The secret marketing trick behind powerbank capacity.

You have an original real capacity 10,000 mAh power bank, and that should charge your 1500mah phone about 6 times, right? Well, here is where the confusion begins.

What the advertised capacity actually tells you.

The rated capacity is what is actually inside the powerbank, the physical battery.

Inside a 10,000 mAh power bank.

This powerbank has 4 3.7V 2,500mAh batteries, together that equals 10,000mAh and this is correct.

But USB is 5V!

Inside powerbanks are 3.7V batteries, but the USB standard is 5V.  Between the battery and the USB socket is a conversion circuit and this changes the 3.7 V into USB friendly 5V. When converting into a higher voltage, you must also convert the mAh into the new voltage.

How to calculate theoretical USB output capacity

A simple equation can be used to convert the 3.7V into 5V.

ACTUAL 5V mAh = 3.7 X Advertised Capacity / 5

For a 10,000mAh powerbank – 3.7 X 10,000 / 5 = 7,400 mAh

So a 3.7V 10,000 mAh powerbank really only supplies 7,400 mAh at the 5V USB connection. So straight out of the box is a 23% reduction in the stated mAh.  This is not the actual experienced level as there is also conversion loss.

What is conversion loss?

As you use your powerbank the circuit inside that converts 3.7V to 5V USB uses some energy and also creates heat. During this conversion, you lose some extra mAh.  There is a wide range in conversion efficiency and most brands don’t state the losses, Xiaomi has prized themselves on their conversion efficiency chips which are up to 98% efficient, meaning you only loose 2% off your battery power in the conversion. Some others can consume as much as 10% during conversion.

Why don’t they just state the actual output?

They don’t need to as technically that is what’s inside the box and most people have no idea. By not giving the actual 5V output brands can reap these benefits;

• Manufactures can have a higher number of mAh for their powerbank and sound more powerful.
• It avoids the talk or testing of conversion loss and brands with low efficiency conversion chips can still market them in the same league as other efficient brands.

Some manufacturers will state in the manual or in small print on the device but most will not state anything other than the 3.7V mAh. As a general rule I would recommend taking 25% – 30% off the advertised capacity straight away and then you have a more realistic indication of performance.

This power bank actually states both capacity’s, you wouldn’t notice it tho unless you are one of the people who actually read product labels. This one has 16,000 mAh but only has 10,200mAh at 5.1V.

It is a very gray area and not common knowledge but I hope this has shed a bit of light on how powerbanks are advertised and busted the classic assumption that dividing the rated capacity by your phone battery capacity is an accurate measurement of actual number of recharges, in reality, it is far from it.

You are now a powerbank expert and next time you are on the prowl for a new one have a look through our range.

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What to expect: Exynos 8895 vs Snapdragon 835

Qualcomm and Samsung have now lifted the lid on their next-generation mobile applications processors – the Snapdragon 835 and Exynos 8895. Both are expected to make their debut inside regional variants of Samsung’s Galaxy S8 flagship, which is scheduled for release in late April.

We will have to wait until then to get into the nitty gritty of real world performance, but the specifications published by the two SoC manufacturers can already guide us as to what we can expect from these two chips, both in terms of performance and the features available to handset OEMs. The table below contains a breakdown of what we know, and also includes last generation’s entries from the two companies so we can see what’s changed.

Performance expectations

In 2017 we’re back to a familiar battle of the octa-core processors, albeit with both Qualcomm and Samsung opting for custom CPU cores this time around. We can’t say for sure which will be faster without some hands-on time, but the two companies are touting similar performance and energy efficiency improvements over last year’s close fought battle.

The Snapdragon 835 is apparently offering around a 20 percent boost to performance over the 821, while Samsung touts up to a 27 percent improvement with its Exynos 8895 from the 8890. Both companies have moved over to new CPU designs this year, although Samsung’s naming convention and PR hints at a revision rather than a complete refresh. The Kryo 280 is a new semi-custom ARM design that Qualcomm is using for its performance and energy efficient cores, while Samsung is designing its own big core for use in a familiar big.LITTLE setup, having licensed ARM’s ARMv8 ISA (Instruction Set Architecture). We don’t know the exact changes and improvements made to the internals of these two chips, but it appears that improving power efficiency has been a key goal at both companies.

