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Motorola Shadow Benchmarked, Looking Pretty Zippy

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A member over at Howard Forums uncovered an interesting bit of info when attempting to benchmark his [overclocked] Droid using Quadrant (find it free in the market). Sitting just below a Nexus One running Android 2.2 and above the Samsung Galaxy S was a device listed as the Shadow MB810. That would be the Motorola Shadow (or whatever it ends up being called). Just to be sure I double checked and sure enough there it was. (Quadrant pools data from users for comparisons, so one of the few to currently have the Shadow in the wild must have ran a previous test).

Motorolashadwobenchmarknexusone_thumb

What does the result tell us? Well simply, that the phone is pretty fast. The interesting thing is that we have every indication that the version of the Shadow that has been kicking around for its current round of testing is running on Android 2.1. If you look at the jump between the Nexus One running Android 2.1 and the N1 with Android 2.2 and the JIT compiler, you’ll have to get excited about the prospect of the Shadow running Android 2.2

Then again, the Shadow that was tested may have already been upgraded to Android 2.2, based on the suggestion that the PowerVR SGX 530 GPU in the OMAP 3630 supposedly found in the Shadow wouldn’t best the PowerVR SGX 540 GPU in the Galaxy S head-to-head on Android 2.1.

No matter what it’s a win/win. The Shadow will either come with Froyo out of the box (likely) or it will be even more insanely fast once it does get the Froyo update.

For a comparison between the OMAP 3430 processor of the Droid and the (rumored) OMAP 3630 of the Shadow, see the video below:

[via AlienBabelTech]

Kevin Krause
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54 Comments

  1. If it’s not running 2.2 then: WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW.

  2. this is all true, but they have failed to mention that the samsung galaxy s is also running android 2.1, imagine that with froyo!!!!

  3. @josh Did you read the stories about the Behold 2 I would count on the Galaxy S getting 2.2 its just not Samsungs style LOL

  4. The droid beat the nexus 1 on 2.1… that’s intersting to I wana see the droid on froyo

  5. When I see this test on a production unit then I will throw out the wows. Until then, we don’t what he may have hacked to make run fast.

  6. Wow, now who thinks Shadow should be gettin a SnapDragon?

    As you can see is pretty fast!

    OMAP > SNAPDRAGON

  7. amazing what froyo can do to nexus one.

  8. @jimmyk

    It looks like You need to look at that again. The nexus One with 2.1 beat both the moto Droid and the Droid incredible. I have no idea What your eyes are seeing.

  9. Thanks for the info. Just ran the test on my N1 running 2.2 & got a 1095 rate. I was surprised it was so much less than the 1250. I decided to go back & shut down a couple of apps I missed the 1st time (like ATK). Retest ran 1500, not WOW, more like OMG!!!!!!!!!!!

  10. @jimmyk Read the source, that Droid was overclocked

  11. What, no EVO?

  12. @Kwaping Look at the Incredible. Should be the same as that. same Snapdragon CPU.

  13. So, does that mean that Galaxy S + Froyo rocks in Android world, if Shadow was benchmarked while running Froyo?

  14. I don’t get why they don’t at least give it a 535 like the iphone and ipad. Isn’t that the same cpu the old droid had? Samsung seem to have actually impressed me, once you think about it its a lot more powerful than the twice the sized ipad. Even though the ipad is almost half the price but still. And then they don’t give it hdmi out.

  15. See I told everyone the Snapdragon was highly over rated…. “only a ~700MHZ processor”

  16. ^^^The OMAP ~700MHZ

  17. @Men Its for that reason that im waiting to get a phone. All i need is a galaxy s with hdmi(keyboard optional). I mean seriously that phone is something special. Super AMOLED with atmel maxtouch(is its actually MULTI touch,not DUAL touch),front camera,the best GPU on a phone at the moment and looks like it might stay like that if apple chose to give their new ishit an underclocked A4. Obviously the galaxy s needs to be rooted but once it is it will be a beast of a phone.

  18. Sad to say.. I just test the Evo and I got a 501!!! I said Dam!.. Well… It is a big lug, its like a Porsche Panamera, big, fast, agile and str8 CAPTIVATING.. But, yet it still is large.. The processes I see are longer due to the demand of the Kernal.. Eh, its all the same.. It rides the Snappy Snappy and does thing fasty fasty.. It stand right next to the HTC Incredible.,. That it does well.. Oh, and being a previous Incredible Owner, I can say I miss a few things. The sheer lightness of the device, the AMOLED, and the basic rundown of a AMOLED depth of clarity, vividness and liveliness.. But, if you would have put Led’s on this It would have seriously Blined a person.. Imagine? 4.3 of pure Light.. I’d mount it to the front of my car if I had one burn out on the way home, lol..

