Device specs have become meaningless

Please. They have always been meaningless.<p>In the 80s we were trying to compare Amigas, PCs and Macs. Well the PC had faster scrolling in its word processors, because it used text-mode graphics (the entire screen was 4KB, so it could scroll fast). The Amiga and Mac had wysiwyg, but rendered slower because of that. You picked what you felt was important; UX or compatibility.<p>What was the point of comparing 80x86s with 68000s. What was the point of comparing RAM when the software using the ram was different. Or how about screen resolutions? I had a PC with 1024x768 pixels which was more than the Amigas, but hardly any software used the resolution or supported it. My friends' amigas had tonnes of software -- That all ran of floppies.<p>In the 90s it was PowerPC vs. Pentium debate. We never found out which was faster, and we didn't really care.<p>Specs are useful if the software/system running on it is identical. They didn't become any more meaningless or meaningful than they were 20 years ago.<p>What we want now is the same thing we wanted 20 years ago. Responsive software! The specs will not tell you if it is responsive or not, but it can often give you a hint as to which of two devices with identical software is more responsive.<p>It is just that you cannot easily compare apples and androids, just as you couldn't compare Macs and PCs, or even cars from different brands using specs.<p>... This is nothing new! But perhaps people are just realizing it... again!

Strangely, I saw the the exact opposite reviews of the devices (i.e. Nook Color Tablet was slick, Kindle Fire was choppy). I guess that's why people throw in the stats, at least they are objective on some level.<p>Engadget:<p>"the Fire never delivers smooth, seamless performance." <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/14/amazon-kindle-fire-review/" rel="nofollow">http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/14/amazon-kindle-fire-review...</a><p>Verge:<p>"There’s nothing worse in a tablet than a choppy interface, and the Fire seems to be completely chop-free." <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5844623/amazon-kindle-fire-tablet-will-cost-a-shocking-199" rel="nofollow">http://gizmodo.com/5844623/amazon-kindle-fire-tablet-will-co...</a>

<p><pre><code> Devices, at least contained devices, are obsolete. New products can’t be built or reviewed without human context, the messier the better. Performance can no longer be measured with instruments, only with humans, which makes both engineering and reviews particularly tricky. </code></pre> It's easy to get carried away with thoughts like these, forgetting that this wonderful "new" paradigm is based on some huge tradeoffs. I think it's dangerous to turn your back on actual technical improvement in favor of papering over insufficient capability with an internet link and some proprietary services.

I don't agree -<p>You look at the CPU and GPU specs to see how fast a <i>game</i> will run, not something like Siri. You look at the storage to see how many MP3s you can fit on there, not how many calendar entries.<p>Sure, a lot of the applications are moving to the cloud, but I never really expected the specs to make much difference to the speed of simple applications anyway (well, if they do in this day and age, something is seriously wrong).

If you want an <i>appliance</i>, then sure, you don't need to bother with specs; you shouldn't have to care about the processor speed of a dedicated music player any more than the microprocessor in a microwave.<p>If you want a <i>computer</i>, however, then specs matter quite a bit, because they determine how fast arbitrary general-purpose programs will run, and whether they can run at all.<p>Personally, when I buy a smartphone, I want a computer, not an appliance. If I wanted an appliance, I'd buy a non-smartphone, and I indeed wouldn't bother checking the performance specs.

Specs have always been somewhat meaningless for consumer oriented products...e.g., "You buy horsepower but you drive torque."

Spec sheets are an excuse, at least insofar as they're used as advertising. They're a presumptive admission the product is inadequate, rattling off a bunch of numbers in the hopes the customer will overlook the factual inadequacy. If the product does what the customer wants, the customer doesn't need (or want) specs.

IMO - there is something here, at least with respect to handhelds/mobile devices the user experience is what counts. However things such as battery life still matter since they directly tie in with user experience. Also processor specs could indicate potential video performance or some some such thing that people care about.<p>Slightly off-topic but the OP left out this portion of the same gizmodo article referenced :<p>"After the event, I got a chance to play with the Nook Tablet some more. Maybe the first device was glitching or running too many apps in the background, but the second unit was much more fluid and responsive. It still had some lagginess, and web browsing wasn't amazing, but it was definitely better. eBooks and magazines especially. Long story short, it was much more in line for what's expected in a $250 device."

There's a clear reason for the death of the spec. The NYT mentioned a few months ago, that software has improved the speed of calculations much more dramatically than hardware did. Is anyone surprised that the closed systems are winning!?<p>"the White House advisory report cited research, including a study of progress over a 15-year span on a benchmark production-planning task. Over that time, the speed of completing the calculations improved by a factor of 43 million. Of the total, a factor of roughly 1,000 was attributable to faster processor speeds, according to the research by Martin Grotschel, a German scientist and mathematician. Yet a factor of 43,000 was due to improvements in the efficiency of software algorithms"

You need specs to handle the churn of incoming and outgoing data, multitask your apps, draw the local part of games, etc etc. Even devices that amount to mere terminals, are not <i>dumb</i> terminals.