We're likely to see the biggest performance improvements come in the form of graphics performance, as Samsung switches to ARM's new Bitfrost architecture.

Both SoCs are also looking at the option of a 40 percent decrease in power consumption too, mainly thanks to the move down to Samsung’s 10nm manufacturing process. Samsung will be building these two processors on the same process. Given how close the CPU performance between the two was last year, we’re almost certainly looking at comparable results again in 2017.

Instead, we’re more likely to see the biggest performance improvements come in the form of graphics performance. Qualcomm has swapped out its Adreno 530 for an Adreno 540, which boasts a 25 percent improvement in 3D rendering performance.

Meanwhile Samsung has moved on up to ARM’s latest Mali-G71 design in a huge 20 core configuration, compared with the Mali-T880 MP12 in the Exynos 8895. The G71 is 20 percent more energy efficient than the T880 and offers up a 40 percent increase to performance density, which is what has allowed Samsung to squeeze more cores into its silicon space. The Exynos 8895 packs in 8 extra cores, a 66.6 percent increase over the 8890, which combined with any architecture performance improvements between Bitfrost and Midgard means that we’re looking at a potentially massive jump in GPU performance with Samsung’s chip. Samsung pegs the increase at “up to 60 percent” over its predecessor.

Looking back to the Snapdragon 821 and Exynos 8890, Qualcomm’s chip came out ahead in our GPU tests. Therefore, Samsung looks poised to close the gap this year and may even surpass Qualcomm’s performance with the 8895.

Cameras and vision processing

Dual camera technologies are expected to see massive growth this year and there’s been plenty of speculation about whether or Samsung will hop on the trend with its Galaxy S8. Either way, the Exynos 8895 now matches Qualcomm in supporting dual cameras, but has a slightly different take with support for a 28MP sensor paired with a low power 16MP secondary. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 supports up to dual 16MP sensors.

Of course, this doesn’t mean we’re going to see these exact configurations inside devices, nor does it strictly mean massive improvements to image quality. However, support for dual camera technologies opens the door for manufacturers to include “optical zoom” capabilities, monochrome sensor HDR enhancements, wide angle shooting options, and software depth of field effects. In addition, the two chips support Dual Photodiode Auto-Focus, first seen inside the Galaxy S7.

In addition to new photography features, Samsung is touting an improved Vision Processing Unit (VPU), which is used for video recording and can offload a range of processing intensive tasks from the CPU. The Snapdragon 835 continues to offer up to 30fps 4K video recording and 60fps playback, but it’s the Exynos 8895 that takes this particular crown, supporting up to 120fps playback and recording at 4K.

On the processing side, Samsung lists that its VPU can assist with motion detection, image registration, video tracking and object recognition as possible use cases. Qualcomm has also mentioned an improved VPU on its Snapdragon 835 which offers up 10-bit color support and can also enable similar object detection, facial recognition, and gesture detection algorithms. This type of technology can allow manufacturers to better categorize and tag photos as you take them, make software tweaks based on the contents of your photo or video, and even used to detect the world around you in VR and AR applications.

Both SoCs now support dual camera technologies and offer increased heterogeneous capabilities to support object, facial, and gesture detection.

Qualcomm has rightly talked up the machine learning and heterogeneous compute capabilities of its Snapdragon 835 and Samsung has taken a similar interest with its Exynos 8895. Samsung’s Coherent Interconnect (SCI) has been upgraded to support cache coherency between CPU and GPU for HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture) that enables faster communication between the two for AI and deep learning algorithms. Qualcomm, on the other hand, has its improved Hexagon DSP for additional processing capabilities for specific tasks and has opened up its processor’s heterogeneous compute capabilities to software developers through its new Symphony System Manager SDK.

