Which CPU is superior 2x800MHz or 1GHz?

[didroid]

Hello,

Please suggest a midprice $200-300 phone, which is capable to run web browser normally, has aGPS support, WiFi tethering and display over 3.7"

Which CPU to prefer, a dual core 800MHz or 1 GHz?
I'd assume that 2x800 equals 1600GHz and should be superior to 1GHz

I'm not a power user and don't use social networks, therefore I don't consider wise to buy a $500 unit for occasional usage in order just to looses 200 bucks in a year when new gets old.
I occasionally use Google Sky, some photo calculators (DOF), a dictionary perhaps and I need access to Emails.
No videos or games.

I just returned after 5 month of usage a Samsung Galaxy Plus to seller, because it's compass failed to work, that's even after being repaired 3 times. Most evident was this failure with Google Sky.

I still have a LG E510 from service provider but it fails to open web pages over 3G, it just often hangs for several minutes even in Wikipedia. Not speaking of a mess caused, when double clicking to icons, because often after first tap there doesn't happen instantly anything and it isn't clear did the tap failed or phone is busy with it's own rubbish.

 

[chanchan05]

Nope, dual core 800Mhz does not equal 1600Mhz performance. It doesn't work that way. Dual core means that you have 2 processors doing different things at the same time, or the helping each other doing something at the same time. Each processor has a limit of how many things it can do at a time, called instructions threads. For the sake of simplification, lets say each processor can handle one thing at a time, and the difference is speed. A 1Ghz can do task A in 1 sec, while an 800Mhz processor can do the same thing in 1.2sec. This means that while it will take a single core 1Ghz processor to do task A twice in 2secs, a dual core 800Mhz can do task A twice in 1.2 secs, because you have 2 processors running doing the task at the same time.

Now the example I gave is an oversimplification and this doesn't take into account the processor generations. For example, a dual core Exynos 5 with A15 chips (Nexus 10) is as fast as a quad core Exynos 4 with A9 chips (Galaxy Note 10.1) because the newer A15 chips can handle as many tasks as two A9 chips (again oversimplification). But the gist is simple, if you are looking at phones, and wondering about possible performance, look at processor generation, then number of cores.

An easy answer to the question is that a dual core 800Mhz would be better and faster. I'd suggest looking at a Galaxy Ace 2 at your price range, or an Xperia Sola.