The iPhone 5 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi, Brian Klug & Vivek Gowri on October 16, 2012 11:33 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iPhone 5
Six Generations of iPhones: Performance Compared
Section by Anand Shimpi
Cross platform smartphone benchmarks are interesting, but they do come with their own sets of issues. Before we get to that analysis however, let's look at how the iPhone's performance has improved over the past six generations. Luckily Brian has a set of all of the iPhones so he was able to run a few tests on all of the devices, each running the latest supported OS.
We'll start with SunSpider 0.9.1, our trusty javascript performance test:
The transition from iPhone to iPhone 3G shows you just how much additional performance you can squeeze out of simply a software change. There's likely even more that could be squeezed out of that ARM11 platform, unfortunately newer versions of Safari/iOS aren't supported on the iPhone 3G so we're left with a runtime that's around 37x the length of a single run on the iPhone 5.
The rest of the devices support and run iOS 6, so we're at least on a level software playing field. The performance boost from one generation to the next is quite significant still. Going by this chart alone, the best balance of minimal upgrades and maximum perceived improvement would be from the original iPhone to the 3GS then again from the 3GS to the 5.
The BrowserMark results tell a similar story. The jump from the ARM11 based iPhone/iPhone 3G to the 3GS running iOS 6 is huge. Both the 4S and 5 offer doublings in performance, albeit for different reasons. The 4S delivered a doubling thanks to a doubling of core count and a move to the Cortex A9, while the iPhone 5 doubled performance through a much higher clock speed and microarchitectural improvements.
Finally we have Geekbench 2, which only runs on the iOS 6 supported devices so we say goodbye to the original iPhone and iPhone 3G:
None of the jumps looks as dramatic as the move to the iPhone 5, but we already know why. The Swift CPU architecture does a great job improving memory performance, which shows up quite nicely in a lot of the Geekbench 2 subtests.
On the PC side we often talk about 20% performance improvements from one generation to the next being significant. It's clear that the mobile SoC space is still operating along a hyper Moore's Law curve. The rate of progress will eventually slow down, but I don't see that happening for at least another couple generations. The move to ARM's Cortex A15 will be met with another increase in performance (and a similarly large set of power challenges), and whatever comes next will push smartphones into a completely new category of performance.
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Calista - Sunday, October 21, 2012 - link
English is not my native language (as I'm sure you have noticed) and so the flow in the language is far from flawless. But I still believe my opinions are valid and that the review was too long-winded.Teknobug - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
I live in a big city and I don't know a single person that went and got the iPhone 5, most are happy with the iPhone 4 or whatever phone they're using, I don't see what's so great about the iPhone 5 other than it being built better than the iPhone 4's double sided glass structure (I've seen people drop their's on the train or sidewalk and it shattering on both sides!).And what now? iPad mini? I thought Apple wasn't interested in the 6-7" tablet market, Steve Jobs said 9" is small enough. I know Apple tried a 6" tablet a decade ago but the market wasn't read for it back then.
name99 - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
You know what AnandTech REALLY needs now?A comment moderation system like Ars Technica, so that low-content comments and commenters (like the above) can be suppressed.
Teknobug is a PERFECT example of Ars' Troll Type #1: "Son of the "I don't even own a TV" guy: "
This is the poster who thinks other people will find it interesting that he cares nothing about their discussion or their interests, and in fact judges himself as somehow morally superior as a result. The morphology of this on Ars Technica includes people popping into threads about Windows 8 to proclaim how they will never use Windows, people popping into threads about iOS 6 to proclaim that they never have and never will buy an Apple product, and people popping into Android related threads and claiming that they will never purchase "crappy plastic phones." In these cases, the posters have failed to understand that no one really cares what their personal disposition is on something, if they have nothing to add to the discussion.
ratte - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
yeah, my thoughts exactly.worldbfree4me - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
I finished reading the review a few moments ago. Kudos again for a very thorough review, however I do a have a few questions and points that I would like to ask and make.Am I wrong to say, Great Job on Apple finally catching up to the Android Pack in terms of overall performance? The GS3, HTC X debuted about 6 months ago yes?
