Palm Pre 2 utilizes CPU scaling: 300MHz / 1GHz 33
We know the Palm Pre 2 brings a 1GHz processor to the table and in our speed tests it seemed to be about on-par with an overclocked Palm Pre Plus. There's a little more to the story, however, as hardcore webOS overclockers know. It's one thing to have a fast processor, but it's better to have a processor that's only running hot when you need it and slows down a bit when you don't to save battery life.
Enter the unlocked Palm Pre 2 devices making their way around the world from the UK. One ended up in the hands of WebOS Internals member Markus, who tweeted out the above image, noting that "The Pre2 seems to scale between 300Mhz and 1Ghz by default." That should account for some of the battery improvement on the Pre 2.
Congratulations, dear reader, you are now nerdier than when you started reading this blog post.
Source: @twtomcat via @webosinternals
33 Comments
Now if only they could release it on Verizon so I can swap the comm board with my Pre...
I aspire to nerdiness. Never quite measure up though.
When does it scale down? Is this only on TS or when charging or when screen off? If the phone scales down while processes are running, then it will actually decrease battery life.
it seems to scale down when idle and then go back up to 600 or 1000
So, is this a new feature with webos 2.0? Does this mean we can expect this kind of functionality when we update our current pre's / pluses to webos 2.0?
Great question
You can already get this type of functionality with Govnah if you install hombrew first. Though you can't set it at 300, but you can set it at 250. On mine it seemed less stable so I left it at 500 for screenstate for a low. We won't benefit from this as much though as running 300 compared to native 500 isn't that much of a battery savings as compared to 1000 to 300.
No, unfortunately not. However you can use a homebrew kernel with the screenstate governor and get similar functionality. I run the "F102A" kernel on my phone. I have it set to run at 720Mhz (overclocked) when the screen is on and 500Mhz (standard) when it's off. That way I get a nice bump in performance when I'm using the phone, but get the same standby time. Some phones are able to run at lower speeds, but mine hangs at 250Mhz.
As the others have said... you can homebrew to make it possible using the UberKernal and Govnah.
I was lucky to find out a I have a "strong" pre.
I run mine on screenstate at 125mhz to 1ghz :}
A lot of Pre's have issues running at that low of a clock speed so it is generally best to go with 500/1000 instead.
I think that Bell in Canada somehow managed to get all the good Pre Minuses.
I maintain 7 Palm Pre's for my friends and family, and every one of them I have running at 125Mhz to 1ghz screenstate without issue.
Secondly, all 7 of them havent had a single hardware issue, except for a bit of oreo effect.
I am on my second Pre only because I dropped the first.
I have not had any real hardware issues... although the usb door/flap finally fell off of this one.
I am on Sprint with the good ole Pre -
It does everything I need and I am willing to limp along until the next super phones are release hopefully after CES.
500/1200
Love me some Blackbirds :)
I have myself a "Chuck Norris" Pre also :) handles that Blackbird quite well
Sprint Pre
Sweet, it utilizes one of my favorite things about my Pre-. Maybe that is part of the magic that is the longer battery life this time around?
It still bums me out that Sprint isn't carrying this device, there's no way I'll defect to Verizon. The HTC 7 Pro is looking more and more attractive every day Sprint doesn't carry the Pre2.
Ive been feeling the same way. I love my pre, but won't switch over to verizon. I'm thinking the HTC 7 pro will have to hold me over until a new webos device comes to sprint (hopefully). -Jeremy
I won't defect from Sprint nor from WebOS any time soon. I hope I'm able to do a com board swap on a Pre 2 soon.
post a video walkthru when you do that.
Sure. Already did one of my Pre/Pre Plus swap. :)
Cool.
Wonder if it follows the same default override settings like on touchstone/charging, low battery thresholds, and temp thresholds like the custom kernels do at default.
I seriously hope it doesn't need temp thresholds, especially since it isn't overclocked. That would suck to have the phone get hot and slow down! :)
Pretty sneaky Palm, but a nice way to save on battery life.
How is that sneaky?
Modern CPUs all do that.
Good question if this is for Pre2 only. I would assume that it is device specific (only Pre2) since the Pre's processor is not 1ghz native. It is 600mhz native, so it could only be scaled down when asleep and back to a max of 600mhz when awake. Given Palm's position on overclocking, I can't imagine that they would bake overclocking into the OS. Keep in mind that these are observations from a non-geek, so take it for what it's worth!
My question is whether webOS Internals has a pre2 to play around with webOS 2.0 or not? I'd love to have 2.0 when it updates on my pre- but would hold out as long as possible until I knew that I could homebrew and overclock. I love those guys!
They have ordered a few and are awaiting 1. more donations and 2. a North American release.
See the telethon: http://bit.ly/9dVdYV
thanks for the link! I just donated to webOS internals for the first time and I encourage everyone else who overclocks to do so also.
Anyone here want to run webOS 2.0 at 500mhz like we originally did when we first got our pre minuses? Ugh... Then donate!!
the original pre's processor already scales natively from 500 to 600MHz. Ofcource palm wouldn't overclock our processors, but i'd say they could theoretically make the scaling a bit more dramatic.
YAY! More nerd!
Also, nice job Palm.
Its cool to see Palm utilizing the homebrew development and baking it into the main OS. Companies that utilize the grassroots movement that they have (if they are lucky enough) will come out ahead in this economy and internet based marketplace.
I'm by no means an expert on this, but aren't all the current Pre2s all GSM? I think the only way a board swap will work is on a CDMA network which means only the Verizon Pre2 will be capable of this on Sprint. Any advice from the experts would be appreciated.
My Sprint+ Frankenpre (AT&T handset) kicks ass btw and sounds like other than glass and a bit tougher build it runs about the same overclocked (if not a bit faster @ 1.005 GHz w/F105 Thunderchief kernel). Also, won't Verizon still have gps issues with Pre2s?
"Congratulations, dear reader, you are now nerdier than when you started reading this blog post"
YAY - I thought I would have to learn some javascript first!
(Actually, someday I want to, so I can roll my own apps, but in the meantime I'll just have to keep reading Dieter's articles to be part of the club :> )
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http://www.webosroundup.com/2010/11/palm-pre-2-review/