iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus: Preliminary Results
by Joshua Ho on September 22, 2014 7:07 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iOS
- iPhone 6
- iPhone 6 Plus
While we’re still working on the full review, I want to get out some preliminary results for the iPhone 6. For now, this means some basic performance data and battery life, which include browser benchmarks, game-type benchmarks, and our standard web browsing battery life test. There’s definitely a lot more to talk about for this phone, but this should give an idea of what to expect in the full review. To start, we'll look at the browser benchmarks, which can serve as a relatively useful proxy for CPU performance.
There are a few interesting observations here, as a great deal of the scaling is above what one would expect from the minor frequency bump when comparing A7 and A8. In SunSpider, we see about a 13% increase in performance that can't be explained by frequency increases alone. For Kraken, this change is around 7.5%, and we see a similar trend across the board for the rest of these tests. This points towards a relatively similar underlying architecture, although it's still too early to tell how much changes between the A7 and A8 CPU architectures. Next, we'll look at GPU performance in 3DMark and GFXBench, although we're still working on figuring out the exact GPU in A8.
In in GPU benchmarks, we generally see a pretty solid lead over the competition for the iPhone 6/A8. It's seems quite clear that there is a significant impact to GPU performance in the iPhone 6 Plus due to the 2208x1242 resolution that all content is rendered at. It seems that this is necessary though, as the rendering system for iOS cannot easily adapt to arbitrary resolutions and display sizes. Before we wrap up this article though, I definitely need to address battery life. As with all of our battery life tests, we standardize on 200 nits and ensure that our workload in the web browsing test has a reasonable amount of time in all power states of an SoC.
As one can see, it seems that Apple has managed to do something quite incredible with battery life. Normally an 1810 mAh battery with 3.82V nominal voltage would be quite a poor performer, but the iPhone 6 is a step above just about every other Android smartphone on the market. The iPhone 6 Plus also has a strong showing, although not quite delivering outrageous levels of battery life the way the Ascend Mate 2 does. That's it for now, but the full review should be coming in the near future.
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tripleverbosity - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
TL;DR I'm a butthurt Apple haterkirito - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
Go back to your den and still dream about your device to be the best. your worst nightmare is here in front of you - apple pawned your super spec'ed sammy phone. the benches performed by anandtech is right in front of you.akdj - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
Where in the world did that diatribe come from?Much more to a display than resolution, especially at a million pixels + @ <6"!
U sir have spent WAY to much time, alone with your spider named Andy and phone named Android. I use both and am quite lost with what you've added to a discussion based on this year's A8 performance. Not features.
iPhone, first out of the gate in 2007. Android 2008. First with 'retina' or HiDPI displays. Check. Now an OEM or two has decided we need qHD on our 5" phones when most are quite content with their 1080p 65" televisions in their living rooms?
I'm all for HiDPI, but you can go too far thus exhausting battery life.
Android has copied, Apple has copied, as has Windows. The latter two of high have matching and wide spread vertical and horizontal aggregation and integration with your 'other' everyday tools like the laptop or desktop. Who's carrying s Chromebook these days?
And if you believe the A8 second gen 64bit mobile SoC coupled with the new APIs, XCode and it's free update along with the marriage with OS X AND Windows 8.1 with continuity and handoff with OSx specifically, it's not JUST the phone! I'm slamming this response out on my year old lowly A7 Air with half the cores running at half the speed and using a third the RAM as my Note 3 while sporting a HELLUVA lot more pixels!
Wonder why it seems ...after a year of using both everyday, that regardless of the task, gaming, photo/video manipulation, or productivity...when you can find an app in parity, let's use Asphalt8. Doesn't matter which device I use. Note 3. Air. Second gen iPad mini, or my 5s...not a single one fails to SLAM the performance of my Note 3. Graphically, efficiency (this drains my note very quick!) wise and the Apple support network, vertical and horizontal support in my personal and professional life and NO Need to use KIES to organize, sync and support my media, I can count on update for a good two to three years well ahead of the next update necessary and unbelievable resale value!
Did I see ten mill sold in one opening weekend this morning? That's. Amazing!
Sorry, but your comment deserves to be smacked down and hauled out to the trash. Anand, who's now passed the torch to Brian have kept ALL of us informed for the better part of a decade now in the mobile sector all the while maintaining an 'objective' testing standard, call outs to companies 'cheating' their benches, and educating a LOT of us that don't have the time to relearn/graduate silicon, electrical and computer engineering degrees in our 40s with families.
Again, while doing all for 'nothing'. YOU, me and the rest of the world are allowed to learn for nothing and enjoy their reviews. It wasn't but six months ago five or take they were praising Samsung's latest SupAMOLED display technology now meeting the best performance of LCD and IPS/LED. Displaymate, another reputable site seems to agree.
Contributing is one thing. Even 'questioning' a result. But what you've said is almost as ignorant as one can get.
Seriously ...move along
J
RebeccaS - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
Nope, no need for KIES on the iPhone, instead you need to rely on iTunes. Hardly better in my opinion.Superkonna - Tuesday, September 23, 2014 - link
You don't need iTunes at all. You don't even need a computer. This has been the case for a long time now.TheReckoner - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
FACT: Google purchased Android and was forced to start over after the reveal of iPhone OS in 2007. Next.Hyper72 - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
Yes, I actually saw the first Android prototype; it looked a lot like a Blackberry, even in UI. Credit to Google though for immediately recognizing the potential of Apple's new hardware and UI design where Nokia, RIM, MS and others scoffed at it. In 2008 they had it reworked.I had to wait for Android 1.5 beta (released 2009) to get a software keyboard needed for the EBook reading device we were designing that used Android.
Anyway, everybody borrows from each other all the time.
tuxRoller - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
In the Plex has said that they had TWO phones in the works, one, the blackberry-like interface, and one, called Dream (iirc), that was only used a touchscreen for input.Nozuka - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
Are any of those GFX Tests using "Metal"? Would be interesting to see what kind of effect this has.kron123456789 - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
No, they don't. And more likely won't be.