First Xscale PDA: Is it actually slower?

Amateur benchmarking tests for the first PDA launched with Intel's new generation of processors suggest it may actually be slower for some functions.

The Toshiba e740, released in the US earlier this month, features an Intel Xscale 400MHz processor, replacing the Intel StrongARM 206MHz processors featured in earlier Toshiba devices.

Judging by clock speed alone, a 400MHz processor could be expected to run nearly twice as fast as a 206MHz processor, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

Benchmark results on several sites using the VOBenchmark program show disappointing results.

Tests on www.pocketnow.com show the Xscale running 60 per cent faster than earlier Toshiba models on floating point calculations, and 73 per cent faster on integer calculations.

However, on some graphics and memory tests, the computer actually worked slower than previous StrongARM models.

In one test, loading an Adobe Acrobat file, the Toshiba is beaten by a StrongARM-powered Compaq iPaq 3870.

A tester on another site, www.PocketPCpassion.com, found that books of the Bible downloaded more slowly onto his e740 than previous Toshiba models.

However, Jonathan Ferman, product manager at Toshiba, said that the existing versions of VOBenchmark don't accurately measure the performance of Xscale.

Based on the results provided by a benchmarking tool supplied by Intel, he said that Xscale would provide 20 to 60 per cent faster running times on multimedia and security applications.

Existing software may not run faster on Xscale because it's not optimised for it. "We are expecting application developers to do additional development to take advantage of the headroom that Xscale provides," he said.

Nonetheless, he defended the decision to bring out an Xscale-based device before the software was ready to take advantage of it.

He said: "Do you work with the developers or do you wait for them to come to you?"

He emphasised that users would enjoy many of the advantages of Xscale, such as its improved battery consumption, even though the software was not performing to the maximum yet.

"Battery life is one of the big success stories of the Xscale, and performance will be. The applications just haven't been tweaked yet, but when they are it will be impressive. And that will be in a matter of months, not years."