iPhone 5 Benchmarks vs Android

[Masheen]

Let me start by say that I am fully aware that benchmarks are not a strong basis to judge phones on. That being said:

I was looking at the iPhone 5 benchmarks presented by Anandtech. Source:
AnandTech - The iPhone 5 Performance Preview

I started thinking about why Android's high end phones are lower than the new iPhone's despite Android phones having better raw specifications.

The only explanation that I could come up with was most of the Android phones listed including the Samsung Galaxy S 3 were not tested Google's latest operating system, Jellybean, while the iPhone 5 was tested with newly released iOS 6.

iPhone users are trying to throw these benchmarks in my face as if the iPhone 5 is the greatest thing since sliced bread and it is hard for me to make a decent argument to the average consumer without getting into detail. Of course the iPhone 5 lacks NFC (which is huge) still has a small screen, just got 1080p video recording, just got email attachments (LOL), and really is lying when they advertise the iPhone 5 to be the thinnest smartphone on the market.

I have a Galaxy Nexus and I love the massive developer support and community that my phone has. I love Android. I also have an iPad 2 and a power book (old mac book pro) for musical / DJ needs ie: Serato so I can not completely biased. I prefer Android's freedom and variety to iOS.

I would however like an explanation as to why the iPhone 5's benchmarks are higher than what Android has out, and I would like a good rebuttal to iSheep who now has a fact sheet of why they think their phone is superior to the gs3 and anything android has out at the moment.

 

[sting7k]

Does this keep you up at night? Is it really a big deal? Your post got a little whiny why you got into the spec/feature sheet IMO. I have no interest in NFC. The 720p videos from my iPhone 4 look better than the 1080p videos from my Galaxy Nexus, resolution means nothing when the camera sensor is mediocre at best. So those things are important to you, but not everyone.

The reason is because of how the iPhone is put together. The hardware and software are made for each other in every way. The processor is not just an off the shelf cortexA9. It was custom designed by Apple to power iOS in the most efficient manner possible. They have already put it under the microscope and it's architecture is different than other ARM processors. It's dual core with a triple core GPU. The cores are also arranged differently on the silicon. For the A6 Apple actually licensed the chip instruction set, not an architecture. So it is completely designed by them unlike the A4, A5, and A5X powering iOS devices of late.

Numbers on the spec sheet really mean very little. It's how it's put together that matters. Just throwing more clock speed, GBs of RAM, CPU/GPU cores isn't always the best way. Apple's A6 could have larger caches, bus sizes, bus speeds and such to move all that data around. We don't know and won't know exactly why. It's more than just numbers though. Intel's processors have not progressed in raw clock speed the past few years because they too realized that isn't everything. More of all that means more heat and power usage. Bad things, so companies must find other ways to get more performance which is what Apple appears to have done by designing their own chip.

 

[xlDeMoNiClx]

Benchmarks vary anyway. I've seen benchmarks that said the i5 performed better than the latest Nexus but worse than the S3. Who cares either way?

 

[Shadowriver]

NFC is not huge... yet ;p i see more QR codes than NFC, and only high-end phones have them and GSIII is the first Samsung phone with NFC at it's default spec (not carrier mutants). But if you got friends with NFC around you then i guess thats good for you ;] Thru i'm still suppriced they didnt got with it in iP5 considering they intruduced that ticket up, it's just matter of time when iPhone will have NFC, Apple seems to think it's yet not ready.

Jellybeans not on SIII yet so how do they would test it on it? But even Jellybean it would not do much difference, if you thinking about project butter. Considering that GLBenchmark is running native on Android (if it's not and running on Java... here your reasons why results are worse) and most importently it's OpenGL software.... it has nothing to do with project butter. Behind name of Project Butter, there a set of improvements in UI rendering scheduling and actuall use of vsync that was imperfect in the past making UI and only UI faster and smoother. If app uses OpenGL it's a rendering software at it's own and app deals how things are rendered, not UI renderer that been improved. I recomed you to watch this:

Google I/O 2012 - For Butter or Worse: Smoothing Out Performance in Android UIs - YouTube

...and you will what project butter really is. So why iPhone is better? There very simple reasons possible, iOS is much lighter system unlike Android most of the system is native so it being direcly executed in CPU making more space for that banchmark and most importently, more aggressive background processing policies what ever you like them or not they the main reason why iOS is usually faster.

Ah and also if somebody use word "iSheep", he have not right to call himself unbiased, because people that use that word do everything and say everything usually without thinking just to beat up iOS users in argument battle. Yes Android is more open and feature rich (personally i like fact that can code for it on any system and i love Android's intent system), but preformence and marketplace was always iOS domain.

 

[xlDeMoNiClx]

NFC is not huge... yet ;p i see more QR codes than NFC, and only high-end phones have them and GSIII is the first Samsung phone with NFC at it's default spec (not carrier mutants). But if you got friends with NFC around you then i guess thats good for you ;] Thru i'm still suppriced they didnt got with it in iP5 considering they intruduced that ticket up, it's just matter of time when iPhone will have NFC, Apple seems to think it's yet not ready.

