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?
Probably, but not for me.
Are they still a useful reference and do you consider them when shopping for an upgrade?
No.
Battery life and screen quality first and foremost. They’re often related to each-other. Battery life because I feel it’s the one aspect that hasn’t improved very much at all over the past 10 years, and if I don’t have enough battery, I literally can’t use my phone. Screen quality because I look at the screen whatever I do with the phone, so if the screen is bad, everything else cannot make it a better phone.
If anything, battery life is a bigger issue now because you can’t just swap batteries like you could 10 years ago. You could have a backup battery fully charged and ready to go, or if you were like me you could just buy a triple capacity aftermarket replacement battery and have an extra chonky phone.
All those options are gone now. When the battery dies, you either pay $80 for someone to replace it or (more commonly) trade it in for a new phone that’s marginally better.
Storage space, support cycle, type of screen, third party OS support, aftermarket accessories, camera quality. Size.
Also kinda part of the SoC, but the frequencies supported since I travel a lot.
I think phones have been fast enough for a while now. There’s more to a SoC than speed. When I came back to Android, I went from the fastest iPhone to a SD480 with only 6GB of RAM and it was…fine for daily use. But the camera was a big letdown on that device so I got something a little bit better a year later.
Do smartphone benchmarks matter?
Benchmarks matter inasmuch as it reflects the user experience, which is to say, benchmark numbers taken alone are meaningless. However, if you tell me a game runs with specific characteristics of user experience such as quality settings and frame rate, that data describe what I can experience playing that game.
Maybe I don’t play that game. Perhaps, I’m not a mobile gamer at all. Even then, benchmarks can provide value by describing what real world performance is attainable provided that benchmarks reflect real user experiences.
I would say that benchmarks matter but only within the context of how benchmark numbers relate to a tangible thing you could experience with the phone. A CPU score? I think the value is questionable until you talk about how an app runs.
Are they still a useful reference and do you consider them when shopping for an upgrade?
I think benchmarks are more useful for enthusiasts to understand relative performance but are usually detached from the user experience that I really care about when making a purchase.
I want to know the benchmarks, but these would not drive my purchasing decision. I want to hear from reviewers who actually used the phone… because I plan to use the phone to do phone things, not to run benchmarks.
Given the cost of phones lately, everything matters! I was seriously looking to buy a new phone since the one I have is showing its age at 4 years. I looked at specifications, performance and reviews. You can buy smartphones now for similar screen, cam & battery specs but widely different pricing. Benchmarks gives me a rough idea on how the performance of a lower priced smartphone will compare to what I have right now or a more pricer phone. Is it the only reason for me to choose a smartphone? No. Is it one of the points that I look at to see how much bang do I get for my hard earned money, absolutely! Given that phones have become outrageously expensive, I want to know how much more I am paying for a given “improvement”
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.
x
