After mining through two years' worth of 3DMark data comprising of three million results, Futuremark's report has some interesting revelations
On the day of Apple’s eagerly-awaited iPhone 6S announcement, a respected industry benchmark company – Futuremark – tries to point at historical trends and data gathered over the past three years to highlight a simple fact. Who’s better in the Apple vs Android performance race? Is there a clear winner? How have past iPhones compared to leading Android flagship smartphones at the time? The revelations are telling, also pointing towards the dynamically shifting Android manufacturers landscape and the overwhelming popularity of Apple iPhones in the recent past.
Apple vs Android: Who’s winning the smartphone and tablet war?
To illustrate the performance divide, Futuremark (renowned for making industry standard cross-platform benchmarking software since 1997) points to its 3DMark mobile benchmark’s Ice Storm Unlimited score – we run these tests while testing smartphones, laptops, tablets, desktop PCs, as well.
According to 3DMark’s Best Device Ranking, which is like a global leaderboard of devices based on their benchmark score, Futuremark claims that Apple’s iPhones are always playing catch up to the bevy of Android flagship smartphones and not surprisingly – for the most parts, Apple only releases one major smartphone and tablet each year, whereas Android manufacturers are a dime a dozen, a trend that’s only increasing.
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Starting from September 2013, the Apple iPhone 5S trailed the Sony Xperia Z Ultra by around 20%, and the performance difference only widened as recently as November 2014 when the Apple iPhone 6 Plus was inferior to the Google Nexus 6 by around 30%. With the current generation of Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge Plus overtaking the Google Nexus 6, the gulf between Android flagships and Apple iPhone 6 Plus has widened even further.
The same trend is witnessed on the tablet front as well, with Apple iPads trailing equivalent Android tablets with respect to 3DMark performance right through 2013 up until now where the NVIDIA Shield Tablet is really putting quite a bit of daylight between its pedestal and the Apple iPad Air 2 trailing behind in its wake.
iPhone 6 vs Nexus 6: Flagship performance perception
Futuremark’s data may largely be damning as far as the Apple iPhone is concerned, it nevertheless throws up an interesting performance perspective with respect to 3DMark runs on the iPhone 6 and Nexus 6. The Futuremark team discovered a key difference between the iPhone 6 and Nexus 6 that can only be seen by analysing thousands of 3DMark benchmark results from the real world.
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According to Futuremark, the iPhone 6 produces “remarkably consistent (performance) scores”, whereas the Nexus 6 shows “signs of performance throttling.” You can see the disparity for yourself in the picture above. Apple iPhone 6 results fall largely between the 16k to 18k mark on 3DMark, and 20% of iPhones reflect this consistently. This is in huge contrast to the poor showing of the Nexus 6 which has scores ranging from 15k to 24k – a huge swing, clearly showing signs of some sort of performance throttling. Keep in mind that these may be less than ideal testing conditions, still it’s no excuse for the wild range of results reflective on the Nexus 6. The iPhone 6’s overall performance may be lower than the Nexus 6’s but at least its user base indicates a far more consistent performance behaviour.
Android arms race: Which manufacturer reigns supreme?
Apart from Apple vs Android performance highlights, Futuremark’s report also reflects upon the swinging fortunes of the smartphone industry’s heavyweights and newbies over the past two years.
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Futuremark looked at 3DMark results to see how Android smartphone brands are rising or falling in popularity. From April 2013 to August 2015, it saw Samsung’s Android share fall from 35% to 29%, but it remains the #1 global Android brand by far. Similarly, significantly fewer 3DMark results were reported from HTC, LG, ASUS in 2015 compared to 2013. Brands like OnePlus, NVIDIA, Lenovo and Huawei saw more results coming through in 2015, perhaps indicating towards their growing Android market share.
To see the entire report in an infograph, click here.
NOTE: While reading this report, keep in mind that this report’s conclusions are drawn and compiled from only one benchmark among 3DMark’s suite, and Futuremark hasn’t provided any details if all of the 3 million results samples it collected had up-to-date 3DMark instances running on them. We don’t know whether each result is linked to only one device or not. We have reached out to Futuremark for a response in this regard.
UPDATE: Futuremark has clarified that "1 result = 1 test run on 1 device" and that "3DMark scores are comparable across versions".
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Jayesh Shinde
Executive Editor at Digit. Technology journalist since Jan 2008, with stints at Indiatimes.com and PCWorld.in. Enthusiastic dad, reluctant traveler, weekend gamer, LOTR nerd, pseudo bon vivant. View Full Profile