  19. Wait till you can run the EVO on 2.2 in another month. It will be insane.

  20. why no evo on that list, i find it hard to believe the shadow (an unreleased device, not even limited handout) is on the list but the EVO, 5,000 given away already at google I/O has not been collected???

  21. The SNAPDRAGON has been over rated, some DROID owners said DROID was up NEXUS ONE

  22. The Evo should perform the same as the Incredible they use the same specs so don’t see anything special when you test it. Sense is probably the culprit.

  23. How is the Desire slower than the N1? It’s basically an N1 with more RAM and a better screen.

    Does sense slow it down that much?

  24. Hummingbird with os 2.2 will be amazing

    it seems like testing Shadow have os 2.2

  25. if Shadow have os 2.1 is this great performance(against Galaxy S)

    if shadow have os 2.2 is this poor performance(against Nexus One)

  26. @Zealot

    More ram does not mean faster ram. The ram speed can make a huge differense.
    Other than that, if its a number cruching test, then ram doesnt really matter much.
    And yes, Sense is heavier than vanilla, not that it matters much as long as the phone is fluid.
    All the benchmarks in the world wont make up for if the UI stutters. Not that I ever tried a desire, but as far as I know, its pretty neat. :)

  27. Will we ever know the truth?

  28. Now, after all the rave about speed, what about battery life?
    Somehow speed is less fun if your phone needs to be within an arms length of a power outlet to be of practical use.

    Baseline: battery life > speed

  29. I’ve seen one run on 20 May by the “Verizon Guy” with a Shadow MB810 on Linpack for Android. It was clocked at 8.239 MFLOPS running Android 2.1 which is respectable. The notes listed were “1000.0MHz verizon/shadow_vzw/cdma_shadow/shadow:2.1-update1/VZW/13333:user/ota-rel-keys,release-keys”

  30. How does a benchmark test compare to real world ui? Will there be a noticable difference? Speed wise. Not smoothness.

  31. seems like the shadow will be coming with 2.2 according to the new article.

  32. People Shadow is running 2.2 thanks to the CEO of Motorola. Who said that this chart showed the Motorola Droid being faster then the Nexus One, your a tard it was overclocked imagine a overclocked Nexus One running 2.2. Also to the other fanboy who keeps saying the EVO will get 2.2 in a month, get real its more like 6 months then it might be faster then the Nexus One but I still doubt it since its the Incredible with a bigger screen. Also in 6 months when almost every phone will be running 2.2 and everyone is going to start talking crap the Nexus One will be moving on to 3.0 LOL

  33. I think 2.2 will be coming sooner to the htc phones then everyone thinks

  34. @Jdog how do we know for sure that the Shadow was running 2.2 when that test was done? I highly doubt that it was because the OMAP chipset in the Shadows is far superior to the Snapdragon.

  35. For all we know that test could have been done before 2.2 was even announced.

  36. Just say this at 800Mhz on the Droid which uses the older OMAP just scored a 615, faster than a Nexus One under 2.2, with this newer chipset that is much stronger than the OMAP in the Droid, Im willing to bet that this benchmark was not done with 2.2 loaded, the Shadow was supposed to be released around Fathers Day, perhaps this is why the release was pushed back to July to implement 2.2.

  37. @Jay Where are you getting your information? I would love for HTC to update their phones faster but it take time for them to change their Sense build. If they do update to 2.2 then I think all their phones will update within a month since all their phones have been doing so last month.

  38. The Galaxy s screen is amazing!, but the iPhone is CORNY and sucks becuase it trys too hard to emulate iPhone, somthing im trying to get AWAY from…

    @ban
    are you saying that all other android devices on the market are not truley multi touch capable?>

  39. @Mem According to Motorola and also since the early version of Froyo was dated I think December 2009 on the file I strongly think that the Shadow is running 2.2. If it isn’t then thats incredible. After reading so many stories on Android for the last 19 months and learning how these companies are using Android I learned that you can’t keep hoping for something that is not likey to happen soon or at all. Thats why if you like it or not Google made the Nexus One because before it every company was making sub-par phones trying to make a quick buck and then they take forever to delivery on their promises for a new update. People sometimes don’t like what I have to say and they love to question me but I don’t make shit up because I have learned from experience that all most companies care about is money first customers second. Thanks to Google making the Nexus One it gets updates in up to 3 days, it doesn’t matter if it didn’t sell well that was their fault but Android is only 1% of the money they make. It bothers me to see everyone so excited about Froyo saying they have to get the newest update but I know its not going to happen like that, then they are very angry when they could have avoided the whole situation. Companies have already learned from Google and have started making very powerful phones but I hope they will also focus on updating their software faster because for me no phone not even the iFag 4 can be called the Nexus One killer yet.

