Looks like Samsung forgot to send the correct S9 to Anandtech. They got one that doesn’t artificially overclock the processor when it detects a benchmark test.
I am amused by the hypocrisy of the “specs mean everything" crowd. Apple has been hammered by this crowd incessantly for years. Geekbench tests have been hung around Apple’s neck like a millstone. Now comes Apple’s custom designed processors that smoke the competition and, miracle of miracles, suddenly these tests are flawed and meaningless. Granted, if you were to put the A11 in an Android phone it probably wouldn’t improve performance much, if any, because of the software. But to the spec monkeys the 8 core Snapdragon simply has to outperform the 6 core A11 because, well, 6 is less than 8. Simple arithmetic, right?
Since when do Apple fans care about specs? I thought it was all about user experience?
C’mom as a DF reader I know you know the answer... Gruber nailed it as usual:
You can’t bring this up in public without a certain segment of Android fans losing their goddamn minds over it. “I thought specs don’t matter?” they say, and point to articles I (or whoever else brings this up) wrote in the past arguing that specs aren’t the only thing that matters. [...] For me, it’s the overall experience that matters, and that’s largely defined by the software platform.
But Samsung isn’t the company with the proprietary chips that blow away the industry commodity chips, Apple is. So iPhone users get the best in both regards: they get the iOS experience and Apple-designed hardware, and they get the vastly superior CPU and GPU. And Android users who want industry-leading performance are shit out of luck. This is unprecedented in computing history.
Well, to a certain extent, specs don’t matter, until they do. For some things, they are everything, and a faster processor will let you do more in a program than a slower one will. For day to day use, specs are generally less important and the user experience is what matters. In this case, Apple has nailed it on both sides, so whatever your angle, there’s only one conclusion.
I'm pre-ordering the S9 today... But I'm impressed with Apple's numbers. I go with Samsung for reasons other than processor speed,,, but I certainly wouldn't mind more!
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if Google doubled their sell numbers, they’d still not be where Microsoft was when they pulled out of the phone business...
I go with Samsung for reasons other than processor speed,,, but I certainly wouldn't mind more!