

iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus: Preliminary Benchmark Results - srikar
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8559/iphone-6-and-iphone-6-plus-preliminary-results

======
ksk
The A8 chip is "only" a dual-core and clocked at a relatively modest 1.4GHz.
It's heartening to see it beat competing 2+GHz Quad-cores. To me, it looks
like Apple is comfortable enough with their marketing strategy to stay away
from the pointless GHz rat-race that exists in the Android world.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megahertz_myth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megahertz_myth)

~~~
ctdonath
Methinks Apple has decided/realized that specs are a cop-out. Customers are,
all too often, inundated with numbers not so much to prove how good the
product is, but to conceal that it's not good enough. "Meh, the new iPhone has
a mere 1.4GHz dual-core, but _our_ product has a 2+GHz quad-core!" really
means "here's some numbers that _look_ overwhelmingly superior, in hopes that
will distract you from the fact that it isn't."

Apple went "retina" to end the pixel-count competition: if you can't _see_ the
pixels, you don't care how many there are. Apple refused to state RAM size for
mobile devices from the beginning: user doesn't have an option, and rarely (if
ever) notices the limit, so the actual memory size doesn't matter. Processor
count & speed is irrelevant if it's used efficiently enough to practically
outrun the competition.

Sure, Apple does provide _some_ specs. People are too used to seeing such
numbers, despite few needing to see them IF the implementation is done right.
People want options, so some specs are flexible (at a price). But remember
that behind the scenes at retail, the devices options are labeled little more
than "Good, Better, Best": most users don't want better numbers, they want
superior performance with whatever it's got. Those gloating about size are
likely less able to use it.

~~~
avn2109
This is something I've been harping about for a long time. Apple is a _user
experience_ company, not a hardware or software company (perhaps they're the
only UX company out there).

There's an old saw about the railroads getting killed by the tractor trailer
in the 20th century because they thought they were in the railroad business,
when in fact they were in the transportation business. This time, Apple knows
exactly what business it's in, while the competition seems to have no idea
(compare the highly-curated experience of shopping/buying/shipping/using an
Apple product to the Android or Lenovo analogue).

------
rayiner
The really interesting data point to me is the 6+'s 13.7 hours of WiFi
browsing versus the LG G3's 8.8 hours. Both are 5.5" screens with ~3000 mAh
batteries, but the iOS/A8 combo lasts more than 50% longer.

~~~
Supermighty
The LG G3 has a 1440x2560 QHD screen. It takes more power to dive more pixels.

~~~
kllrnohj
So Android pushed 77% more pixels using only 50% more power? Sounds like
Android is more efficient!

Obviously power is more complex than just that, but seriously Android's
reputation for being inefficient is really not justified due to things like
this, where resolution differences are completely ignored.

~~~
tr0picana
A minor correction: The iPhone 6+ renders at 1242 x 2208 but scales it down to
1920 x 1080. So 30% more pixels at 50% more power?

~~~
bryanlarsen
It's the physical pixels that suck most of the power, so "77% more pixels" is
more accurate.

Certainly the GPU on the iPhone 6+ is going to take more power because it's
rendering at 1242x2208 rather than 1920x1080, but that's a minor effect
compared to the physical screen power draw.

------
blinkingled
To give you a faint idea of how meaningless battery benchmarks are vis-à-vis
real life usage, here are results from Phone Arena -
[http://www.phonearena.com/news/All-bow-to-the-new-
endurance-...](http://www.phonearena.com/news/All-bow-to-the-new-endurance-
kings-Sony-Xperia-Z3-and-Z3-Compact-score-a-record-battery-life_id60922) \- 9+
hrs for Xperia Z3 and 6+ for iPhone 6+ which is lesser than the S5.

"We measure battery life by running a custom web-script, designed to replicate
the power consumption of typical real-life usage"

In other words I would be very surprised if any of these benchmarks translate
to anything close to the numbers they proclaim.

~~~
saturdaysaint
Showing two different benchmarks doesn't actually prove that battery
benchmarks are meaningless.

~~~
blinkingled
Well they are both web browsing battery life benchmarks. If loading different
web pages shows 5+ hours of discrepancy then yes from a user standpoint they
are precisely meaningless.

~~~
meepmorp
No, it might mean that one of the benchmarks is meaningful and the other is
not. Or it might be that they test different scenarios and could be useful to
different groups of users.

What the discrepancy tells you is that there's something odd about the
benchmarks that could stand to be better investigated/explained.

~~~
blinkingled
> there's something odd about the benchmarks

You say odd, I say meaningless :)

~~~
meepmorp
Ok, but they're not the same thing. Odd might just mean a different set of
underlying assumptions that cause the numbers to misalign, or perhaps a bug.

------
gt565k
I'm surprised no one mentioned the ability to use custom ROMs and kernels on
android devices with optimized CPU governers and overclocking on demand and
how that affects the phone's performance.

Android stock branded phones are packed with bloatware from the carriers. This
is something apple actually has a grip on due to how closed their platform is.

I'm running c-rom with lean kernel on my Galaxy Note 3 and running just one of
those benchmarking programs, I get results that are a lot better than what
anandtech shows. Still not better than apple, but pretty close to them for a
last generation phone.

I'll try to run all of the benchmarks sometimes this weekeend and do a post.

