When Apple unveiled the iPhone 16 sequence in early September, the corporate launched the A18 Professional chip as “the quickest CPU in any smartphone.” The A18 chip that powers the non-Professional iPhone 16 fashions needs to be virtually as quick.
However I knew going into the Glowtime occasion that I’d not purchase an iPhone 16 Professional this 12 months. As an alternative, I selected the iPhone 16 Plus, with the A18 Professional’s chip being the least of my worries. I needed a bigger display screen, higher battery life, Apple Intelligence, and the Digital camera Management button.
I took the iPhone 16 efficiency as a right, trusting the A18 can be a fantastic improve from the iPhone 14 Professional’s A16 Bionic. It might be an improve that I wouldn’t discover with regards to velocity. As an alternative, I counted on it to ship quick AI and improved vitality effectivity.
A number of weeks later, I don’t have Apple Intelligence as a result of it’s not out but, and Europe should wait even longer. Nonetheless, the iPhone 16 Plus battery is pretty much as good as I had hoped.
Additionally, we lastly have a velocity take a look at involving the iPhone 16 Professional Max and Galaxy S24 Extremely to find out which telephone is the quickest. The outcomes are extremely predictable for the present state of the cellular business.
The iPhone 16 Professional Max benchmarks show that Apple is true to label the A18 Professional chip because the quickest within the business. The Galaxy S24 Extremely can’t match it, and neither can every other 2024 Android flagship. However as I preserve telling you, benchmarks received’t inform you the total story.
The Galaxy S24 Extremely may not carry out as nicely in these benchmarks, however you received’t understand it’s slower in actual life than the iPhone 16 Professional Max, if that’s even the case. You’d have to make use of each gadgets to see the variations, if any.
Additionally, a very powerful factor to recollect is that the majority smartphone customers received’t want that prime efficiency. I rely myself in that group. I don’t play graphic-intensive video games, nor do I want the highest processing energy that the A18 Professional can ship. Put in another way, I may have simply stored utilizing the iPhone 14 Professional with out skipping a beat.
This brings me to certainly one of my favourite velocity checks for brand new smartphones, the one which PhoneBuffs runs for all-new flagship releases. The latest model of the comparability entails The iPhone 16 Professional Max and the Galaxy S24 Extremely.
As I stated earlier than, the outcomes are predictable. What I meant by that’s that the iPhone would absolutely win. However it is going to solely “win” by a really small margin, contemplating how extremely quick mid-range and flagship telephones have change into—so small that it doesn’t even matter.
As you may see within the screenshot above, the iPhone 16 Professional Max and Galaxy S24 Extremely completed the primary spherical virtually concurrently. Within the second spherical, the iPhone beat the Galaxy telephone by a few seconds.
The outcomes mimic the iPhone 15 Professional Max vs. Galaxy S24 Extremely velocity take a look at from earlier this 12 months, however they’re even nearer. The Galaxy S24 Extremely has benefited from software program optimizations since its launch, so the efficiency increase is comprehensible.
What do these rounds imply, and the way do they replicate real-life use? Properly, the primary lap consists of every telephone opening the identical suite of apps for the primary time. Some apps are easy apps that don’t require numerous processing. Others are extra taxing for the CPU, and the listing consists of video games.
The primary spherical is the one which issues, and the iPhone virtually all the time wins this spherical. The iPhone 16 Professional Max did it, too, however the margin is within the milliseconds.
The second lap consists of opening the identical apps from RAM. The iPhone 16 Professional Max has 8GB of RAM, whereas the Galaxy S24 Extremely options 12GB. The iPhone wins by lower than two seconds right here, displaying that iOS 18 is extra optimized than Android 14. It may get barely higher.
What PhoneBuff does with these checks is to copy real-life use. We open apps on a regular basis and transfer from one app to the subsequent. Some keep in reminiscence, others don’t. That’s the velocity we care about, having the ability to get rapidly from one app to the subsequent and have the smartphone do no matter we’d like it to do.
The velocity take a look at exhibits you wouldn’t be improper to purchase both gadget should you want a quick flagship and don’t care in regards to the working system. That stated, the Galaxy S24 Extremely’s successor is a few three months away. That mannequin will characteristic a barely sooner chip, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4.
