Pro1x versus Pro1 CPU, GPU and other

[fxnoma 14]

(this thread was split out from another thread, hence the odd first post, that seems out of context, EskeRahn)

 

and having a faster device 😄

[resister 10]

Does the X have a slower chip?

[EskeRahn 5,460]

16 minutes ago, resister said:

Does the X have a slower chip?

For the most part yes. The Pro1X got the newer supported snapdragon 662, the Pro1 got the 835, that is no longer supported with security updates.

It is not easy to get a Pro1, and as a consequence those sold are not cheap. But If you are lucky and find a user that plan to only use stock Android, the Pro1X is an update, you might be able to arrange some swap.

[resister 10]

27 minutes ago, EskeRahn said:

For the most part yes. The Pro1X got the newer supported snapdragon 662, the Pro1 got the 835, that is no longer supported with security updates.

It is not easy to get a Pro1, and as a consequence those sold are not cheap. But If you are lucky and find a user that plan to only use stock Android, the Pro1X is an update, you might be able to arrange some swap.

How is it an update? More ram? Sounds like an unfair deal to me. Judging from the benchmarks and the comments on reddit the 662 seems to have very little worth.

Edited August 16, 2022 by resister

[EskeRahn 5,460]

22 minutes ago, resister said:

How is it an update? More ram? Sounds like an unfair deal to me.

More ram, new camera-chip, an over three years newer chipset that will get security updates, and a two major versions newer Android too.... For many that alone says update.

My daily driver has since 2019 been a retail Pro1 on stock android. And when I get the retail Pro1X as I perked for, I expect it to take over, and demote the Pro1 to tests (and as a backup device)

But sure for some power hungry tasks the Pro1X is slower. But for a lot of tasks the difference is minor. Not unusual that an older flagship is close to a newer midrange chip.
Have a look at e.g. this
https://nanoreview.net/en/soc-compare/qualcomm-snapdragon-835-vs-qualcomm-snapdragon-662

It is clear that for demanding tasks the 662 will be the loser, but in real usage as a production tool, I doubt that I will notice the difference between the chips at all - but If I do a game on my phone it is a sudoku, so I'm not a demanding user.... and is more likely to benefit from it being leaner on the battery so I get (even) longer stamina.

The main difference is the graphics performance, and that really does not matter to my personal usage pattern. But sure for some it will.

[VaZso 1,998]

1 hour ago, resister said:

Sad part is I cancelled my pro1 when the X came out. I could have been enjoying the pro1 for two years....

If you are lucky... otherwise that Pro1 would has been also converted to Pro1X...

1 hour ago, resister said:

1. Wait an undetermined time to get los19 on the X

2. Sell my pro1-X and buy a regular pro 1 (prefer the black)

I would still wait for LineageOS... support also did not come too early for Pro1 but it is a much better system.
I hope there are some work in the background and Pro1X will also get official LineageOS support, it would worth a lot.

[fxnoma 14]

To put "for the most parts" into numbers - here is Geekbench5 on a 825 (that is a $400 phone from 2016, the 835 from the initial Pro1 should be ~30% faster) vs. the Pro-1x:

single core

825: 326pts
pro-1x: 307
oneplus 9 pro: 1075

 

multi-core

825: 812
pro-1x: 1280
oneplus 9 pro: 3389

 

compute (opencl)

825: 1610
pro-1x: 381
onplus 9: 3541
samsung galaxy S21: 6990

 

compute (vulkan):

pro-1x: crashed
(I tried twice)

 

Regarding "normal use", all I can say after testing for ~2hrs is:

•  build quality is very nice
•  speakers very decent for a phone (I think)
•  keyboard quality as 100% spot on
•  backlight (esp. for the yellow keys) kinda uneven, but no biggy..
•  camera has roughly the quality of the Oneplus 3/3t, maybe a slight hint better (no chance even against a Oneplus 5 from 2017)
•  camera app cries and yells in pain due to rendering bugs if the keyboard is open
•  phone simply cannot connect to a 3m distant 5GHz Wifi AC hotspot (2,4GHz works though)
•  bluetooth / cellular untested so far
•  sound crackles on start/stop of playing over headphones
•  when playing 'silence' via headphones there is a repetitive pattern audible, like a silent choo-choo-train 😄 (used: Shure SE535)

 As of LineageOS for Pro-1x - I could not find even a hint, that development has started. Does someone know more about this?

