The 2X is somewhat of a dichotomy. On one side, you've got moderately aesthetically pleasing hardware, class-leading performance from Tegra 2 that doesn't sacrifice battery life at the stake, and a bunch of notable and useful extras like HDMI mirroring. On the other, you've got some serious experience-killing instability issues (which need to be fixed by launch), a relatively mundane baseband launching at a time when we're on the cusp of 4G, and perhaps most notably a host of even better-specced Tegra 2 based smartphones with more RAM, better screens, and 4G slated to arrive very soon.
It's really frustrating for me to have to make all those qualifications before talking about how much I like the 2X, because the 2X is without a doubt the best Android phone I've used to date. Android is finally fast enough that for a lot of the tasks I care about (especially web browsing) it's appreciably faster than the iPhone 4. At the same time, battery doesn't take a gigantic hit, and the IPS display is awesome. The software instability issues (which are admittedly pre-launch bugs) are the only thing holding me back from using it 24/7. How the 2X fares when Gingerbread gets ported to it will also make a huge difference, one we're going to cover when that time comes.
The other part of the story is Tegra 2.
Google clearly chose NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 as the Honeycomb platform of choice for a reason. It is a well executed piece of hardware that beat both Qualcomm and TI’s dual-core solutions to market. The original Tegra was severely underpowered in the CPU department, which NVIDIA promptly fixed with Tegra 2. The pair of Cortex A9s in the AP20H make it the fastest general purpose SoC in an Android phone today.
NVIDIA’s GeForce ULV performance also looks pretty good. In GLBenchmark 2.0 NVIDIA manages to hold a 20% performance advantage over the PowerVR SGX 540, our previous king of the hill.
Power efficiency also appears to be competitive both in our GPU and general use battery life tests. Our initial concern about Tegra 2 battery life was unnecessary.
It’s the rest of the Tegra 2 SoC that we’re not completely sure about. Video encode quality on the LG Optimus 2X isn’t very good, and despite NVIDIA’s beefy ISP we’re only able to capture stills at 6 fps if the camera is set to a 2MP resolution.
Then there’s the forthcoming competition. TI’s OMAP 4 will add the missing MPE to the Cortex A9s and feed them via a wider memory bus. Qualcomm’s QSD8660 will retain its NEON performance advantages and perhaps make up for its architectural deficits with a higher clock speed, at least initially. Let’s not forget that the QSD8660 will bring a new GPU core to the table as well (Adreno 220).
Tegra 2 is a great first step for NVIDIA, however the competition is not only experienced but also well equipped. It will be months before we can truly crown an overall winner, and then another year before we get to do this all over again with Qualcomm’s QSD8960. How well NVIDIA executes Tegra 3 and 4 will determine how strong of a competitor it will be in the SoC space.
Between the performance we’re seeing and the design wins (both announced and rumored) NVIDIA is off to a great start. I will say that I’m pleasantly surprised.
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