Dalvik, and Dalvik's JIT compiler are definitely tuned for small batteries.
Dalvik, and Dalvik's JIT compiler are definitely tuned for small batteries.
The Dalvik JIT compiler focuses on critical sections of code. There's a reason you don't see Hotspot on battery powered devices.
Large amounts of the Android framework, especially the foundations of drawing and the View hierarchy, are in C or C++. Compiling an interactive app to native code makes much less difference in performance than a synthetic benchmark of DEX interpretation might lead one to think.
Hotspot get its name from the term of art for a critical section of code, though. That's not something that makes them different from each other; it's what they have in common.
What separates them must be that only one of them was designed with a power budget in mind.