~~~
listic
Could you please elaborate what is "c-rom with lean kernel" and how can I run
it? (on the original HTC mini). I bought it because I wanted a non-Android
smartphone that's not huge and decently built, but I'm tired of HTC Sense.

~~~
mpthrapp
(S)he's talking about running a custom operating system on their phone. Check
out xda-developers if you want a overview on the topic. I haven't actually
done it myself, but they're the people to talk to.

Side note, I'm confused, you bought an Android phone because you wanted a non-
Android smart phone? HTC Sense is still Android, just with a custom skin.

~~~
gt565k
Sorry I can see how this is confusing, but it's basically what mpthrapp said.

I've got a unbranded version of android suited for my phone with an optimized
kernel (lean kernel).

It runs a lot faster, the battery lasts longer, and I don't have to deal with
200+ bloatware apps on the phone...

Here's the page for C-ROM. See if it's compatible with your device.

[http://www.c-rom.org/](http://www.c-rom.org/)

lean kernel for note 3 [http://forum.xda-
developers.com/showthread.php?t=2488233](http://forum.xda-
developers.com/showthread.php?t=2488233)

Your best bet is to just get on xda-developers forums and go to your device's
section.

------
nicpottier
I was waiting for some independent battery tests and this kind of confirms
what I suspected would happen. Apple is back to absolutely destroying Android
on the battery front.

Some might not remember, but the drive to bigger Android screens was actually
mostly driven by battery life. Android has always been subpar in this critical
respect, the first devices were absolutely terrible, I suspect primarily
because Dalvik is nowhere near as efficient as cross-compiled objective C and
the rather more restrictive background task management on iOS.

iPhone 5's were holding their own and then some against the much larger
battery Android devices, so now that they batteries are the same on the 6's
there is no contest. Yes, bigger screens do eat more battery, but the ratio of
battery/screen size actually favors bigger screens, ergo why tablets get
incredible battery life. (and why the Note has always been a great battery
performer)

I've carried a Nexus since the very first one, but I think I might jump to a
6+, the advantages are too much to ignore. I'll wait to see what the Nexus X
is first as I really love Android these days, but I sure would love that
battery life and camera.

Nice to see Apple put the screws down.

~~~
Osmium
Yeah, this would be all very well and good if Apple started shipping phones
with larger batteries. The fact that battery life per mAh (may be) better on
iOS than Android means nothing if Apple keeps on rejecting larger batteries in
favour of thinness.

I know a lot of people would much prefer a slightly thicker iPhone 6 (that
didn't require the camera to protrude, for one) if it meant a larger battery.

------
shalmanese
I'd like to see some PC-phone comparisons now that they're starting to
approach parity. By my calculations, the new iPhone seems to be roughly as
fast as a 3 - 4 year old Macbook Air.

------
dan1234
There's a handy Reddit thread[0] with reports of actual "real world" usage.

[0][http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/2gzxx1/post_your_batt...](http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/2gzxx1/post_your_battery_stats_screenshots_when_your/)

~~~
mladenkovacevic
I'm always confused by the terms "Usage" and "Standby". Between those two
which is "Time off charger" and which one is "Screen Time"?

~~~
vijaykiran
I think there's a pretty good explanation here:
[http://www.scottyloveless.com/ios-battery-
life/](http://www.scottyloveless.com/ios-battery-life/)

~~~
mladenkovacevic
Ok that explains it a little bit.

So Standby time is basically "Time off Charger", and Usage is supposed to be
"Screen on time"? Except I have a feeling that "Usage" includes any time when
your phone is not sleeping (which would include not just the time when you
have the screen on but also any time when the processor is doing stuff in the
background).

What draws me to that conclusion is the ratio of usage to standby time that
some people in that thread have. I have a hard time believing that most people
are staring at their screens for half of their waking life. I mean even if you
didn't leave the house all day you'd still have to take your eyes off the
thing to prepare food, urinate, put your clothes on.

~~~
arrrg
Yep, listening to podcasts (with the screen off), for example, is definitely
“Usage”.

I’m not quite sure how the phone counts background activity that doesn’t
notify the user or require user interaction (e.g. Mail checking for new
emails, …).

------
melling
Wish they would include the iPhone 5 results. Most people keep a phone for two
years.

~~~
jskonhovd
You can run the benchmarks yourself!

[http://www.webkit.org/perf/sunspider/sunspider.html](http://www.webkit.org/perf/sunspider/sunspider.html)

------
rgonzales
I think the real standout here is NVIDIA. Shield was such an interesting
product from the very beginning, it's nice to see how it is actually holding
up against some of the "big boys".

~~~
asendra
To be fair, the Nvidia shield mentioned in these benchmarks is a 8" tablet,
not a smartphone. I think k1 hasn't yet been shown in a smartphone form
factor. Given the limitations caused by size, it's not really a fair
comparison.