Have these benchmark scores from the competing phones been updated to reflect the latest OS updates from GOOG such as OS 4.1.X aka Jelly Bean?
Clearly the LG Optimus G is a preview of the Nexus 4,complete with a modern GPU In Adreno 320 and 2GB ram. I think based on history, the Nexus 4 will again serve as a foundation for all future Androids to follow. But again, good Job on Apple finally catching up to Android with the caveat being, iOS only has to push its performance to a 4inch screen akin to a 1080p LCD monitor verses a true gamers 1440p LCD Home PC setup. Ciao
Zinthar - Thursday, October 18, 2012 - link
Caught up and passed, actually (if you were actually reading the review). As far as graphics are concerned, no smartphone has yet to eclipse the 4S's 543MP2 other than, of course, the iPhone 5.I have no idea what you're going on about with the Adreno 320, because that only gets graphics performance up to about the level of the PowerVR SGX 543MP2. Please see Anand's preview: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6112/qualcomms-quadc...
yottabit - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
Anand, as a Mech-E, I think somewhere the anodization facts in this article got very wonkyI didn't have time to read thoroughly but I saw something about the anodized layer equaling half the material thickness? The idea of having half a millimeter anodized is way off the mark
Typically there are two types of anodizing I use: regular, and "hard coat anodize" which is much more expensive
If the iPhone is scuffing then it's definitely using regular anodizing, and the thickness of that layer is likely much less than .001" or one thousandth of an inch. More on the order of a ten-thousandth of an inch, actually. The thickness of traditional anodizing is so negligible that in fact most engineers don't even need to compensate for it when designing parts.
Hard-coat anodize is a much more expensive process and can only result in a few darker colors, whereas normal anodizing has a pretty wide spectrum. Hard-coat thicknesses can be substantial, in the range of .001" to .003". This usually must be compensated for in the design process. Hard coat anodize results in a much flatter looking finish than typical anodize, and is also pretty much immune to scratches of any sort.
Aluminum oxide is actually a ceramic which is harder than steel. So having a sufficient thickness of anodize can pretty much guarantee it won't be scratched under normal operating conditions. However it's much cheaper and allows more colors to do a "regular" anodize
When I heard about scuffgate I immediately thought one solution would be to have a hardcoat anodize, but it would probably be cost prohibitive, and would alter the appearance significantly
guy007 - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
A little late to the party with the review, the iPhone 6 is almost out now...jameskatt - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
Anand is pessimistic about Apple's ability to keep creating its own CPUs every year. But realize that the top two smartphone manufacturers (Apple and Samsung) are CRUSHING the competition. And BOTH create their own CPUs.Apple has ALWAYS created custom chips for its computers - except for a few years when Steve Jobs accidentally let their chip engineers go when they switched to Intel and Intel's motherboard designs.
Apple SAVES a lot of money by designing its own chips because it doesn't have to pay the 3rd party profit on each chip.
Apple PREVENTS Samsung from spying on its chip designs and giving the data to its own chip division to add to its own designs. This is a HUGE win given Samsung's copycat mentality.
Apple can now always be a step ahead of the competition by designing its own chips. Realize that others will create copies of the ARM A15. But only Apple can greatly improve on the design. Apple, for example, greatly improved the memory subsystem on its own ARM chips. This is a huge weakness on otherARM chips. Apple can now custom design the power control as well - prolonging battery life even more. Etc. etc.
phillyry - Sunday, October 21, 2012 - link
Good points re: copycat and profit margin savings.I've always been baffled by the fact that Apple outsources their part manufacturing to the competition. I know that Samsung is a huge OEM player but they are stealing Apple's ideas. They are doing a very good job of it and now improving on those ideas and techs, which is good for the consumer but still seems completely illogical to me from Apple's perspective. Must be the 20/20 hindsight kicking in again.