If PowerVR sounds familiar that’s because its the same family of graphics processors found in Motorola’s Droid series (Droid, Droid X, and Droid 2). The only difference is that the Droids have the SGX530 and the Galaxy S lineup includes the SGX540, which offers “2x the sustained performance compared to the previous SGX530 core“.

We just got the AT&T Samsung Captivate unboxed so we wanted to put it to the test versus some popular Android handsets. For this round of benchmarks we will be comparing the Samsung Captivate, Motorola Droid, Droid X / 2, Nexus One, Droid Incredible, HTC EVO, and myTouch 3G Slide.

Android GPU Benchmarks

Galaxy S vs the competition.

In the popular benchmark Neocore, the Samsung Captivate scores 55.8 fps which is 30 percent faster than the Droid X. The Samsung Captivate also takes home the best score in Nenamark and GLBenchmark Pro. The only test where it didn’t come out on top is the GLBenchmark HD, which I can’t explain.

Note that the myTouch 3G Slide is able to match the performance of some high end phones thanks to its lower display resolution (HVGA vs WVGA).

GLBenchmark 2.0

Even with FSAA, the Captivate outpaces the competition.

Next up we have the new GLBenchmark 2.0 suite, which has yet to be publicly released. This new GPU benchmark test the OpenGL ES 2.0 capabilities of the device and also measures performance with full-scene anti-aliasing (FSAA), which helps help avoid aliasing (or “jaggies”) on full-screen images.

Here we can see the Samsung Captivate shine with these demanding benchmarks. The Captivate delivers the promised 2x-3x the GPU performance of the PowerVR SGX530 or the Adreno GPU core found in the Snapdragon phones (Nexus One, EVO, etc.). In the GLBenchmark PRO FSAA test, the Captivate offers nearly 6x the performance of the Snapdragon-powered Nexus One.

Conclusion

The AT&T Samsung Captivate (and the entire Galaxy S lineup) offers the best graphics performance of any smartphone. When you combine that with the Super AMOLED display and 6-axis accelerometer, you have the best portable gaming smartphone – period.

We also can’t forget the TV out functions of the Galaxy S lineup, which have survived from the international version, and are included with the AT&T Captivate. The video cable is sold separately, but for around $5 on Amazon you can pick one up and turn your Android phone into a  home console system. If you pair that with a Wii remote or other bluetooth controller, you have a pretty compelling game system that can easily fit in your pocket.

Look for the Galaxy S lineup to continue its lead till at least this holiday season. Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Nvidia, and even Intel are all working on new smartphone chipsets and they hope to hit the market towards the end of this year.

Now if only we could get EA and Gameloft to take Android serious, we would have some mobile games that could compete with the iPhone 4 (believed to be SGX535 GPU). The Galaxy S is more than capable of running any game thrown at it, but there are not that many titles that push the system to its limits yet (except for the Gameloft HD titles that are not available on the Android Market).

Check back later this week for some hands on videos with some of the Gameloft HD titles running over the video out cable to a HDTV.

My prediction for tomorrow: Epic games unveils the new Unreal Engine for Android (see Tim Sweeney’s comments).

This happens to be a fairly new chipset from Qualcomm and it was recently featured in the Palm Pixi and RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530. The MSM7627 is still from the ARM11 family like many first generation Android phones, but it has a couple of new enhancements.

Technical specs of the MSM7627:

• Two ARM cores integrated into a single chip – a dedicated CPU core and a dedicated modem processor – for an unparalleled level of integration:
  • 1. 600MHz applications processor with floating point unit and L2 cache
  • 2. 400MHz modem processor
• Supports both CDMA2000® 1xEV-DO Rev. A and UMTS HSDPA 7.2Mbps/HSUPA 5.76Mbps, and GSM
• In addition to the two ARM cores, features 320MHz application DSP for multimedia supporting full 30 fps WVGA encode/decode, 200MHz hardware-accelerated 3D graphics core supporting OPEN GL 2.0, high-resolution camera, integrated GPS
• 12mm x 12mm footprint
• Optimized power consumption

As you can see the MSM7627 has a 600 MHz applications processor which is an improvement over the 528 MHz of our old favorite the MS7201 (platform of the G1, MT3G, CLIQ, etc). The other important addition is the dedicated 200 MHz GPU which supports OpenGL ES 2.0, so the Devour should be a nice gaming device.

A recap of the rumored Devour specs:

• 3.1 inch capacitive display HVGA (480×320)
• 600 MHz Qualcomm MSM7627
• 512 MB flash ROM, 256 MB RAM
• 3 megapixel camera
• Android 1.6 with Motoblur
• Others: Optical joystick, 3.5mm headset jack, GPS, Wi-Fi, microSD card slot

It is interesting to note that this phone might ship with Android 1.6. This phone has also been referred to as the little brother of the Droid and we had speculated it might run Android 2.1 by launch. I would expect to see this phone in Q1 2010 based on the fact it will not include Android 2.1. However, we still expect Motorola will provide an update to Android 2.1 by Q2 2010.

