The iPhone 6 Review
by Joshua Ho, Brandon Chester, Chris Heinonen & Ryan Smith on September 30, 2014 8:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iPhone 6
GPU Performance
While we don't quite have real games to benchmark against, we do have benchmarks that are reasonably good approximations of games, which heavily stress the GPU. For the most part, this means that we can see the performance of the A8's PowerVR GX6450 GPU but there are some aspects that are CPU-bound, which we'll discuss after the results.
Edit: Before I get into the results, I must caution that Basemark X will have inaccurate on-screen results as the benchmark was made using XCode 5.x in order to keep scores comparable between versions 1.1 and 1.1.1. This doesn't affect the overall score, which is solely calculated based upon off-screen performance.
For the most part, we see that the GX6450 is at about the same level as Qualcomm's Adreno 420, which seems to track closely to expectations given that the A7's GPU was around the same performance as the Adreno 330. The 3DMark test does have an interesting result, but it seems that this is because 3DMark's physics test has a strong amount of data dependency that restricts the level of out of order execution that can be done. NVIDIA's Tegra K1 is the current leader in graphics performance, but of course it's also in a tablet instead of a smartphone so it's not a direct competitor.
NAND Performance
As we move towards the goal of seamless performance in everyday tasks, one significant factor is IO performance. While there's definitely a minimum level of performance that allows for generally acceptable smoothness, there's value in having higher storage performance (e.g. prevent bottlenecking in situations such as updating apps in the background). In order to test this, we use Androbench with some custom settings on Android and a custom utility developed by Eric Patno for iOS, who has been quite helpful with furthering our efforts to test storage performance.
As this is the first time that we've looked into NAND performance on iOS devices, it's definitely worth scrutinizing the data a bit more closely than in most cases. There are a few notable cases here, which are the class-leading speeds for sequential reads and writes on the iPhone 6, but also the rather middling random read and write speeds for the iPhone 6 and 5s. The oddest result is definitely the iPhone 5, which is Ryan's personal unit and while the random read speeds are on the low side, random write speeds are easily record-setting.
In practice, with tablets and smartphones being less multitasking heavy than PCs/laptops, the sequential scores are probably slightly more relevant to the overall user experience. The iPhone 6 results show a significant increase in performance over the iPhone 5s in all of the tests, which is always good to see.
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bigstrudel - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Yeah Alpha and Note 4 are frankensteinish. Plastic on the back. Metal on the edge. Glass on the front.No wonder the Note 4 has gaps in the build you can slide a piece of construction paper into.
Samsung needs to go back to what they do best: using leftover "polycarbonate" TV scrap to make their devices.
danbob999 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Like I said, I agree completely. I don't see any reason for not using plastic.elajt_1 - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
Metal + glass = heavier, breaks more easily, blocks signals. I would have to say that I like the iOS more than anything I've seen from Android so far tho.cupholder - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Protip chuckles: Samsung phones cost more to make than the iPhone. So what point are you trying to make? That you'd prefer a cheap feeling bendable phone?And this is coming from someone with an iPhone 6+. It feels cheap. And it IS cheap.
Kidster3001 - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
Plastic is not necessarily crap. I work with all kinds of phones everyday at work, testing them. In our experience iPhones are much more prone to breaking when dropped than are plastic phones. Metal and glass doesn't bounce very well.Wolfpup - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
I think Apple needs to compete in the mid range and low end pricing segments, and they needed to a year or three ago.The lightning connector is defective, these iPhone 6s bend, which is absurd, etc...
I'll defend the resolution though. It's perfectly fine. Android devices just compete on some specs that don't actually matter because there are so many companies directly combating each other.
I think the iWatches LOOK great too for that matter, and they come in 90 billion styles anyway. BUT of course you have to be seriously married to iOS for their to be a point of them...even then, I'm not sure.
Not sure about Google Wear either. I'd really prefer something that can work on it's own. As always, Microsoft was YEARS (a decade?) ahead on this with their spot watches, but everyone acts like Apple invented it LOL.
steven75 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
I know lots of people with iOS devices and never heard any complaints about the lightning connector. That thing was an incredible improvement over the old 30 pin connector and is head and shoulders above micro USB as well.mrochester - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Yeah, I love the lighting connector. Micro USB is just horrible in comparison, I can't believe its not even reversible. Come on manufacturers, it's 2014, not 2011!Parhel - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Me too. I wish the cables were cheaper, but that's about it. Don't see how anyone could call it 'defective'. I've never had a cable or port break. I'm sure it happens, but I've never heard of it happening.Omega215D - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
That's my only issue with the Lightning cable is the price. Though I can find some good ones for a decent price from a reputable manufacturer and is sold in big brick&mortar stores like Best Buy.After using it for the iPod Nano 7th gen I can't go back to the old iPod cables.