Happy weekend!
There has been a lot of news related to benchmarking lately, including an admission by Google that they blocked Play Store downloads of benchmarking apps during the Pixel 8 review embargo, as well as fresh chips coming down the pipeline by Qualcomm and MediaTek.
Discussion questions:
- Do smartphone benchmarks matter?
- Are they still a useful reference and do you consider them when shopping for an upgrade?
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Do smartphone benchmarks matter?
Maybe? I look at them from time to time. For most people it is just a number and it is nice for an average user to confirm that the new phone is a little better than the previous.
I recently beta-tested a device (been using it since May). And I ran some benchmarks on it. I noticed that someone else was also benchmarking the device before and after pushing updates. So, I feel that there are companies out there trying to perform well on the benchmarks.
Are they still a useful reference and do you consider them when shopping for an upgrade?
I’m mostly concerned about the following, in no particular order:
- age of the SoC
- screen refresh rate
- availability of replacement parts and repairability
- durability
- the company selling the device (CSR, ESG, reputation)
- whether or not the device is an rebranded rectangle from an OED
- bloatware
Bloatware removes many brands from my list of potential devices. Yes, I could use adb to remove them, or maybe even root my phone, but I shouldn’t have to buy a device with Facebook baked in.