The other thing to note about the software is that this phone does include Motoblur, which is a first for Verizon. The first two Motoblur phones (CLIQ and Backflip) were built off the Android 1.5 firmware, so this will be the first Motorola device to feature Android 1.6. This would mean the phone could run some of the newer Google Android apps like Maps Navigation, Google Goggles, and the updated Android Market.

Finally, I think the most exciting thing about this phone could be its price. The MSM7627 was designed for low-cost smartphones and the inclusion of a 3 MP camera (instead of 5 MP like the CLIQ) tells me Motorola is aiming for the low end. The Palm Pixi Plus which features the same platform goes for $99 with a 2yr contract or $399 full price.

So that’s the Devour in a nutshell. The Verizon Android phone for those who want a full QWERTY keyboard, but can’t afford the Droid.

The Motorola Devour with Motoblur.

Using the power of Google search, I think I found the missing link.  Look at this info taken from the LinkedIn profile of a Motorola employee with the title “3GSM Reference Design Principal Staff Firmware Engineer at Motorola”.

He list all kinds of interesting information, but all we care about is Android.  Clearly, Motorola is working on an Android device with the TI OMAP 3430 processor and it’s not the Morrison.  With this new info in hand, the pieces of this Sholes puzzle are starting to come together.

New Predictions

1. Sholes will have a TI OMAP 3430 processor

As cool as it would have been to get a Snapdragon phone, it looks like we will have to wait till 2010.  The Texas Instruments OMAP3430 is a more mature processor and ready for mass production at an affordable price now.  Noteable phones to feature the OMAP3430 include the Palm Pre, Sony Ericsson IDOU, and the Samsung OMNIA HD.

We could spend an entire post on the OMAP3430, but I’ll just give you the highlights.  The OMAP3430 has a 600 MHz CPU and contains a PowerVR SGX 530 GPU.  For detailed information on the OMAP3430, please see Texas Instruments or Imagination Technologies.

2. Sholes will ship with Eclair(Android 2.0?) and feature serious gaming

Google worked very closely with T-Mobile and HTC to bring us the G1.  The launch was a success and Google is going to double their efforts with Verizon and Motorola.  Verizon is the largest carrier in North America and Google will use this opportunity to showcase Android.  Sholes is going to be the new flagship device for Android in 2009.

We know the upcoming Donut branch is not Android 2.0.  According to the Reuters interview with Andy Rubin last week, Eclair is likely to get the 2.0 love and be ready to ship this year.  Donut is set to include many UI enhancements and Eclair looks to focus on multimedia and gaming.

Rubin said, “You can start really thinking about serious gaming like you would on a Nintendo DS or a PSP handheld.”  This makes perfect sense because the OMAP3430 supports the latest OpenGL ES 2.0 standard.  Google also recently released the Android Native Development Kit and is hard at work on an upgrade.  Browsing Google groups I found this info on the NDK, “In a future release we hope to support linking with OpenGL ES and audio libraries, which should enable high-performance games.”

Native support for OpenGL ES 2.0 + hardware acceleration from the PowerVR SGX 530 = mobile gaming device more powerful than a Sony PSP or Nintendo DSi

3. Sholes will sell for $199

Verizon just slashed the prices on most of their smartphones to $99.  Boy Genius Report speculated “new crap is coming” and he was right.  Given the current wireless market, $199 is the obvious price for the Motorola Sholes.  It has comparable specs to the Palm Pre and iPhone 3Gs which also debuted at $199.

If Verizon wanted to get super aggressive I suppose they could subsidize the phone at a lower price.  This would be quite amazing, but I don’t see it happening.  The $199 price tag is justified for Sholes and I don’t think people are going to complain over that.

Given that Sholes could possibly ship with Android 2.0, I’m going to change my targeted launch date from October to late November.  I would expect to see Sholes right before Thanksgiving.

Summary of the leaked specs for Sholes:

• OMAP3430 – 600 MHz ARM Cortex A8 + PowerVR SGX 530 GPU + 430MHz C64x+ DSP + ISP (Image Signal Processor)
• Dimensions 60.00 x 115.80 x 13.70 mm
• Weight 169 g
• Battery Li-ion 1400 mAh.
• Standby 450 hours, talk time 420 minutes
• 3.7-inch touch-sensitive display with a resolution of 854×480 pixels, 16 million color depth. Physical screen size is 45.72 mm by 81.34 mm.
• 512MB/256MB ROM/RAM
• microSD / microSDHC expansion slot
• Camera: 5.0 megapixel with autofocus and video recorder
• Connectivity: USB2.0, 3.5mm audio jack, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, Wi-Fi
• Supported audio formats: AMR-NB/WB, MP3, PCM / WAV, AAC, AAC +, eAAC +, WMA
• Supported video formats: MPEG-4, H.263, H.264, WMV
• GPS navigation
• Package Contents: Phone Motorola Sholes, battery, charger, USB cable, 8GB MicroSD memory card and other literature.

p.s. given the huge role that sholes will play, i have a hard time seeing verizon cripple android.  i expect the full google experience.