~~~
rayiner
Especially considering that these devices are all thermally limited:
[http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/SoC-
th...](http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/SoC-
throttling.0012-640x480.png)

------
mrfusion
It seems odd they report 10 hours web browser battery life for the iPhone 5.
I'd be lucky to get 1-2 hours of constant browsing.

~~~
josephlord
They are using Wifi and pausing between page loads (so that fast phones don't
load 4x as many pages and lose the test).

On Wifi 10 hours sounds closer to my experience than 1-2 hours.

~~~
mrfusion
My phone is 2.5 years old at this point. Maybe I've been losing battery
capacity so gradually I've never noticed.

That would be amazing to have 13 hours of browsing with a new phone. (as
reported in the article)

~~~
dan1234
The iPhone 5 was only released 2 years ago (21 Sept 2012), yours can't
possibly be 2.5 years old.

~~~
mrfusion
Ok, apparently I have a 4S. Maybe it's older than I thought.

~~~
josephlord
I know someone with a 4S and the battery really struggles now especially when
using GPS.

~~~
malyk
This happened to me. I bought a Mophie Juicepack for it and it solved the
problem...by doubling the weight/volume of the phone.

Got an iPhone 6 on friday.

Yesterday I went on a 2.5 hour, 30 mile bike ride, and the iphone6 battery
meter was essentially still at 100%. My 4s would have been well under 50%. Of
course, the M8 is why, but after 3 years of recharging the 4s every night the
battery was really starting to feel it.

------
Igglyboo
Seems like Apple really knows what consumers want. I spend about 90% of my
iPhone time in Safari/Chrome. Advanced 3D graphics are nice and all but I
rarely take advantage of them, I'd expect that most users are the same.

~~~
jonknee
The top apps include many graphic heavy games, your usage is most likely not
typical (which should be fairly obvious considering what site you're on).

Currently top grossing for the US: Clash of Clans, Candy Crush Saga, Pandora,
Game of War - Fire Age, Farm Heroes Saga.

~~~
nmcfarl
I'm not certain there is a direct correlation between the apps that make the
most money in the App Store, and the apps that people spend the most time in.

It would mean that all the built in apps, and all the free apps in the App
Store relatively unused, and that advertising models are a fools errand as no-
one spends enough time in the apps. I suspect companies persuing these kinds
of apps, including apple, are seeing enough usage to make a business case for
their actions.

~~~
jonknee
Of the free apps in the US store right now are keyboards (new for iOS 8 and
don't really count as "apps") and Facebook Messenger, iTunes U, Amazing Thief
(game), The Maze Runner (game), Instagram, Facebook, Beach Buggy Racing
(Game), etc.

Games are extraordinarily popular on iOS. I see people gaming constantly on
planes, trains, busses, etc.

------
bhartzer
I don't do a lot of gaming on my phone or on a tablet, so seems to me that the
best bet right now (for me) is an iPhone 6 Plus.

------
frik
OT: AnandTech founder Anand Shimpi retires from journalism to work at Apple:
[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/anandtech-founder-
ana...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/anandtech-founder-anand-shimpi-
retires-from-journalism-to-work-at-apple/)

------
jonchang
I wonder if it's time to start scaling mobile benchmarks by the size of the
device.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Doesn't the "offscreen" test do that? i.e. render something on an offscreen,
fixed and uniform resolution on all devices?

Although battery performance should probably be normalized to battery size /
amperage, yeah. Bigger phones usually have the same resolution as their
smaller siblings but larger battery capacity.

------
hocuspocus
Do we know how Apple's Cyclone shows roughly 4x better IPC against Krait at
Sunspider benchmark? Are the extra registers and bigger L1 enough to explain
that?

~~~
Spittie
My best guess is that the Sunspider benchmark like single-threaded
performance, and Cyclone destroys Krait/Cortex here.

As for why, Cyclone's core are bigger, wider compared to Krait/Cortex, and are
Out Of Order. (This is a nice article on that:
[http://www.extremetech.com/computing/179473-apples-a7-cyclon...](http://www.extremetech.com/computing/179473-apples-a7-cyclone-
cpu-detailed-a-desktop-class-chip-that-has-more-in-common-with-haswell-than-
krait))

------
cevaris
Shouldn't this included iPad too comparisons too, since it includes the Nvida
shield? Else, the Nvida shield should probably not be up there.

~~~
szatkus
Nvidia made quite interesting SoC, that's why they placed Shield in the
comparision. iPad has only slightly boosted iPhone SoC.

------
joeblau
Can someone explain where there is such a huge gap between the 6 and 6+ when
it comes to the Onscreen GFXBench test?

~~~
valley_guy_12
Presumably because the 6+ has a much larger screen.

~~~
ldrndll
Made even worse by the fact that it renders at 2208x1242 and then downsamples
to 1920 × 1080.

