How do Android users feel about high-end Android phones losing performance battles against iPhones?

[mikegg]

I'm curious:

People often make the claim that Android phones have better hardware and you get more for the price. Yet, the recently released Note 7 loses badly to the one-year old iPhone 6s in many benchmarks according to the latest Ananandtech review:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10559/the-samsung-galaxy-note7-s820-review/4

How do Android users currently feel about iPhone vs Android raw performance nowadays?

 

[corkyg]

I pay no attention to other people's benchmarks and claims. As long as my Droid does what I want it to, that's all I care about.

 

[WelshBloke]

Personally cross platform javascript benchmarks are less than useless so I'm not bothered at all.

I'm not bothered by the benchmarks between android and iOS at all. The differences between the OSs are far more important to me as hardware is more than fast enough on both platforms.

For me the "openness" of android is far, far more important than benchmark scores.

 

[JimKiler]

Should Samsung users care? I have the Moto X Pure edition which is at the bottom of a lot of those benchmarks, but my phone is fast.

 

[Oyeve]

This sites reviews are pretty much a joke IMO. These tests are all over the place, most likely programmed to give whatever fruit de jour the upper hand. This joint has gone to crap. Reviewer bitching about mic hole placements and symmetry. Who really cares? My S7 is years ahead of any fruity phone and my upcoming Note 7 will be even better.

 

[Bryf50]

High-end smartphone hardware has hit the point of diminishing returns. The SoCs, screens, cameras, etc. can only be incrementally updated from here. Probably the last thing that Android phones need is the high performance storage that Apple has.

 

[Zaap]

Same for me as what others have said. I couldn't care less about someone's benchmarks.

The only benchmark of a phone I care about is how useful it is to me. Can I add 128GB+ of SD storage in it? Can I use its wacom screen and pressure sensitive pen to jot notes with? As-is, I can set it on my wireless chargers around the house and at work, and it'll charge, right??

No? Then it fails the 'benchmarks' I care about.

I've never personally found the usual number-game benchmarks to be all that useful to me in guaging the worth of computers and smartphones. And yes, that's even when benchmarks are supposedly in favor of devices I prefer; it simply doesn't mean anything to me that translates to real world use.

 

[dainthomas]

Haha, what a joke. Basically any review site worth mentioning (even pro-Apple ones) say the Note7 is better than the 6s. Except for this one.

But as others have said, in daily use you're not going to notice much difference in any top phone from the last couple years. (Unless you're an Apple user and want more storage).

 

[Anubis]

could not possibly care any less, winning or losing

 

[gorcorps]

I don't base my phone purchases based on CPU power.

 

[gpse]

I know most people don't care about benchmarks, but in the long term the more powerful CPU helps. One thing I've noticed is iPhones are supported longer, and most people hang on to them longer than android phones. The current version of iOS is supporting a phone that came out 5 years ago. I also know a lot of people that are rocking an iPhone 4s currently, and the phone is still responsive and usable with only 512mb of RAM. With Android I find most phones are only supported for a year or two, and they slow down in that time, most have to be reset and set up as new to regain speed.

 

[sweenish]

I know most people don't care about benchmarks, but in the long term the more powerful CPU helps. One thing I've noticed is iPhones are supported longer, and most people hang on to them longer than android phones. The current version of iOS is supporting a phone that came out 5 years ago. I also know a lot of people that are rocking an iPhone 4s currently, and the phone is still responsive and usable with only 512mb of RAM. With Android I find most phones are only supported for a year or two, and they slow down in that time, most have to be reset and set up as new to regain speed.

You just tried to connect two dots that have nothing to do with each other.

 

[dawheat]

Hardware also includes display, memory, and other components. For example, I imagine most would take the 1440p AMOLED screen in the Note 7 over the 6S Plus screen.

However in the last 1-2 years, I think it's all hit diminishing returns. There's really no app that really performs materially differently on a Note 7 vs Note 5 vs 6S vs 6 as app developers still have to code for the mainstream.

The iPhone 7 will definitely have a screaming mobile SOC...and no one will really take advantage of it. I actually prefer the approach taken by the Exynos 8890 over the S820 - good performance with good power efficiency, leaking some peak performance on the table. Peak performance is close to pointless unless there's a significant software jump (AR?).

 

[Kazukian]

Most stuff you experience on either platform is animations, both are plenty fast, another year or so when midrange android devices use the 820 chipset will be interesting.

 

[JAG87]

Any person with a working brain cell buys their device based on OS/ecosystem/apps. Every flagship nowadays has a great looking display, LTE and 802.11ac connectivity which is plenty fast, a SoC that is plenty fast, cameras that take more than decent pictures and videos, and biometric features to make our lives easier. The only thing that matters is whether you like using Android or iOS. The hardware spec debate is pretty much moot at this point.

 

[Red Storm]

I've had many smartphones over the years, and never once have benchmarks been a deciding factor for me. They can be interesting to look at, but they are utterly useless for making a decision on which to get IMHO.

What do I base my purchasing decision on? Physical design (slim bezels, nice sized screen, etc.), software design, and the capabilities of the phone. Oh and price, but that takes a back seat to the rest.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Synthetic benchmarks are useless IMO, but real world performance is a big difference maker. However I've probably been the most vocal about Android sluggishness in the past.

I personally don't think Android performance got really close to iOS until maybe Jelly Bean or so with Project Butter and the Nexus 4. Even then there's still basic UI stutters here and there even on my Nexus 6P. I suspect some of it has to do with the slow NAND. If you just try to do things while apps update from the Play Store the phone already feels sluggish (you can barely notice when an iPhone is updating apps)

Hopefully things get better with the next Nexus?