Edited August 16, 2022 by fxnoma

[EskeRahn 5,460]

1 minute ago, VaZso said:

I hope there are some work in the background and Pro1X will also get official LineageOS support, it would worth a lot.

To me it make sense that they have taken a principal decision not to tell what is going on.
If they did, they would have endless questions on how far they have come, and if it would be possible to get an early version for testing et cetera.
It make a lot of sense waiting to they have something fairly close to an acceptable version.
But that said I'm (also) impatient and would love to have an idea on when we will get it.
It is like the Pro1X it self, worth waiting despite felling that the waiting time is killing us....

[EskeRahn 5,460]

on the geekbench, take their results with a truckload of salt.
look here for the Pro1
https://browser.geekbench.com/search?utf8=✓&q=fxtec
Results vary from 152 to 394 for single core, and from 513  to 1754 on multi.
Both Vulcan and OpenCL results vary with a factor of two.

I'm trying to running it on the Pro1 and Pro1X. The Pro1 failed on the Vulcan, something with horizon.

 

[fxnoma 14]

1 minute ago, EskeRahn said:

on the geekbench, take their results with a truckload of salt.
look here for the Pro1
https://browser.geekbench.com/search?utf8=✓&q=fxtec
Results vary from 152 to 394 for single core, and from 513  to 1754 on multi.
Both Vulcan and OpenCL results vary with a factor of two.

I'm trying to running it on the Pro1 and Pro1X. The Pro1 failed on the Vulcan, something with horizon.

 

well, with respect to your numbers, mine seem to be on the optimistic end of it. So I'm putting the Pro-1X in the best light possible.

[EskeRahn 5,460]

13 minutes ago, fxnoma said:

well, with respect to your numbers, mine seem to be on the optimistic end of it. So I'm putting the Pro-1X in the best light possible.

Tried to do them on a Pro1  and  Pro1X

single core

Pro1: 394
Pro1X: 307

multi-core

Pro1: 1604
Pro1X: 1294

compute (opencl)

Pro1: 1943
Pro1X: 383

compute (vulkan):

pro1: Fails, 408 (0 on Horizon detection)
pro1X: Crashes the entire app

And the big difference is in the GPU parts only

[fxnoma 14]

cool! Seems pretty consistent!

[Hook 3,021]

Sorry, we'll just have to agree to disagree.  Where you see "intentional false information," I see overly-optimistic estimations, which, when they don't pan out, they get beat over the head with it. No wonder they kept communication less frequent until they got close to a real production phase.

And of course hardware "quirks" would affect software, if the software has to use that hardware that is being fixed. 

My guess would be a that pre-production models went out in June.  I don't know this, but that seems to be about when hardware tweaking was mostly done and the big concern was getting people at the factories given Chinese lockdown restrictions.

I understand the frustration.  I understand that, yes, they could have been better at communication (if they actually had enough people to have someone devoted to that). But I really don't understand the invective and personal attacks on FxTec, calling them liars and questioning their motives.  Their motives, Chen's motive, has always been clear.  Getting a good quality slider keyboard phone into out hands, no matter what the obstacles. making a phone you can take apart with a screw driver, providing a phone that is open evenif the alternative OSes are delayed. And, while again, communication can be slow, providing, in my experience, through all of this, the best repair and customer service of any PDA or Phone I have ever owned. 

Alas, this in now off topic on this thread. Sorry. Back  to Lineage for the Pro1x

 

[EskeRahn 5,460]

(I took the liberty to move some posts comparing the two devices over from the Pro1X LineageOS thread)

[Rob. S. 1,661]

3 hours ago, fxnoma said:

To put "for the most parts" into numbers - here is Geekbench5 on a 825 (that is a $400 phone from 2016, the 835 from the initial Pro1 should be ~30% faster) vs. the Pro-1x

I've seen other benchmarks which, all in all, attested the SD 662 only slightly lower performance compared to the SD 835. From that I would expect to hardly notice any difference at all in actual use, perhaps with the exception of a rare app that heavily uses one of the operations for which the difference is more significant. On the other hand, that's only the CPU; the GPU is substantially slower indeed. Still, as of now, the Pro1 X doesn't feel any less snappy to me than my old Pro1. But then again, except maybe for the BB PRIV, I never used anything but midrange phones which always performed well enough. I can still use my old spare phone, the 2018 Moto Z3 Play, without getting the impression that anything would be lacking (except for a hardware keyboard).   