  40. Droid @ 1000Mhz gets me a score of 620. Gimme gimme Froyo!

  41. Of course I agree on the Nexus One getting the software fast, thats a given. But the main problem I have is the Snapdragon is so highly over rated, its in no way a garbage architecture, also on paper anyway the OMAP that should be powering the Shadow, is a big advancement over the Snapdragon, now there is also a rumor that MOTO delayed the phone in change of hardware, whether that be a processor(maybe updated to run 1Ghz over the ~700 still remains to be seen) but the big question is when this benchmark was actually ran, that will tell the story when the Shadow actually ships, maybe the benchmark was ran when the software still had kinks and wanted to know where they stood, who knows really until the Shadow is in its final build. I still stand by my original statement that the OMAP in the Shadow and the Droid is a much better architecture than the Snapdragon.

  42. Google Nexus Two on every major carrier with 2Ghz processor = Game Over :)

  43. @Mem – Dude, just STOP!

    You don’t understand phone architectures one bit, stop misleading people. Come back when you have done your research on CPU architectures.

    Set aside your ego, and try to grasp what is written below.

    Read these articles to understand more about architectures.
    http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/winner-intrinsitys-more-cerebral-cortex/0
    http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=17125
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/3633/apples-a4-soc-faster-than-snapdragon
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/3665/apples-intrinsity-acquisition-winners-and-losers

    TI uses ARM-Cortex A8 look alikes.
    Qualcomm went to the drawing board with the Snapdragon, removed the shortcomings of arm design to try and make it better than Cortex A8.

    The GPU in the OMAP is better than Snapdragon. That doesn’t mean the OMAP 3630 will always be better than Snapdragon.

  44. Oh my god, the SECOND time I have correct a website that can not read a BAR CHART.

    The symbol < means LESS THAN!

    This equates to

    Nexus One LESS THAN 2.2

    This is all nexus ones running 2.1 or a custom build.

    Please update your story, it is misleading and needs a retraction.

  45. @Devastatin
    You are 100% correct. I read the graph and saw that the overclocked Droid was slighly faster than Nexus One 2.1

    YES Kevin Krause(the writer) PLEASE UPDATE STORY TO READ 2.1

    This story just shows that 2.2 will be faster than 2.1 my a good margin. What is NOT CLEAR is if the Shadow is running 2.1 or 2.2. There is no point in showing graphs unless you have the input data to back it up. This story should be deleted and rewritten with facts to support it.

  46. OK people if the architecture in the OMAP isnt better than the highly over rated Snapdragon then why does it nearly blow it out at a lower clock speed?? Get off the Snapdragon dick already.

  47. The graph is very misleading. Many many sources have said that the Hummingbird chipset found in the Galaxy S is far superior than the Snapdragon in the Nexus 1.

  48. ObsceneJesster: it is on graph

    Samsung Galaxy(Hummingbird with os 2.1 is better then Nexus one(Snapdragon) with os 2.1

    When will Galaxy S(hummingbird) have os 2.2 will be FIRDT on graph

  49. Ok, the annoying internet guy again: Anyone knows anything about battery life of these speed wonders?

  50. It will have a 1500mah battary wich is good cuz the processer is 45nm

  51. According to this Latest Post 6/10/2010
    http://phandroid.com/2010/06/10/droid-x-by-motorol/
    The Shadow(DROID X) is is running 2.1!! My guess is that when we get a 2.2 update this thing will be EVEN FASTER!!! Whoohooo!

  52. ran a 1105 on my droid with 2.2 & BB V.01..only OC’d to 800mhz using the standard kernal Pete included in BBV.01. This is only using BB’s in house task killer (always 50mb free space available.) I wonder if I install a task killer and kill everything right before the test, if I will see big gains?

  53. This device is running 2.1 phandriod released and article about this device coming in july running 2.1

  54. Ha i got a 1304 with my droid x ( aka shadow

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