While one phone is a member of a new 400 series, and the other is a 500 series device, the two handsets are far more similar than they are different. Both use 1.2GHz Snapdragon processors; dual-core in the 435, quad-core in the 532. Both have 4-inch 800×480 screens, with the 532 supporting the Glance feature found on many other Lumias. Both have 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage, and both support microSD cards up to 128GB. Both are 3G devices supporting up to 42Mbps HSDPA. Both have VGA-quality front-facing cameras. The biggest practical difference is in the rear-facing cameras: 2MP fixed focus on the 435, 5MP fixed focus on the 532.
These are basically the Nokia X devices, but with Windows Phone. They look very interesting and tempting, but I’m not exactly comfortable running Windows Phone on hardware this low-end; the operating system and its core applications will work fine, but most non-core Microsoft and third party applications are slow even on higher-end hardware, so I shiver at the thought of how they run on this hardware.
Last year I got a Nokia Lumia 630 as replacement for my second SIM card.
It is quite fast when comparing with Android handsets in the same price range.
Specially if we take into account everything is running native code on the WP, whereas Android only got that with the 5.0 release.
Android 5.0 switched to another VM (from dalvik to ART).
Native activity has been there since 2.3 gingerbread
http://developer.android.com/about/versions/android-2.3.html#native
WP support for native apps was official since WP8 ( unofficial since WP7 ).
ART is not a VM, it is a compiler backend that compiles APKs to native code at installation time.
Which is a Java wrapper with native methods calling into the .so produced by the NDK.
NativeActivity is just the implementation of the types of Java classes we were writting when Android introduced the NDK.
WP8 is a full native OS, just like iOS. Even .NET code gets compiled to native code.
WP8 handsets only see native code when downloading apps.
ART is not just a compiler is a complete runtime environment, for all intents and purposes it’s a VM that does ahead-of-time compilation vs. the Dalvik just-in-time compile approach.
FWIW Android has been able to run native code from way back too.
Edited 2015-01-17 03:19 UTC
So now language runtimes are VMs?!? I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention to my major in compiler design.
There is a big difference between being able to load a shared object file compiled with the NDK, and having the whole OS running native code.
Err, no. Silverlight and WinRT applications are NOT native.
Sorry hate to be pedantic but WinRT definitely is native. It is basically COM with a few new interfaces on top. Of course, one can write in a .NET language such as C# in which case the users code runs in a VM.
C# is also compiled to native code, no VM involved.
Check my answer to Tom.
I stand enlightened, although I my defence I believe the desktop version of WinRT does still use the CLR VM for managed code (could be wrong).
You are right, but it will change with the new .NET 4.6.
The upcoming .NET 4.6 will allow to produce static native executable without any dependency to the CLR. No difference from a static executable produced by C, for example.
NGEN already allows for native executables, but they are dynamic loaded and still depend on the CLR for metadata and a few other services.
Not so with the upcoming .NET Native, which you can try already today.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dotnetnative.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn584397%28v=vs.110~*~@…
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2014/04/02/announcing-net-na…
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2014/04/24/dotnetnative-perf…
http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/dotnetConf/2014/-NET-Native-Deep-Di…
http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Inside-NET-Native
Err, what about learning how to program Windows Phone before issuing such statements?!
.NET is compiled to native code on the Windows Store cloud infrastructure using an optimizing compiler based on Bartok, developed for the Singularity project.
The generated PE files contain MDIL, Machine Dependent Intermediate Language, which is native code with the symbolic names kept for the linker.
Windows Phone 8 than replaces those symbolic links by an on-device linker at installation time.
http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mani-Ramaswamy-and-Peter-…
http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/3-005
for example?
Edited 2015-01-15 20:48 UTC
Any Samsung,LG or white brand around 100 euros that you can get in big supermarkets here in Germany.
Not much of an answer then, LOL at the vote patterns for your comments though, *wink* *wink* ;-P
For example Samsung GALAXY S Duos.
If you want I can go down to the supermarket and provide an extensive list.
Nobody expects these phones to be speedmonsters, but I think they will outperform everything else in their price class for which they should be praised, not slammed. Why did you mention this “slow-freight” while not mentioning the actual prices?
(they are close to the same resolution, memory and storage as the previous IPhone 5S AND include dual sim and SDcard options. Of course not the same speed CPU/GPU)
Edited 2015-01-14 22:27 UTC
I am running win 8.1 on an Intel Atom quad core 1.3ghz tablet and it runs very well indeed. As far as I understand it the Snapdragon should not provide much less of an experience. They are similar processors. I am impressed by the 7″ tablets performance. It also cost only £59 new, can’t complain.