O2 XDA Atom Exec Review: Part 2 – Performance

By: Mohammed Al-Ashram

September 15, 2006

Introduction:

It took me few days to compile the performance tests due to battery testing which took longer to finish and also due to the repeated tests in order to get most accurate results, however all of the following benchmark test results don't give a realistic measure of the device performance in real life. These tests are performed to compare devices in certain conditions and parameters set in a particular test. The main purpose of these benchmark tests is to compare performances with other devices gone through the same tests. There are other major factors affects the device performance such as types of applications installed, personal configurations and setup and personal usage. For example you may want to be always online via GPRS or connected to a Bluetooth headset almost all the time. Also battery tests were done with maximum backlight which is uncommon for a Pocket PC user. In addition, some other tests are affected by external factors such as memory card test affected by the card speed and ActiveSync also affected by the USB transfer speed with a PC.

Then why do we need these tests?

Simply because we want to put these devices under extreme conditions and watch them how do they all survive.

Benchmark Test Results:

Utilizing SPB Benchmark from SPB Software House, I compared Atom Exec with i-Mate Jasjar and ETEN G500. These devices share the same software platform. Currently I am not having benchmark results of other new devices running WM 5.0, but later when we publish a new review we will include previous results all together. The Atom Exec was fresh after initializing from a hard reset, I have canceled the installation of additional applications such as Arabic programs and bonus applications from O2, I have only allowed the installation of network customization. I had only SPB Benchmark loaded in main memory. The results were then taken from the unit, and compared utilizing SPB Benchmark's visualize capability. Anything you see in red denotes that the particular Atom Exec won that specific test.

* ETEN G500 test results were taken from our review which was published here.

** This test produced errors on Atom Exec so I have used the same value with i-Mate Jasjar which is 8.41 in order to calculate the overall platform index.

Spb Benchmark index

Spb Benchmark index reflects the overall Pocket PC hardware performance. It depends on hardware design of the Pocket PC device, taking into account the performance of CPU, memory, file and video systems.

CPU index

CPU index reflects the performance of the Pocket PC processor. Both integer and floating-point calculations performance is taken into account.

File system index

File system index reflects the performance of the internal file system of the Pocket PC device. It is not affected by storage card speed or by total amount of memory installed on the device, only the speed of file manipulations is taken into account.

Graphics index

This index reflects the performance of the Pocket PC's video subsystem.

ActiveSync index

Test performed with Microsoft ActiveSync version 4.2 (Build 4876)

It is important to note that ActiveSync speeds are directly dependent on how many USB devices you have in the chain, if you have USB 1.1 or USB 2.0, and how fast your particular PC is.

Platform index

Platform index reflects the overall performance of the operating system running on the Pocket PC. It mainly depends on performance of the operating system itself, performance of file manipulations and built-in applications such as Pocket Word or Pocket Internet Explorer. * Note that when testing Pocket Word document open (KB/sec) I used an equal value to i-Mate Jasjar because this particular test produced an error on Atom Exec.

Click here to view all the remaining graphs of the above test results

SD Card Test:

The following series of tests is to measure the performance of the storage card file system. In this test I used a 1GB miniSD card manufactured by pqi. I am planning to get a 2GB SanDisk miniSD as well, when I receive it I might add an update to these results.

Please note that miniSD memory speed tests imbed the speed of the miniSD card itself.

Battery Performance:

This test was done also utilizing SPB Benchmark. It provides a series of tests that maintain different processes and states on a Pocket PC and monitor the discharge of the battery. To avoid misleading please pay attention that the following tests should give you an idea on how the main battery will perform under these given special conditions and situations, I don't think you will use the device under battery power with maximum backlight and continuously running applications, that doesn't happen in real life!! The data given below should only give you results to compared to other devices in the same test.

Atom Exec comes with 1530 mAh main battery and O2 states that standby operating time is 150 hours and talk time up to 5.5 hours, of course battery life may vary depending on actual usage, but these numbers are not over exaggerated, we'll know why later. Since O2 collected 150 hours standby time I will use this data provided instead of testing the battery while the device is idle with no utilization and I don't think this test is necessary anyway.

1. Battery test "Max backlight, video playback"

Battery life time: 3 hours 57 min

This test measures the battery lifetime when a video clip is played with Windows Media Player for Pocket PC and the screen backlight is set to maximum.

2. Battery test "No display, mp3 playback"

Battery life time: 6 hours 32 min

This test measures the battery lifetime when an MP3 sound is played with Windows Media Player for Pocket PC and the screen is turned off.

3. Battery test "Max backlight, standard using"

Battery life time: 4 hours 19 min

This test measures the battery lifetime when the device is used with normal load and with the backlight set to maximum. Spb Benchmark periodically opens Pocket Word, loads a document and closes Pocket Word to emulate normal Pocket PC usage.

4. Battery test "Maximum backlight, WiFi" *

Battery life time: 4 hours 13 min

This test measures the battery lifetime when the WiFi adapter is enabled and the screen backlight is set to maximum. Atom Exec is connected to my home WLAN network.

5. Battery test "Max backlight, Bluetooth"

Battery life time: 5 hours 23 min

This test measures the battery lifetime when Bluetooth is enabled and the screen backlight is set to maximum.

6. Battery test "Max backlight, GPRS"

Battery life time: 5 hours 26 min

This test measures the battery lifetime when the GPRS connection is enabled and the screen backlight is set to maximum.

Important notice!

I would like to highlight again that the tests were performed with "maximum backlight" which should not give the ordinary Pocket PC user an indication of the actual battery performance in standard usage in real life. Obviously the power hungry screen drains the battery very fast so to have a longer running device it is always expected to lower the screen brightness as low as you can to a level where you feel comfortable using the device on battery power. The best way to utilize the full screen brightness is when the device is connected to a power source.

Part 2 Conclusion:

Atom Exec is an overall winner in the Benchmark performance tests compared to ETEN G500 which is running the Samsung S3C2440 processor at 400 MHz. Atom Exec have dominated i-Mate Jasjar in almost all the tests, both Atom Exec and Jasjar are running the same Intel processor at 520 MHz. i-Mate proclaimed Jasjar to be the perfect one! Through we are not sure this is based on which grounds but now I can defiantly say: i-mate Jasjar is the "former" perfect one!

The most impressive battery test results were the ones done with wireless features including WiFi, Bluetooth and GPRS. The device showed good performance compared to some of my older devices. Overall battery tests where somehow good to average on my ratings. I am not at a position to give a verdict on the overall performance tests unless I use the device for few weeks, because I need to run the device with certain daily configurations and setup for the common user and also with special situations where Atom Exec has got special features to be used such as FM radio and software applications. You may also consider some of the software application in the market which increases or decreases the device speed in order to increase performance or decrease battery consumption.

Coming-up on Part 3:

I will take you through the wireless features of Atom Exec including phone features, WiFi connectivity, Bluetooth, and GPRS connection. I will also explore the built-in FM radio. Go to part 3