While Qualcomm has a headstart on bringing major heterogeneous compute features to its Snapdragon platform, Samsung has identified similar benefits and looks to be closing the gap with some features of its own.

Faster data speeds

The other major feature in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 is the gigabit LTE X16 modem, which offers customers the potential of 1Gbps download and 150Mbps upload speeds, providing that their network is up to scratch. Clearly this is more of a future-proof feature than something that we’re all going to be maximizing right now, but Samsung has its own modem that matches the Snapdragon 835’s speed.

With both handsets supporting high frame rate 4K video playback, faster LTE data speeds on supported networks are becoming a must.

The Exynos 8895 offers 1Gbps down, 150Mbps upload speeds too, and goes one step further by featuring the first modem to offer 5 band carrier aggregation, up from the four band aggregation available with the 835.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that data speeds will be any faster on Samsung’s phone, but it suggests that performance could be slightly better maintained in congested areas and at the cell edge. Again, only providing that the LTE network has many bands available for aggregation.

The bottom line is that phones featuring both the Snapdragon 835 and Exynos 8895 are future-proofed for the rollout of faster LTE-Advanced networks in the coming years.

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Qualcomm announces Snapdragon 620, 618, 425 and 415

Qualcomm announces Snapdragon 620, 618, 42Qualcomm announces Snapdragon 620, 618, 425 and 4155 and 415

When we talk about Qualcomm and the future of mobile processors all roadmaps and leaks seem to naturally revolve around the high-end 800 series chipsets. The 810 is just now making its way on to actual production devices and the new 14nm manufacturing technology is really exciting to say the least.

However, while beastly hardware moves the industry forward it is the mid and low range that truly fuels it and powers the majority of devices out there. Qualcomm knows this better than most and is working hard to keep up with market demands and offer feature rich, affordable silicon at budget-friendly prices.

This is precisely the goal with the latest Snapdragon 415, 425, 618 and 620. These chips are all about the added value and bringing advanced technology to mid-range devices. Qualcomm is stressing that the new models will bring high-end features to the every level of their product stack.

First up are the Snapdragon 415 and 425. Both of them replace the traditional quad-core design of the 400 series with a more capable eight-core Cortex A53 setup. Both are also 64-bit and support the ARMv8 instruction set and are based on current 28nm manufacturing technology.

This in itself is a formidable step up in performance, but the chip giant has packed in a few more additional goodies. The two new 400-series members now have Quick-charge 2.0, as well as dual image signal processors (ISPs), which are supposed to allow much better cameras in mid-ranged devices.

The graphics ship has also been bumped up to the Adreno 405, which is not that more powerful than the Adreno 306 in the Snapdragon 410, but does offer hardware decoding for 1080p H.264 video and an external display resolution support of up to 1080p. The sole difference between the 415 and 425 models seems to be the LTE modem. On the lower end we have a X5 LTE modem, offering Cat. 4 speeds of up to 150Mbps, while the alternative chip comes with a X8 modem and twice the speed at 300Mbps.

The two new 600-series models seem to bring even more innovation to the family line. The Snapdragon 610 and 615 chips are not seeing a lot of manufacturer attention, with crowds either going for the 410 on the low end, which is not that different from the 610, or the 800 for more premium models. Qualcomm has surely realized this and is probably aiming to rekindle the series mid-range popularity with the new 618 and 620 models.

The big change here is that both new units use the brand new Cortex A72 cores, that are said to be twice as powerful than the A57. Naturally there are both 64-bit and are also built using a big.LITTLE configuration for optimal power-to-performance balance. The two chips also come with what is described as a "next-generation Qualcomm Adreno GPU". Qualcomm has not disclosed any information on this matter yet, but we will be sure to update you once the smoke clears.

The 618 and 620 models are both equipped with X8 LTE modems, capable of 300Mbps downloads and are built using a 28nm manufacturing process. Among the more interesting new features they bring to the family is 4K playback and capture support, along with 4K H.265 hardware decoding, previously limited to the high-end 800 series. The main difference between the two chips is that the 618 comes with a hexa-core setup (two A72 and four A53), whereas the 620 is octa-core(four A72 and four A53). Judging by ARM's promises, that latest chip might end up being the fastest the company has announced so far. Until the Cortex-A72-based Snapdragon 8xx arrives that is.

