Android Authority:
Generally whenever Apple announces a new iPhone it also announces a new System-on-a-Chip, and this year was no different. The newly launched iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and the iPhone X all use Apple’s in-house A11 Bionic processor. Inevitably, comparisons are made between Apple’s latest SoC and the latest offerings from Qualcomm, Samsung and Huawei. It doesn’t usually take long for benchmarking numbers to appear and for Apple to be declared the winner.
So, why is it that Apple’s SoCs always seem to beat the competition? Why are the processors used by Android seemingly so far behind? Are Apple’s chips really that good? Well, let me explain.
Really interesting (and really geeky) analysis.
Qualcomm should just make a premium, big, fast chip that is expensive. Galaxy Notes are like $1000 and Samsung is capable of eating the cost of a more expensive SOC.
But why would Samsung take an extra hit on their margins if they don’t have to?
All the people who just don’t like the Apple/iOS ecosystem are still going to have to buy Samsung’s phones even if their SoC is way behind.
It’s not like any other Android competitors are going to have anything better either.
It’s not like the Android software ecosystem is likely to take advantage of a substantially more powerful SoC either. It’s the land of the lowest common denominator.
Such a chip will probably be much more expensive per unit than Apple’s because Samsung doesn’t sell their flagships in the same volumes as Apple.
If you’re looking for a good laugh, scroll through the comments. Or, it might make you want to tear your hair out 😉
“It’s not like the Android software ecosystem is likely to take advantage of a substantially more powerful SoC either. It’s the land of the lowest common denominator”
Samsung and Google apps will probably take advantage as they always put the best in their phones. Most of the headlining features of the iphone which use the processing power are first party apps (photo effects, ar kit) anyway.
“Such a chip will probably be much more expensive…”
Thus samsung can eat the cost.
“It’s not like any other Android competitors are going to have anything better either.”
It will give qualcomm a leg up on samsung/huawei/mediatek/etc.
“All the people who just don’t like the Apple/iOS ecosystem are still going to have to buy
Samsung’s phones even if their SoC is way behind.”
Eh, theres always room for more marketing.
I just noticed, is your username a statement about the term “iSheep”?
Basically. Making fun of the insult “sheep” in general.
Those who use “sheep” as an insult are often the most sheepish 😉
I don’t know why Samsung would bother, though. They’re chasing perceived quality and some sort of alternate-product rebellion, not actual quality. And it’s making them money.
Samsung’s SD 835 GPU is actually stronger than Apple’s A11 Bionic GPU as far as the benchmarks show, so Apple still has a ways to go before claiming an all-out processor victory. I hope Apple will eventually modify their ARM GPUs to beat anything Qualcomm has to offer, but that may take some time.
You’re saying they have this capability, and have just been holding out on us all?
Run, don’t walk, away from the comments. It’s more and more of what I call the “Trumpism” of everything. Don’t like established scientific facts? Well then, just call it fake news and make up your own. I’ve worn of debating Android fans who swear to high heaven that “everyone really knows” Android chips are much faster and Apple fakes the benchmarks.
I’ve not seen those results, can you point to to some benchmarks? Is this in OpenCL on Geekbench?
GPU comparisons are increasingly hard to make as, unlike the CPU, cross GPU comparisons have to rely on common language like OpenCL. Apple has more or less stopped optimizing for that and has thrown all of their investment into Metal on Mobile. Unfortunately you can’t compare Metal benchmark results against any Android device.
You also can’t use things like games and FPS as you have no idea how much one has been optimized to run on one platform vs another.
That’s a little harsh.
Samsung’s high-end products do, as I understand it, provide actual quality, at least in hardware.
Naw, it’s that the OEMs don’t demand they do it.
The only thing funnier than Android-fan comments is Blackberry-fan comments.
(That said, while I don’t look at Apple-fan sites other than this one, I expect no better of Apple fans in comments on normal sites.)
That.
I mean, I could believe the 835’s GPU is better than the A11s.
But I don’t even know how we’d go about demonstrating it in a real-world comparison…
Isn’t that the truth!
Read the article. 🙂
I mean, I’m not saying they don’t deliver better quality than whatever shit Android phone I used to test on (I can’t even remember the name, ha), but they’re a distant also-ran in terms of chipset compared to Apple by the nature of the Android beast.