If this report stands true until the release of the Droid Bionic, it would mean that Motorola is not making minor changes to this device. Though the Bionic was expected to ship with a Tegra 2 processor, this report shows that it will carry a PowerVR SGX 540 GPU, which only comes with the new Texas Instruments OMAP 4 processors. It seems almost impossible that Motorola would go as far as changing something as important as the processor. Past reports show that the Droid 3 will also have an OMAP 4 processor, so Motorola may be turning to Texas Instruments from now on. We will simply have to wait and see. As the NenaMark reports, the dual-core processor would be clocked at 1 GHz.

Other details include the fact that the device now has Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread, which is good, since it was supposed to ship with Android 2.2 Froyo. Considering the fact that the device was delayed until the summer, it only seems fair that Motorola would ship the Bionic with Gingerbread. The NenaMark results also show that the device has a qHD display (960×540), which we were actually expecting, so it seems like there will be no changes to the display.

Compared to the Motorola Droid 3 NenaMark benchmarks, the Bionic doesn’t seem to be performing very well. Both devices have the same processor, and overall similar specs, but the Droid 3′s score is of 45.70, almost twice the score of the Droid Bionic (at 24.00). Let’s just hope that it was a test error, and the Bionic delivers the performance we are all expecting.

For now, let’s just wait more (even though Motorola said this device would be the “end of waiting”) and keep our eyes open for more details. What do you guys say? Are you still hoping to make this your next smartphone? Do you guys like the idea of it having a Texas Instruments OMAP 4 processor, or would you rather it be a Tegra 2?

Further clarifying some of the rumors (along with some new info), the Motorola Droid 3 has shown up on Nenamark (a benchmarking website). Due to the fact that said website reports a PowerVR SGX 540 GPU hidden inside the Droid 3′s guts, it can be said that the device will, in fact, carry an OMAP 4 processor, since this GPU is featured by Texas Instruments’ new hardware, and not NVIDIA’s. The processor will be clocked at 1 GHz, as expected, but do remember that it still is a dual-core processor, which should improve its performance.

Other specs given by Nenamark include the fact that the device has a qHD display (960×540 resolution), and that it will be featuring Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Though we already expect 3rd quarter devices to come with Android 2.3, this is something that we do not have solid details on. It is definitely good to see that it will most likely feature more than Froyo.

Let’s hope that this information proves to be real (unless the specs end up being better), and keep your ears open for more details. It is also unknown if the device will be 4G LTE capable, but for now all we can do is sit back and wait for more details to come.

Personally, I love physical keyboards, and I know that many of you may feel the same way. If that is the case, the Droid 3 would probably be a great choice for Big Red customers this year (Also check out the HTC Merge and its beautiful slide-out keyboard). What do you guys think? Digging it? Waiting for the next Motorola Droid to come out? Check out the benchmark info below, and don’t forget to share your comments with us.

The test lineup

We have a lot of phones laying around the A&M Labs, but we just went with six models for this round of testing. Devices we tested include both the Tegra 2 phones that are currently available (Atrix 4G and Optimus 2X), both phones with Android 2.3 (Nexus S and Nexus One), the T-Mobile G2, and the popular Motorola Droid.

Each device was given a clean reboot before testing and they are all running unmodified, stock versions of Android. An active WiFi connection was turned on to simulate real-world experience.

Neocore

About: Neocore is an OpenGL-ES 1.1 graphics performance benchmark for Android devices. It shows off some of the techniques that are possible on accelerated platforms such as 1-pass light maps and bump mapping. [Download]

Neocore is one of the oldest GPU benchmarks and measures OpenGL ES 1.1 performance. The LG Optimus 2X easily came out on top with a score of 77.2 frames per second. The Motorola Atrix 4G fell behind in this test because it has the highest resolution (960 x540), which means it has to process the most pixels and do more work.

Nenamark1

About: Set your GPU on fire with NenaMark, an OpenGL ES 2.0 benchmark! NenaMark is a benchmark/demo of OpenGL ES 2.0, using programmable shaders for graphical effects such as reflections, dynamic shadows, parametric surfaces, particles and different light models to push the GPU to its limits. [Download]

Nenamark1 is another popular benchmark that has been around awhile which measures OpenGL ES 2.0 performance. The Optimus 2X once again smokes the competition and is followed by the Nexus S.

Smartbench 2011

About: Smartbench 2011 is a multi-core friendly benchmark application that measures the overall performance of your smartphone. It reports both Productivity and Games Index to suit both productivity users and 3D gaming users. [Download]

Smartbench 2011 is a new benchmark that has been updated to be multi-core friendly. Note that the Tegra 2 offers about 3x the productivity performance over all the single core phones. In the games score, the Optimus 2X is once again the leader.

