In OpenGL ES 1.x, you can use several methods:
- glDrawArrays
- glDrawElements: TRIANGLES or TRIANGLES_STRIP (denormalized triangles)
- VBO
- glDrawTexfOES (you need to verify that you have this extension)
glDrawTexfOES is the faster method to draw efficiently quads but it is not available on old phones. VBO is efficient for static quads.
Ps: in efficient opengl es 1.x engines, you have a tool to batch drawcalls. It is recommanded to limit your drawcalls to 50.
Ps 2: the FloatBuffers is very slow on android devices < 2.3. The libgdx has rewritten this part to speed its engines. You should look this issue.