The Snapdragon 855 Phone Roundup: Searching for the Best Implementations
by Andrei Frumusanu on September 5, 2019 8:30 AM ESTBattery Life
While not strictly related to the performance or the Snapdragon 855 chipset itself, it’s also interesting to see how the different devices end up in terms of their battery life. In this approach we can identify how efficient the non-SoC components of a device are.
The Galaxy S10+ continues to dominate here, most likely due to Samsung’s newer generation OLED panel that seemingly might be employing a newer and more efficient emitter generation compared to all other phones in the comparison. Another aspect of the Galaxy S10 that is different to the other devices in the comparison is that it’s using Broadcomm’s BCM4375 WiFi 6 (802.11ax) chipset rather than Qualcomm’s own WiFi 5 chipset for most of the rest of the devices.
Sony’s Xperia 1 suffers from its 4K panel screen and the fact the DDIC has to work a lot harder to drive it, whilst devices like the G8 and Mi9 suffer from either an inefficient screen or simply a smaller battery capacity. The OnePlus 7 Pro in 90Hz mode has to make a battery compromise, while the remaining the devices are doing quite well, but just aren’t as power optimised as the S10+.
PCMark shifts the results around a bit. In this case, the same factors as on the web test play a role, however the SoC power efficiency has a bigger impact here as the CPU is a lot more active. Devices as the OPPO Reno 10x take the lead because they’re also showcasing the worst performance in PCMark due to the more relaxed scheduler and DVFS setting.
Overall still, all Snapdragon 855 devices except for the Xperia 1 are doing well in this test.
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Babar Javied - Thursday, September 5, 2019 - link
Those are some good questions.... I ask similar questions before making a purchasing decision.Wardrive86 - Thursday, September 5, 2019 - link
Those are good points about a phone comparison but I believe the point of this article is to compare different implementations of the Snapdragon 855Macazian - Thursday, September 5, 2019 - link
It'd be interesting and I would be intrigued if you added the Asus ZenFone 6 S855 for China phones to this list.Andrei Frumusanu - Thursday, September 5, 2019 - link
I don't have the unit, sorry.airdrifting - Thursday, September 5, 2019 - link
It's funny how top of the performing phones in the benchmarks are mostly Huawei devices, yet we couldn't buy them in the US because of puppy politicians with their ulterior motives.Alistair - Thursday, September 5, 2019 - link
Your carrier might not stock one, but "can't buy one" is a ridiculous thing to say. They are everywhere, offline and online, including Amazon.IUU - Friday, September 6, 2019 - link
Right now , snapdragon is king, so your lack of huawei does not hinder you from buying some top silicon for your smartphones. Some twists included and some not so well-known corners, snapdragon rules over the a12 as well; if for nothing else , for the hideous software environment called iOS.The latest anf greatest of Huawei(cough cough kirin 980 )} still struggles to overcome sd 845. You are really not losing much.....
cha0z_ - Monday, September 9, 2019 - link
Rules over the A12? :DSSNSeawolf - Thursday, September 5, 2019 - link
I don't particularly care about the 855, but Andrei's muscular technical expertise always makes for a compelling article worth reading.patel21 - Thursday, September 5, 2019 - link
Qualcomm would have been devastated by reading the review that they funded out of their pockets:" Apple’s SoCs now power the best-performing devices. "
Also when the performance of your device depends on the software optimization of the vendor, qualcomm would better do something about it.