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Benchmark Scores and your choices


Mondays In Flames

  

9 members have voted

  1. 1. Do Benchmarks play a role in your buying decision?

    • Yes
      2
    • No
      7


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I have a question for you all, recently the flagship phones that have been coming out have all been pretty much on par with each other, with the key differentiators really being design, brand, and usability, among other things. I remember about a year ago or so, I used to look at Benchmark scores, and it really did influence what type of phone I was more prone to get.

 

 

But with the recent phones, notably the ONE and S4 with Sprint, there really isn't a big difference in scores and performance (The S4 gets higher scores), but that doesn't really seem to translate into better performance in real world tests (subjectively). My question is this: Do you look up certain objective facts, such as the benchmark scores, or are you more influence by the your own subjective observations, such as feel of the phone or brand?

 

 

-Luis

 

 

(The reason I'm asking is because articles keep pushing scores, and performance, one saying that the S4 isn't better than the iPhone 5, and that they fail to understand why someone would line up to buy the S4)

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I have a question for you all, recently the flagship phones that have been coming out have all been pretty much on par with each other, with the key differentiators really being design, brand, and usability, among other things. I remember about a year ago or so, I used to look at Benchmark scores, and it really did influence what type of phone I was more prone to get.

 

 

But with the recent phones, notably the ONE and S4 with Sprint, there really isn't a big difference in scores and performance (The S4 gets higher scores), but that doesn't really seem to translate into better performance in real world tests (subjectively). My question is this: Do you look up certain objective facts, such as the benchmark scores, or are you more influence by the your own subjective observations, such as feel of the phone or brand?

 

For me, the following things are very important to me, and I've put them in order of preference:

 

1. RF performance in fringe areas

2. Screen size/quality (I have big meaty paws)

3. Build quality/attractiveness of case design

4. Performance

5. Battery life

6. Bands supported

7. Developer support/ease of rooting & MODing

 

In general on performance, it doesn't have to be the best on the market. It just has to be good enough. And for me, almost always flagship devices are good enough on performance. I do a lot of multi tasking and have come to rely on 2GB of RAM as the standard for me now.

 

The least important thing to me is brand. I am not loyal to any one brand. I like and dislike things of every brand. The company that can deliver a device that has 6 of the 7 things I listed above, and they got my business.

 

Things like camera to me are pretty unimportant. Also, I'm not married to an OS. As long as I can still use the apps that I need, I'm good. I'm intrigued with the new BB10 OS, where I can still run an Android app in a pinch if needed.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

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I'm intrigued with the new BB10 OS, where I can still run an Android app in a pinch if needed.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

I really liked the BB10, and the whole gesture based system was really simple to pick up. My boss was going to get it, but he ended up getting the iPhone 5. I was looking forward to playing with it some more.

 

 

-Luis

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I really liked the BB10, and the whole gesture based system was really simple to pick up. My boss was going to get it, but he ended up getting the iPhone 5. I was looking forward to playing with it some more.

 

 

-Luis

 

BB is supposedly planning a 5 inch sized device later this year. If Sprint carries it, I think I'm going to pick it up.

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD

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I don't put much stock in benchmarks unless it is run in an apples to apples comparison that really demonstrates the hardware's true capability. In other words both devices need to be running the same exact builds of Android (CM10 or another AOSP rom) with no running apps to compare them properly.

 

Regardless, benchmarks aren't really something I look for or need to run. I'm usually well informed on what hardware the phone has and don't need benchmarks to know how well it will work compared to other devices.

 

I generally agree with Robert's post on what he wants in a device but I would move developer support to the top.

 

with regards to my comparison of the HTC One and the S4

 

It's the HTC One hands down for me.

 

If Sprint's model is anything like other carrier branded S4's with a locked and encrypted bootloader, then I want no part of it. Big mistake Samsung.

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The One and the S4 are both the Snapdragon 600 processor, so it makes sense that their benchmarks would be similar. I read somewhere that every smartphone from here on out in 2013 on Sprint will contain some kind of Snapdragon, so it makes it less of an issue for me. If there's no choice between at least, say, Snapdragon vs Tegra vs Exynos, what do benchmarks matter? They're all the same in the backend...

 

Edit: Which was a problem with last generation, too. The Samsung Galaxy S3, the HTC EVO LTE, and the Motorola Photon Q all had identical chipsets - a Snapdragon S4 running at 1.5 GHz, which had barely better benchmarks than the previous gen's Galaxy S2 running a Exynos 4 1.2 GHz dual. It wasn't until the mid-gen Note II with the Exynos 5 quad 1.6 GHz and the Optimus G with the Krait that things got shaken up.

 

Now, if we were getting something with a Exyos Octo or a Tegra 4 chip in it, then I'll start checking benchmarks again and get interested.

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Well for me the most important factor is screen quality, screen size, build quality/design of device. Benchmarks are just not reliable enough and has absolutely no baring on real world performance. Prime example, I have both the gs4 and the one and for the most part the gs4 scores slightly higher on most benchmarks which is understandable being that its clocked at a slightly higher speed but in real world use the one simply does everything faster.

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