GLBenchmark 2.0.3

About: GLBenchmark 2.0 has been designed from the ground up to demonstrate and measure the true potential of OpenGL ES 2.0 Hardware. The built-in shader code (GLSL) generator enables real-time performance tuning and de-compositing. This is an in-valuable feature for OpenGL ES 2.0 Hardware vendors and Handset manufacturers. [Download]

No surprises here. The Optimus 2X leads the competition when it comes to GPU performance. The Nexus S is able to once again eclipse the Atrix 4G thanks to its lower display resolution.

Linpack

About: Speed test your Android device and ROM with this standard CPU benchmark. Check the speed of your Android device and compare it to other Android devices. Results in millions of floating point operations per second (MFLOPS). Save results or post to the website to beat the best times. [Download]

In Linpack we see no performance advantages for the Tegra 2 devices. This test does not appear to be multi-threaded and all the 1 GHz cores perform about the same. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips generally perform well in this test thanks to their FPU (SIMD/NEON/VFP) instructions. The real world performance between a G2 and Nexus S is pretty similar, so I’m not sure how relevant this test really is.

Sunspider Javascript 0.9.1

About: This benchmark tests the core JavaScript language only, not the DOM or other browser APIs. It is designed to compare different versions of the same browser, and different browsers to each other. This test mostly avoids microbenchmarks, and tries to focus on the kinds of actual problems developers solve with JavaScript today, and the problems they may want to tackle in the future as the language gets faster. This includes tests to generate a tagcloud from JSON input, a 3D raytracer, cryptography tests, code decompression, and many more examples. [Download]

Both the Tegra 2 devices lead the pack in Javascript performance.

Conclusions

Benchmarks are not the end-all, be-all of real-world performance, but they can help us measure how different platforms stack up. It is really hard to provide an apples-to-apples comparison of the GPU performance since there are so many different display resolutions, but we can see that the GeForce GPU inside the Tegra 2 offers the fastest performance for what’s currently available on the market.

In the couple of weeks that I have spent with both Tegra 2 phones, I can say they generally feel much faster than the single-core competition. Not many apps are optimized to take full advantage of multi-core processors, but there is definitely a noticeable difference in the overall responsiveness of Tegra 2 devices when multiple apps are running.

Even though the LG Optimus 2X has half the RAM of the Atrix 4G, it easily out-performs the competition in GPU benchmarks thanks to its lower resolution. The qHD resolution of the Atrix 4G is a nice spec to have, but there is a performance hit in most games since the GPU has to do more.

We can clearly see the performance gains of Tegra 2 in benchmarks that are multi-threaded like Smartbench 2011. This should be a good indication of what Tegra users can expect in the future as the Android OS and applications are optimized to take full advantage of dual-core processors.

For everyday use, the Nexus S can still hold its own against newer dual-core phones. I expect the Nexus S will continue to be competitive for the rest of 2011 thanks to it always having the latest version of Android. Look for Tegra 2 (and other dual-core CPUs) to take the lead in the second half of this year as the software catches up to the hardware.

You can find the full rules on the official site, but here are the basics:

Who wants a Droid? Tweet why you do & begin responses with #IWANTADROID. You could win one & be featured in an upcoming web ad.

• Visit www.twitter.com and follow @droidlanding
• Tweet the message, “#IWANTADROID____________” (fill in the blank)
• Users must use the hashtag #IWANTADROID to enter the Contest
• Limit 10 entries per Twitter Account per Entry Period
• Subject to Twitter character limitations

There are four entry periods before the end of the year and the first one ends tomorrow.

• 12:00:01 am ET on 12/1/10 through 11:59:59 pm ET on 12/9/10
• 12:00:00 am ET on 12/10/10 through 11:59:59 pm ET on 12/16/10
• 12:00:00 am ET on 12/17/10 through 11:59:59 pm ET on 12/23/10
• 12:00:00 am ET on 12/24/10 through 11:59:59 pm ET on 12/28/10

Sponsor selected judges will then choose the best tweets based on the following criteria:

• 50% – feature or use that makes Droid desirable
• 50% – creativity of written entry

Prizes include:

• Grand Prize (7x) – Verizon Wireless Droid Phone (model to be decided by Sponsor)
• Runner Up Prize (28x) – A $50 Verizon Wireless Gift Card

We are in no way part of this contest, but we will be following your contest tweets and retweeting the most annoying entries.

Improvements:

Verizon Wireless will begin pushing an update for the DROID by Motorola today. Enhancements include an updated Twitter® application, improved Exchange Active Sync® functionality, updated Gmail user interface and more. For more information about this update customers can go to www.verizonwireless.com/droidsupport.