR SGX 531 65nm (2006 release)


ARM Mali 400 MP4 (2011 release)


: Clock Speed


200MHz


533MHz Quad-Core


: Rendering and other Tech


No DirectX; No OpenGL;


Yes, Yes(OpenGL ES)


: NEON-SIMD Instruction set③


No


Yes with VFPv3⑥



①. Typical semiconductor die size for the processor.In general, the smaller the number, the more transistors can be fit on the die and therefore the more powerful the chip is.

②. Some companies underclock processors for the battery issue and heat issues. Typically micromax has underclocked this MediaTek processor to about 800MHz.

③. [url="https://www.facebook.com/notes/harsha-rag-are/secrete-behind-low-cost-cellphone-products-in-india/508849862516144#"]NEON[/url] is a special type of instruction set which is dedicated for the decryption of Rendering alogs. It Deals with Rich Features, Multimedia like Audio and Video Format rendering, Codec Decoding ( ex. avi,flv,mp4 etc) and . Simply absence of this instruction means lagging performance.

④. Different companies manufactures their processors based on the instruction set of Cortex/ARM based sets. They inherit the whole component model and implement them in their processors. Exactly like Implementing bubble sort algorithm into your custom sort algo.

⑤. [url="https://www.facebook.com/notes/harsha-rag-are/secrete-behind-low-cost-cellphone-products-in-india/508849862516144#"]Exynos[/url] is [url="https://www.facebook.com/notes/harsha-rag-are/secrete-behind-low-cost-cellphone-products-in-india/508849862516144#"]SoC[/url] developed and manufactured by Samsung Electronics. SoC = it’s a tech which integrates all computer component in one single chip. (like CPU+GPU etc)

⑥.VFP : Vector Floating Point. It’s a kind of algo which deals with all the high end rendering stuffs. Wiki [url="https://www.facebook.com/notes/harsha-rag-are/secrete-behind-low-cost-cellphone-products-in-india/508849862516144#"]here[/url] for more info.

⑦. CPU Clock speed is the count of how many instructions (mnemonics) can CPU can perform in 1 Sec/Clock Cycle.

Ex. 1GHz = one billion cycles/second. Each cycle depends on the architecture (address and data lines and Xtal Oscillator frequency. on a high level, 1GHz = processor is able to calculate one billion calculations in one Sec.



[b] Performance :[/b]

[list]
[*][b]Processor :[/b]
[/list]
[indent=1] Typically all companies like Micromax, Karbonn , Lava (some models) and Spice imports Chinese parts and assembles it in India and sell them as their product. They're just re-branding the chinese items. Let us see why they really suck performance wise by doing a little research on the process they use and its performance.[/indent]
[indent=1]Micromax Canvas-2(and a90 and etc models) uses MediaTek 6577 processor which is the successor of 6515 series. Its a ARMv7 based CPU. Its a Low-end CPU which can't possibly perform as good as Qualcomm, SnapDragon and Tiegra from Nvidia. This Processor is made just for the basic multimedia features. Not for high def video recording and Multi-Tasking. While S2 is having specially made Exynos 4 Dual series processor @ 1.2 GHz based on same ARM7 architecture. Its die size is 32nm that means more transistors which leads to good performance. [/indent]
[indent=1]Another Big drawback is that due to battery and heat issues, Micromax and other companies Underclock their processor. That means Low Performance. You are never going to get full 1GHz. You'll hardly gonna get ~800MHz most of the time.Also Mark that this processor was released in 2008 and they run high end Android 4.0 on top of it with only 512MB DDR2 RAM. Defiantly Lagging and you've to compromise rich gaming and multi-tasking. Again in S2, Samsung has done a good job. You can Overclock it upto 1.4GHz and also 1GB RAM is enough for complex heavy weight applications.[/indent]
[indent=1]Talking about GPU, This chip is SoC. It has PowerVR SGX 531 65nm single core GPU working at 200 MHz. (built in 2006!!) with no features of OpenGL or DirectX or Even NEON set. This is directly effecting its rendering power and graphics. Again, you can't really expect a good performance from it. Just some basic things. In S2, it has one of the powerful GPU : ARM Mali 400 MP4 which operates at 533MHz and its Quad-Core. Specially made for rich multimedia experience and heavy graphics rendering. NEON support makes it perfect for high performance. You can't really enjoy some heavy games in Canvas-2.[/indent]
[list]
[*][b] Other Features : [/b]
[/list]
[indent=1]you can't really expect a good camera quality in Canvas-2 as some of the image processing modules are absent. The camera though high on pixels, doesn't have any back light sensor, or a decent enough module. You can expect 3MP images (obviously sharper because of the high resolution) which you can edit later with the apps from the market to make them look good. The same thing with their Touch Screen performance too.[/indent]
[indent=1]Also, Except from Micromax, other companies like Lava, Spice, Karbonn don't have their software research centers. so Buying the phone means: you won't have any software updates and no support or assistance.Now a days, Micromax also have absolutely NO software/OS up-gradation for their phones.[/indent]
Also Karbonn and Spice uses Snapdragon MSM7225A processors which are not that much advance. Info [url="https://www.facebook.com/notes/harsha-rag-are/secrete-behind-low-cost-cellphone-products-in-india/508849862516144#"]here[/url].
[indent=1][b]FACT : [/b][b]Companies like Noir A10 of Q-Mobile(Pakistan), Mobistel of Cynus(Germany), MyPhone 919 in Philippines are the EXACT same product like this Canvas-2. Just another chinese re-brand in india by Micromax. (Google it for more info)


source: [/b][url="http://thesecrettechnology.blogspot.jp/2013/01/how-it-really-works-anatomy-of-micromax.html"]http://thesecrettech...f-micromax.html[/url][/indent]