 

[core2slow]

The only benchmark I care about are battery life and screen-to-bezel ratio, two of which Apple loses mightily for almost a decade now.

 

[poofyhairguy]

How do Android users currently feel about iPhone vs Android raw performance nowadays?

Feels like Apple is focusing on the wrong things. Sure their SoC and storage is fast, but compared to the Note 7 my iPhone 6s Plus has

-a much worse screen. The gap between the screens is magnitudes larger than the gap between the SoCs and you stare at the screen constantly

-a much worse camera especially in low light

-a much worse form factor and screen to bezel ratio. the iPhone 6s Plus is also crazy top heavy.

-no VR platform outside of Google cardboard

-no pen or any way to really make it any more than a big iPhone

Meanwhile Samsung keeps pushing the boundaries of what a smartphone can do (like a working Iris Scanner) while Apple blatantly treats its iPhone customers like cash cows ("the new iPhone looks a lot like the last one but without the port you got used to over decades!") as it dumps its money into cars or whatever instead of making the iPhone a more competitive product. Heck even the SoC doesn't feel like its for the iPhone, in certain way its so overpowered for mobile use that you get the feeling iPhone users helped finance the R&D for Apple's Pro tablets, or maybe eventually even the CPUs in its Macbooks.

 

[deathBOB]

They just bury their heads in the sand. See this thread.

Of course, numbers don't mean anything by themselves, but it is disappointing to go into a store and try the latest Android phones and be confronted by lag and dropped frames. I didn't get my 6S+ specifically because of performance, but I did return the Moto X Pure I ordered first because it really wasn't any smoother than my original Moto X.

 

[quikah]

Meanwhile Samsung keeps pushing the boundaries of what a smartphone can do (like a working Iris Scanner)

Oh come on. The Lumia 950/950XL has iris scanner for almost a year now. It is all tiny iterations in smartphones these days.

 

[Roland00Address]

I can care less comparing high end android vs high end ios in benchmarks. The phone is more than performance (cpu/gpu) and furthermore cpu and gpu performance is more than benchmarks. Software design, battery life, screen, price, are the things that now drive phone sales, not some benchmark for all the phones are not slow (you can debate whether they are fast or whether they are satisfactory).

I do care about one thing, the $200 price point and the $400 price point and whether these devices use the "big arm" cpu cores or the "small arm" (small arm being a53 and a7 as the high speed cluster, big arm being a57, a72, or the custom qualcomm or custom samsung). That is just because I want higher performance to trickle down to lower price points.

And so far we are seeing the $400 devices getting the high end arm cpus. We may seem soon a72x2+a53x4 (aka qualcomm snapdragon 650) or a72x4+a53x4 (aka qualcomm snapdragon 652) in the lower price points soon due to how small a72 is and how you can fit a72x2 in the same space as a53x4 and the a72 will generally outperform the a53x4. If you compare the $200 price point you see plenty of octo core a53s so I am hoping we will move to a hexcore which uses a72x2 and a53x4.

(note there are some silly socs out there like the helio x20 by mediatek which is a72x2 plus a53x4 as a medium power cluster and a a53x4 in a low power cluster, using a 6 core vs an 10 core design I bet is just to win a paper spec race and not real world performance)

 

[sweenish]

They just bury their heads in the sand. See this thread.

Maybe expand on that? Last I read, not a single person has said that Apple's SoCs are slower, or that Android SoCs compete at synthetics.

What has been said is that SoCs, regardless of OS, are fast enough. Those stutters on Android are because of Android more than they're because of the SoC.

Or are you just wanting to start some kind of us vs. them fanboy circlejerk?

 

[Lodix]

I can care less comparing high end android vs high end ios in benchmarks. The phone is more than performance (cpu/gpu) and furthermore cpu and gpu performance is more than benchmarks. Software design, battery life, screen, price, are the things that now drive phone sales, not some benchmark for all the phones are not slow (you can debate whether they are fast or whether they are satisfactory).

I do care about one thing, the $200 price point and the $400 price point and whether these devices use the "big arm" cpu cores or the "small arm" (small arm being a53 and a7 as the high speed cluster, big arm being a57, a72, or the custom qualcomm or custom samsung). That is just because I want higher performance to trickle down to lower price points.

And so far we are seeing the $400 devices getting the high end arm cpus. We may seem soon a72x2+a53x4 (aka qualcomm snapdragon 650) or a72x4+a53x4 (aka qualcomm snapdragon 652) in the lower price points soon due to how small a72 is and how you can fit a72x2 in the same space as a53x4 and the a72 will generally outperform the a53x4. If you compare the $200 price point you see plenty of octo core a53s so I am hoping we will move to a hexcore which uses a72x2 and a53x4.

(note there are some silly socs out there like the helio x20 by mediatek which is a72x2 plus a53x4 as a medium power cluster and a a53x4 in a low power cluster, using a 6 core vs an 10 core design I bet is just to win a paper spec race and not real world performance)

Actually 2×A73 = 4x53 more or less in die space not A72. And indeed we will see more hexacores big.LITTLE next year because A73 is smaller than A72 ( which is smaller than A57 ) so it will be cheaper to manufacture than current 72 and there is alredy some phones with the SD650 for good prices from Xiaomi... but I hope 8×LITTLE SOCs go to extinct.

 

[Deeko]

As others have said, cross platform javascript benchmarks are not actual measures of device performance - they measure software more than they measure hardware. One device running Kraken faster just means that it can run Kraken faster. It might render some websites faster, it might not - Javascript is a funny beast. All that really matters is how much the device performs at _actual tasks_.