I understand that the sheer performance of the Pro1 X is underwhelming in 2022. But even in 2019 the original Pro1 wasn't the fastest phone on earth to begin with. The price premium over other midrange phones has been and is now for the keyboard alone, which, after all, doesn't come for free, let alone in low-volume phones like ours. Fxtec explained why they had to downgrade the CPU; if I remember correctly, a more high-end one would not even have been available for a halfway affordable price in the tiny quantities they only needed. They would have had to add another substantial sum on top of the already high price, and many people would have declined.  

It is as it is; the concrete specs of the Pro1 X are very probably the only specs with which another hardware-keyboard phone from Fxtec could become possible at this time, and we have to be happy that it actually worked out at all. Also, no one needs to be poorer because of it; I'm positive that, just like the Pro1 used to, a used Pro1 X in good shape will sell for at least what you originally payed...

[fxnoma 14]

@Hook Wow! You are a 1-in-1000 good hearted person! Your trust in this company is over and beyond. (I mean that absolutely positive!)

I absolutely believe that Chen's top target was to deliver a top product. And it shows on what they delivered (Q/A is another issue, but you can definitively see the intentions were right). That's not the problem.

But due to all those hiccups, it obviously turned into a "saving face" game instead of truthful communication - and no - it wouldn't have taken a single more minute, to write what's going on than to write "we're about to ship next week" for two years.

10/2021 "Following last month's functionality and durability tests using the V2 mainboard, we have been working to improve certain LTE bands ready to integrate into the V3 board. "

That would be enough for a devkit. Non-working LTE bands have nothing to do with software porting. Since then, anything that would have compiled and run on this platform, would have worked on the final product. It's one year later now.

02/22 We are now fast approaching Pro1-X mass production and have been finalising and QC checking the software and hardware ahead of shipping.
03/22 We are almost ready to start shipping! Components are at the factory and ready to be assembled as we have planned to start shipping this month. 
03/22 This means that the trial assembly process will officially begin on Monday 28th March.
04/22 Secondly,  mass manufacturing is due to start next week!
04/22 mass manufacturing has officially begun!
05/22 We are all booked in and confirmed to start mass manufacturing on Tuesday 10th May. 
05/22 With assembly now well underway, we still expect to start shipping your devices in mid to late May.
05/22 Community developers have been sent pre-production units, but are still undergoing thorough testing for Lineage OS, and Ubuntu Touch OS.
06/22 Mass shipping has now been confirmed for mid-June. [...] Lineage OS should be stable and ready to ship in around 1 month.
06/22  hardware and personalised engravings are finished and have passed our QC checks. We say almost ready to ship because we are just working on a couple of software issues before we can proceed. 
07/22 The mass flashing process will take a couple of days and once this is complete we will ship the first batch of Pro1-X's to our shipping partner in Hong Kong (this Friday).
 

If you find contradictions there, you are allowed to keep em 😄

But at least I was probably wrong regarding the not-invented-here with Lineage - they didn't do a thing, but sent devices in June to "community developers" (who are obviously pretty shy towards the community :D).

Edited August 16, 2022 by fxnoma

[matf-kabouik 414]

4 hours ago, fxnoma said:

•  camera app cries and yells in pain due to rendering bugs if the keyboard is open

Thanks for your neutral review! The camera issue when keyboard is open is fixed in a later update if I remember correctly, that you could get as OTA soon (hopefully) or in the beta program (see other thread here).

[EskeRahn 5,460]

1 minute ago, matf-kabouik said:

Thanks for your neutral review! The camera issue when keyboard is open is fixed in a later update if I remember correctly, that you could get as OTA soon (hopefully) or in the beta program (see other thread here).

Have not even tried the build in camera app. Open camera works fine with landscape

[fxnoma 14]

4 minutes ago, matf-kabouik said:

Thanks for your neutral review! The camera issue when keyboard is open is fixed in a later update if I remember correctly, that you could get as OTA soon (hopefully) or in the beta program (see other thread here).

Nice to hear - I thought, that's a bug that won't survive for long. The crackle on start/stop has me worried more (as it also occurs on playing "silence") - this sounds (no pun intended - ah wait, yea...) like a hardware problem on the amp side, let's see whether they can do something about that. Yet, even this could be "ignorable". The "background train" on [almost] silent parts is probably the biggest of em.

Edited August 16, 2022 by fxnoma