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Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 vs Mediatek Helio X30

Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 and Mediatek Helio X30 are about to be released as prime candidates for the BEST SMARTPHONE CHIP OF 2017, but what really makes them different and how do they compare?

Follow me on this deep analysis on all the data on both chips, and which one you should likely get for your next BEAST SMARTPHONE!

A Brief History Of Qualcomm Snapdragon Or

how we fell in love with little smartphone Dragons 

Qualcomm is an American Semi-Conductor Company based in San Diego, California.

It has become the leading Smartphone SoC(CPU+GPU+Modem+Board = System on Chip) supplier,

thanks to their superior modems(X-series) and Adreno(bought from ATi Radeon early 2000s) GPUs.

Most notable chips include the mythical Snapdragon 800 and 801, which are widely used ’till this day, and after the fiasco with Snapdragon 810 and Snapdragon 615, they quickly recovered with a superb Snapdragon 820/821 and Snapdragon 625 chips to once again regain the market.

Snapdragon chips are widely regarded as the best you can get, thanks to good battery life, thermal management and performance, however, the company had a horrid time with the awful Snapdragon 810 and 615 chips that had overheating, battery and performance issues, proved that the company can do a bad chip.

Snapdragon 835 is the latest flagship chip and will debut with the Samsung S8 in the end of the month, and Qualcomm are aiming to smash all competition, thanks to the new Octa-Core architecture(4xKryo 280+4xA53 CPU cores), 10nm fabrication process and a 1Gbit+ LTE modem.

A Brief History of Meidatek Or

how we all love an underdog story 🙂

Mediatek or MTK are a Taiwanese Semi-Conductor company, that is most famous with Chinese

with Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi, Meizu, Vivo and Oppo.
Mediatek’s goals were always to create the fastest chips that cost less than the competition, and it had a few winners over the years, like the famous Helio X10 and MT6752.

and it had a few winners over the years, like the famous Helio X10 and MT6752.
MTK were the first to put out an Octa-Core/8 CPU Cores SoC(MT6592) and
the first to do a Deca-Core/10 CPU Cores(Helio X20)

The much smaller financially competitor to Qualcomm has bad fame going on the web that their chips consume much more power and have lots of issues when compared to Snapdragon chips.

That is not entirely true because MTK got their bad fame because lots of smaller Chinese companies with bad built quality and half-decent engineering have and still use MTK chips

in their poor phones.

That is so because in order for MTK to prosper they cannot turn down an order, by any company.

People with quality devices such as Xiaomi, Meizu, Vivo and Oppo who have MTK chips

inside have little to no issues at all, which proves the stated above.

Helio X30 is a real attempt for Mediatek to get back to the high-end market,

using the new A73 Cores for performance and the smallest A35 for efficiency,

while packing iPhone 7’s PowerVR 7XT GPU, 10nm fabrication process and a much better modem.

Snapdragon 835

Snapdragon 835 looks very impressive, as you can tell from the picture above, but some of you don’t really grasp what is all about, so let me briefly try to break the strongest points of the SoC down for you.

10nm Fabrication Process

10nm is the size of a single transistor and this is the latest and most expensive production technology available for chips of any kind, but what does it mean?
Basically, it allows for engineers to put more transistors into a same-size chip,

or the same amount of transistors on a smaller chip and transistor count is

incredibly important for performance.

Just as a note, a single high-end smartphone chip today has 1 billion+ total transistors,
Snapdragon 835 is expected to back close to 3 Billion transistors,
just a fact the Intel i7 6700 Desktop CPU chip built in 14nm has ~1.8 Billion transistors!

GigaBit Mobile Internet

With the latest X16 LTE modem, Qualcomm are the only provider in the world that can let your phone(if supported by your carrier)download with speeds exceeding 100MB/sec!

