Gadgetory

the HTC droid DNA for Verizon Wireless has finally broken cover and the 1080p display on this device is the first of its kind in the United States but we'll all those extra pixels slow down its performance compared to a device with the same exact internals but a lower res screen like say the lg optimus G well I'm Michael Fisher this is pocket now let's find out so let's talk a little about those nearly identical internals Before we jump into a comparison both the droid DNA and the lg optimus G the sprint version here feature the Qualcomm s4 pro at their heart that's backed up by an Adreno 320 GPU and 2 gigs of RAM in each case the difference as Joe Levi points out in a recent article is that the droid dna's 1080p display has over two million pixels compared to the optimist cheese 980 3,000 in theory that means the DNA has to do a lot more work to render graphics than the Optimus G does which means one could expect it to run a little bit slower does that hold true in real life well without getting too scientific let's jump into a few general comparisons in benchmarks third-party app load times stock app load times and page load times in the browser first up just a quick run through of benchmarks we put the phones through our usual battery of tests and the DNA came out on top in all of them you can view these in tabular format pocket now calm but quickly just for the video here the quadrant standard score if the optimus G was 5669 the DNA scored 78 44 and 22 benchmark 11 20 6 14 5 14 linpack single thread 177 point to 37 1 91.8 38 linpack multi-thread for 34.7 084 64.6 46 smart bench 2012 4326 4677 and finally SunSpider 1385 point 0 11 48.3 a lower is better but none that means much to the average user and truth be told neither do app launch load times if you put it in so many words but users do like responsiveness and when they tap on an app icon they don't like to wait too long for that app to load so with that in mind let's launch a few stock and third-party applications on each of these devices now just FYI both of these devices are freshly booted so we're on as level a playing field as possible that said we're running different Android versions for dot for ice cream sandwich on the optimus G and for dot one dot one jellybean on the droid DNA and each with its own manufacturers skin on top so from a software sense this is a little apples to oranges but all these distinctions will exist on the retail shelves as well so this is every bit a real-world comparison first up let's see if we can launch maps we like to know that our navigation resources are close at hand 1 2 3 boom there we go pretty identical launch on each we get a pretty good fix on each we haven't selected location source on the optimus G so that's why I didn't pinpoint us but the application launch time is nearly identical next up is camera on the stock apps list we want to make sure that we can get that special shot when the time arises 1 2 3 boom pretty quick there there's our HTC or excuse me our LG tutorial but camera app launches pretty quickly on each device about a second on each and finally we're going to go ahead and launch the browser 1 2 3 boom both these devices are on the same Wi-Fi hotspot so this is not a race as far as load time goes this is just showing how quickly the browsers can render each individual page and we do have scrolling ability on each the DNA doing a little bit better as far as fluidity while the page is still not fully loaded let's do a little pinch to zoom check here Optimus G showing that excellent performance we've come to expect from it just a little lag as it gets the last bits of the page loaded droid DNA definitely buttery smooth on the pinch double tap to column view very very sharp text there as you might expect from a display of this kind and there's the text wrapping in action as far as third-party apps let's go ahead and just very briefly check out two popular games for android jetpack joyride first 1 2 3 boom it comes the launch droid DNA on top Optimus G at the bottom almost identical there let's go ahead and touch anywhere to play will demonstrate that the Optimus G is in fact a capable device how can I do both of these at once that'll be fun volume on the on the DNA a little bit higher the display also a little bit brighter in the specific test but that's not what we're here for but just checking performance and I died you want to be careful about dying you don't want to do that in game will go ahead and launch Angry Birds Star Wars to see if we can get that something similar as far as load time there Rovio optimist cheese a little bit ahead in this very quick test but only by about a second here's our intro yes and D and there's that action right there and finally a general usability test if we go ahead and hop into the app launcher here you can see that scrolling pages a fairly fluid experience on both jelly bean doing its job with the project butter improvements to make sure that as a smooth experience over there we'll go hop into the download category just do some more of that let's see if we can get some widget action here we press and hold on the HTC screen there that is it's loading the widgets we scroll through the slightly more graphically complicated widget action that's nice bring down the notification tray if we can apparently have a notification there's a notification tray up down very very close to a one to one experience on each of these devices shortly after a fresh food and a couple app launches not a giant surprise but just to demonstrate that both of these devices are at the top of their heap as far as performance goes in the UI sense so while the droid DNA is driving over twice as many pixels with the same hardware we're not seeing much slow down at all in fact in benchmarks and in general usability it's equal to or better than the optimus G in many respects not all despite jellybeans optimizations the DNA's you I isn't much smoother than the lgu eye on the optimus G running ICS something we've noted before we'll have to wait a little longer to fully judge the droid dna's performance in every usage scenario watch for our full review in the coming days but out of the box its software performance matches the lg optimus G despite its higher res display considering the excellent marks we gave the optimus G and our review that looks to be great news for potential buyers of the new droid DNA that's going to do it for a quick and dirty comparison between the HTC droid DNA and the lg optimus G whole lot more coverage coming on the droid DNA in the days ahead including our full review stay tuned for that follow us on Twitter so you don't miss it pocketnow tweets is the official account follow me on twitter if you want i'm at captain two phones leave us a comment on the post at pocketnow.com throw us a thumbs up here on youtube if you liked the video stay tuned for a whole lot more coverage in the days weeks months ahead the meantime thanks very much for watching we'll see you next time you