Vote now: Do benchmark scores mean anything to you?

Smartphone performance. A very complicated matter. Every year, manufacturers blabber about percentages, performance gains, efficiency numbers in front of big presentation slides. But here’s the deal - if you calculate all those percentages across, let’s say five generations, they’d add up to more than 100 for sure.

Now tell me, do you feel like your iPhone 14 Pro Max is twice as fast as the iPhone X for example. Or the Galaxy Note 10 being 50% slower than the latest S22 Ultra? There are so many factors at play, that sometimes all these numbers may seem irrelevant.

Let’s not forget that software is moving forward too, and if one wants to speculate and delve into conspiracy theories, one could argue that modern software is unnecessarily bloated, heavy, and resource-hungry. We won’t go that far but it’s true that this performance arms race is maybe going too far.

What do you think about it? Do you care when a phone scores 1 million points in AnTuTu, or hundreds FPS in some graphics performance benchmark? Does it seem relevant to you in any way? Or are there other factors much more important when you’re putting the latest smartphone model on the scales of Maat?

I’ll just share some personal experience here before we get to the poll. I used to have a Nokia 8 device - one of the last flagships from that particular brand, rocking a Snapdragon 835 chipset (10nm). Well, this phone worked like a beast - no trace of a lag or stutter or anything like that.

Now, the 835 scored an AnTuTu benchmark score of 283331, almost identical to the Snapdragon 730G (281897). I used the Pixel 4a for about 6 months and I can tell you it lags, and it’s very far from the smooth experience I was getting from the 835.

Yeah, I know, different architectures, clock speeds, and all this - but the benchmark score is almost identical. It begs the question - is it really any real life performance indicator, like at all? There are countless examples such as this one, and also different tricks some companies use to score higher in these benchmarks, so yeah - things are a bit sketchy on that front.

Here’s our poll - let us know what you think about smartphone benchmarks. Also, share your experience regarding the subject in the comments section below!