4xKryo 280 + 4xA53 CPU Cores

Qulacomm uses custom versions of ARM’s best CPU cores and the Kryo 280 is based on the newest A72/A73 design, but with secret modifications to deliver the best performance,

however most of the time you only need the phone for browsing,

social media and youtube, and that’s where the new 4 A53 cores come to help.
Just as a fact A53 cores are around 4-5 times smaller than the big A72/Kryo 280,

so they consume much less power but are powerful enough to run all daily activities,

and that will help improve battery life and when more performance is needed

(Gaming, Editing, Heavy Apps)the big Kryo 280 cores will kick in to make sure

you never feel any lag! CPU performance is expected to increase by 20% from Snapdragon 820.

That is called BIG.little architecture(Big cores working with small cores on a single chip)

Just as a note, Snapdragon 810 was Qualcomm’s previous attempt at BIG.little architecture and that didn’t go so well, let’s hope they’ve learned their lesson.

and that didn’t go so well, let’s hope they’ve learned their lesson.

Here are supposed leaked SD835 Geekbench scores:

Adreno 540 Graphics and VR

One of the strongest points in Snapdragon chips is 3D/Gaming performance, and that is all thanks to the probably best in-class Adreno graphics.

and that is all thanks to the probably best in-class Adreno graphics.
Adreno 540 looks to built on the excellent Adreno 530 from Snadpragon 820/821,

while delivering 20-30% more performance on pretty much the same power-level.

Another important area that will benefit from Adreno 540 is VR gaming,

as the Adreno 540 will be able to push 2K and 4K VR experience without much of an issue, something not possible with any other smartphone GPU!

Performance Increase Over Snapdragon 821

With Snapdragon 821 phones like OnePlus 3T and LeEco LePro 3 topping the Android charts at around 160,000 Antutu Points,

Snapdragon 835 is expected to be the first to break the 200,000

points line!

Helio X30

10nm Fabrication Process

This is the first year that MTK can compete with Qualcomm and Huawei,

as all their previous generation chips were a nod behind(handicapped) when introduced
(Helio X20 20nm compared to 16nm Snapdragon 820 and Kirin 950)

That also means that MTK will have no excuses when it comes to performance,
thermals and battery life.

The Best CPU Architecture

MTK is going for just 2 big A73 Cores, but the frequency will be 2.8GHz, which is very important for single-threaded performance, you can see the benefits of A73 over previous generations below:

The Second Cluster is composed of 4xA53 Cores clocked high to 2.3GHz, which should save space on the chip(A53 core is about 4 times smaller than a A73 one), while compensating the performance.

The biggest and most genius design comes in the form of the smallest A35 cores clocked at 2GHz!

Those four cores can literally handle all social media and video with the best efficiency possible!

Here is a comparison with A53 cores, and how you’ll get better battery life!

PowerVR 7XT, a welcomed return to flagship-level Smartphone Graphics!

Thanks to their unique architecture PowerVR are still regarded by many as the best mobile graphics available, packing a more efficient rendering and lightning method than ARM’s Mali
and Qualcomm’s Adreno the PowerVR 7XT architecture brings console-level graphics to the Smartphone market.

It’s no small coincidence that Apple have been using PowerVR chips in all their iPhones and iPads!
You can say all you want about iPhones, but as far as gaming is concerned, they are absolute beasts, and that’s all thanks to the PowerVR graphics!

Helio X30 Price

just because you’ll get great performance, but Meizu Pro 7 will cost around 700$, that is 300$ less than S8 and iPhone 8!

I definitely believe that if you own a Snapdragon 821 device, you probably might skip getting a new phone, but a better camera and better efficiency might make you consider a Helio X30 device, and for all of you MTK fans rocking X20/27/27 chips, the X30 will certainly almost double the performance!

Conclusion

With Samsung S8 and Meizu Pro 7 coming in just a few weeks we can finally assess how both chips will perform, but is paying that big difference worth it?
I personally believe Helio X30 will be quite the Beast and won’t break a sweat in running anything thrown at it, but if VR and being top of the Benchmarks is your passion than you better start saving.

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