System Performance

As previously mentioned this year a major goal of ours was to focus on benchmarks with metrics that better indicate user experience rather than being subject to additional layers of indirection in addition to updating our previously used benchmarks. Probably one of the hardest problems to tackle from a testing perspective is capturing what it means to have a smooth and fast phone, and with the right benchmarks you can actually start to test for these things in a meaningful way instead of just relying on a reviewer’s word. In addition to new benchmarks, we’ve attempted to update existing types of benchmarks with tests that are more realistic and more useful rather than simple microbenchmarks that can be easily optimized against without any meaningful user experience improvements. With that said, let's get into the results.

Kraken 1.1 (Chrome/Safari/IE)

Google Octane v2  (Chrome/Safari/IE)

WebXPRT 2015 (Chrome/Safari/IE)

JetStream 1.1 (Chrome/Safari)

JetStream 1.1 (Stock)

Google Octane v2 (Stock Browser)

Kraken 1.1 (Stock Browser)

WebXPRT 2015 (Stock Browser)

Browser performance here is pretty much in line with expectations as pretty much every OEM using Snapdragon 820 is going to be using the same basic BSP and most of the optimizations here are going to be done by Qualcomm rather than the OEMs.

PCMark - Work Performance Overall

PCMark - Web Browsing

PCMark - Video Playback

PCMark - Writing

PCMark - Photo Editing

Again, performance is in line with expectation in PCMark, although there are some improvements here and there that are primarily centered about web browsing performance which is almost constantly being improved as developers figure out new optimizations for browsers. With that said we can move on to Discomark, which is a true high level benchmark designed to show exactly how quickly a suite of common Google and OEM applications load from NAND or from RAM.

DiscoMark - Android startActivity() Cold Runtimes

DiscoMark - Android startActivity() Hot Runtimes

Here the Galaxy Note7 shows some improvement on hot runtimes relative to the Galaxy S7, but the cold runtimes have dropped for some reason. It looks like much of the delta here is due to Dropbox which is now running significantly slower on the Galaxy Note7. I suspect that this is related to possible changes in Dropbox or its interaction with TouchWiz rather than any significant underlying difference in system performance relative to the Galaxy S7. Overall, the Galaxy Note7 performs about where you'd expect from a Snapdragon 820 device from Samsung given the performance of the Galaxy S7.

Battery Life and Charge Time System Performance Cont'd and NAND Performance
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  • tipoo - Tuesday, August 23, 2016 - link

    Yes please. Interesting topic that is strange that smaller Chinese companies do better than some Android giants.
  • Bombdog - Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - link

    "like the iris scanner are actually useful and work well which is amazing considering how this is the first modern smartphone with an iris scanner"

    It's not, the Lumia 950 & 950 XL were the first.
  • JoshHo - Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - link

    Duly noted. The review has been updated.
  • Geranium - Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - link

    Lumia 950 & 950 XL use face recognition, not iris scaning.
  • StevoLincolnite - Wednesday, August 17, 2016 - link

    Nope.
    The Lumia's have an infrared camera and another camera that specifically designed to take pictures of your eyes.
  • slyronit - Tuesday, August 23, 2016 - link

    No. The Surface Pro 4 and Surface book use face recognition. Both the Lumias you mentioned use Iris scanners.
  • supraman21 - Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - link

    I was really hoping for 2 Lane storage. They have it, its available, why the hell don't they use it! Especially considering how much an effect storage performance has on overall system performance. Apparently they also have developed and have ready a new 5 Axis image stabilization system for phones. Wtf are they doing?
  • phoenix_rizzen - Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - link

    Leaving features on the table for future phones, to get people [back] onto the upgrade treadmill?
  • WPX00 - Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - link

    I actually get the reasoning behind the un-swipeable tabs in SMS and Contacts: for years, Samsung has kept an unnecessary feature in these apps that is swipe to call/message, so a horizontal swipe has already been taken by that function. It's a ridiculous feature I have never used or seen anyone use, and even after 3 years of using a Samsung I still swipe in those apps sometimes and call someone instead of moving tabs.
  • snajk138 - Wednesday, August 24, 2016 - link

    I actually use that swipe all the time. In my opinion it's a great time saving feature.

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