Q1 Ultra in numbers

Big expectations are usually the cause of big frustrations, and if you don't think so, go back a year and remember the unusual marketing campaign of Microsoft for the UMPC aka Origami devices. When the press found that Hallo was not going to work in these devices they started to categorize them as weak machines and the next big Microsoft Fiasco.

Now I see a lot of expectations around the Samsung Q1 Ultra and I'm afraid that we are going to see the same amount of frustration in a lot of users willing to pay for this device. And this is why, the next picture shows the scores of CrystalMark ran in a Samsung Q1 Ultra using the Intel new processor A110 at 800MHz.

A Total Score of 13112, remember this number because we are going to need it later.

At home I have at this moment 3 UMPCs with 3 different processors: Samsung Q1 using a Intel Celeron at 900 MHz, a TabletKiosk eo v7110 using a VIA C7 at 1GHz and a Vega using a AMD Geodo at 500 MHz. The first two UMPC with 1 GB of RAM while Vega has only 256 MB. I ran the same benchmark tool in these 3 machines and here are the results.

Vega

10060 Total Score. Play attention to the last 3 tests that are graphic tests. Vega has better results in 2 of them. And that's the feeling I have when I use the Vega, the performance of 2D graphics is in this device extremely good. The Ultra perform better in the CPU tests and memory, but in this last one you have to keep in mind that the Vega has only 256 MB of RAM. So Vega is 1000 point short in this benchmark just because of the RAM.

TabletKiosk eo v7110

14002! But do not run into quick conclusions. This eo is not the regular eo, this eo is using a HDD at 7200 RPM and this increases the Total Score in around 2200 points. So if we want to be fair we should or could take from these 14002 that amount and we will end with a Total Score of 11802. But even with this adjustment the eo v7110 is very close to the Q1 Ultra Score. The eo has a extremely low score in the 3D Graphics test.

Q1 Celeron

Total Score of 17056. The Intel Celeron performs a little bit better than the new A110. Probably the A110 will have a better battery life but at this moment I have not found any tests that could prove that. In the 3 Graphics Tests the Q1 performs better in this benchmark than the Q1U. Is this a mistake? Lets check this other screen shot taken in that same Q1U.

And here is the same screen shot just taken from my Samsung Q1 with Vista installed.

As you can see from these two last screen shot, Vista also finds that the Celeron Processor is faster than the A110. Also, it's interesting to see how the Aero Graphics tests shows that the 945 gets a 2.0 while the 915 used in my Q1 gets a 1.9, so, is it real that we can't run Aero in our devices? We know for fact that in the earlier beta of Vista, beta testers used Aero in their machines with the 915 graphic chip. In the Graphics department the Q1U has a better Vista Score in the test relative with Game performance, and thanks to this better score the Vista Score in the Q1U is higher. But in the real life where 3D graphics are not used that much both machines will perform at the same level.

Conclusion

From all these tests and scores I can conclude that the overall performance of the Q1U will be about the same or a little bit better in a few tasks than the one we see in current Q1 and Q1p. The Q1U is not that fast ultra powerful machine that many have imagined. And I do not think that this was the idea behind the Q1U design. The idea behind using the A110 in the Q1 is or was in my opinion to get the Aero running in a UMPC and at the same time keep the battery life the same or higher and to do that they had to create a weaker processor. And that's what the A110 processor is, a weaker processor with a better graphic chip to keep the power consumption low. But not that low. I'm not expecting to see in the Q1U 5 hours of battery life using the original battery. We are not that good yet.