Jellybeans not on SIII yet so how do they would test it on it? But even Jellybean it would not do much difference, if you thinking about project butter. Considering that GLBenchmark is running native on Android (if it's not and running on Java... here your reasons why results are worse) and most importently it's OpenGL software.... it has nothing to do with project butter. Behind name of Project Butter, there a set of improvements in UI rendering scheduling and actuall use of vsync that was imperfect in the past making UI and only UI faster and smoother. If app uses OpenGL it's a rendering software at it's own and app deals how things are rendered, not UI renderer that been improved. I recomed you to watch this:

Google I/O 2012 - For Butter or Worse: Smoothing Out Performance in Android UIs - YouTube

...and you will what project butter really is. So why iPhone is better? There very simple reasons possible, iOS is much lighter system unlike Android most of the system is native so it being direcly executed in CPU making more space for that banchmark and most importently, more aggressive background processing policies what ever you like them or not they the main reason why iOS is usually faster.

Ah and also if somebody use word "iSheep", he have not right to call himself unbiased, because people that use that word do everything and say everything usually without thinking just to beat up iOS users in argument battle. Yes Android is more open and feature rich (personally i like fact that can code for it on any system and i love Android's intent system), but preformence and marketplace was always iOS domain.

"Was" is the right word to use.

 

[Shadowriver]

"Was" is the right word to use.

According on those benchmarks you gave it's not only "Was" but still is

 

[xlDeMoNiClx]

I didn't give any, and no it's "was".

 

[Shadowriver]

I didn't give any, and no it's "was".

Oh sry XD didn't noticed, still linked benchmarks shows what they show

 

[funkylogik]

i think op is right about iphone running the latest o/s, an o/s it was designed for.
the s3 was probably designed in preparation of JB so i wana see the exinos s3 running JB vs ip5 (both benchmarks and user experience) and then we'll know for sure.
it wont change my opinion in any way though, i love android and thats that until (if) a better open source o/s comes along

global s3, UK. Ask me anything and ill reply even if its just an intelligent (or stupid) guess

 

[Masheen]

Does this keep you up at night? Is it really a big deal? Your post got a little whiny why you got into the spec/feature sheet IMO. I have no interest in NFC. The 720p videos from my iPhone 4 look better than the 1080p videos from my Galaxy Nexus, resolution means nothing when the camera sensor is mediocre at best. So those things are important to you, but not everyone.

The reason is because of how the iPhone is put together. The hardware and software are made for each other in every way. The processor is not just an off the shelf cortexA9. It was custom designed by Apple to power iOS in the most efficient manner possible. They have already put it under the microscope and it's architecture is different than other ARM processors. It's dual core with a triple core GPU. The cores are also arranged differently on the silicon. For the A6 Apple actually licensed the chip instruction set, not an architecture. So it is completely designed by them unlike the A4, A5, and A5X powering iOS devices of late.

Numbers on the spec sheet really mean very little. It's how it's put together that matters. Just throwing more clock speed, GBs of RAM, CPU/GPU cores isn't always the best way. Apple's A6 could have larger caches, bus sizes, bus speeds and such to move all that data around. We don't know and won't know exactly why. It's more than just numbers though. Intel's processors have not progressed in raw clock speed the past few years because they too realized that isn't everything. More of all that means more heat and power usage. Bad things, so companies must find other ways to get more performance which is what Apple appears to have done by designing their own chip.

Hey man. There was nothing whiny about starting a little discussion. Don't throw stones you buttsore nerd. You're the whinny one based on the responses received. Now get mad.

 

[xlDeMoNiClx]

Hey man. There was nothing whiny about starting a little discussion. Don't throw stones you buttsore nerd. You're the whinny one based on the responses received. Now get mad.

Your post wasn't any better. Yes, he could have been more mature but you just made yourself look like just as big a douche. You seem to be the one that's mad.

 

[Masheen]

Your post wasn't any better. Yes, he could have been more mature but you just made yourself look like just as big a douche. You seem to be the one that's mad.

Naaa buddy. That's just a minor retal. Maybe you're okay with taking it up the rear but not ova here.

 

[MangoPowah]

Hey guys, calm down. Let's not resort to name calling, and let's keep it civil.

OP probably isn't tearing his hair out over this, he's probably just a bit curious and confused on why such a seemingly underpowered device outperforms others with bigger badder guns. Conclusions shouldn't be jumped to either, as that's what gets everyone mad.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

 

[funkylogik]

Hey guys, calm down. Let's not resort to name calling, and let's keep it civil.

OP probably isn't tearing his hair out over this, he's probably just a bit curious and confused on why such a seemingly underpowered device outperforms others with bigger badder guns. Conclusions shouldn't be jumped to either, as that's what gets everyone mad.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

+1000000

global s3, UK. Ask me anything and ill reply even if its just an intelligent (or stupid) guess

 

[Masheen]

Hey guys, calm down. Let's not resort to name calling, and let's keep it civil.

OP probably isn't tearing his hair out over this, he's probably just a bit curious and confused on why such a seemingly underpowered device outperforms others with bigger badder guns. Conclusions shouldn't be jumped to either, as that's what gets everyone mad.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Android Central Forums

Thank you for bringing us back to earth Mango. I apologize for getting a bit rowdy. It comes from passion. Yes I threw a few jabs in the OP, but this is Android Central, not iOS central. I really was just curious and wanted to share a question that was on the minds of many smartphone users, weather conscious or subconscious. There have been some great responses that I have enjoyed reading. Thank you.

 

[funkylogik]

passion is a great thing but i try n keep it a rule to type to people how i would to their face (i do really take the piss out of iphone/bb users to their face though but they generaly arent geeks like me and just stare at me blankly)

global s3, UK. Ask me anything and ill reply even if its just an intelligent (or stupid) guess