Samsung Galaxy S6 delivers poor graphics performance vs. Apple iPhone 6 Plus

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  • Reply 61 of 131
    jmc54jmc54 Posts: 207member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by marvfox View Post

     



    There are a lot of good phones where the battery cannot be removed.




    I couldn't tell if Argonaut was being sarcastic as that was one of the big selling points of the Samsung phones prior to this!

  • Reply 62 of 131
    revenantrevenant Posts: 621member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by boredumb View Post

     

    Samsung seems to require competitors, in order to have some idea of what to emulate and build...

    It never seems to me that Apple needs to have competition to "push" it towards improvements, innovations, or quality.

    So I'm not sure we'd suffer that much if Apple were the "only supplier"...(but God help us if almost any other company were).




    i understand what you mean here, but they are making some great tellys, though i think LGs are better.

  • Reply 63 of 131
    revenantrevenant Posts: 621member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by FreeRange View Post





    It goes deeper than that in business - it is a culture of cheating and stealing pretty much across the board. It is a basic business strategy. There is no moral compass. This goes for Korea and China.



    i would like to give you 1st prize for not knowing what you are talking about. i live and work in Seoul meeting with businessmen week in and week out, and though some people do not have scruples in business, most do. i am not sure if there are any 1st world nations that can honestly claim not to have cheated or stole within the realm of business. the east is also not plagued with the west's sense of individuality (for its good and its ill). 

     

    China is in a different league of their own and claim to have invented nearly everything under the sun.

  • Reply 64 of 131
    patpatpatpatpatpat Posts: 628member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Baka-Dubbs View Post

     

    I would recommend going to Anandtech if you want an actual comparison. Two excerpts that directly contradict DED's conclusions:

     

    "The Exynos 7420 SoC appears to be class-leading in performance, although there is the obvious question of power consumption that still has to be answered. Samsung’s first 14LPE SoC seems promising, although we’ve yet to validate whether big.LITTLE is more efficient than when we last tested it in the Exynos 5433. The GPU is generally quite close to the Adreno 430, with about a 10-20% advantage in performance depending upon the workload, although at the same clock speed it probably wouldn’t have any advantage. The 1440p display can also reduce performance compared to a 1080p display."

     

    So its class leading according to their benchmarks, and the GPU actually outperforms the Adreno 430(due to the higher clock speed)

     

    And speaking about the display(with some Edge specific issues)

     

    "Speaking of displays, Samsung has integrated an incredible display into both versions of the Galaxy S6. I’m really blown away at how far AMOLED has come in the past few years, as the Galaxy S6 is one of the best displays we’ve tested for luminance and overall color accuracy. The only real problems I can see are color shifts with viewing angles, and white point tending to be a bit green depending upon the unit we’re looking at. There are some edge-specific issues, namely uneven luminance and odd color shifting towards green hues on white at the edge of the display. Other than this, the display of the Galaxy S6 is relatively perfect with its dark, inky blacks and amazing color."


    I was at the local t-mobile store yesterday (looking for a new phone for the wife) and they had the S6 with the curved edges. The screen was just beautiful by far the best of any other devices in the store. 

  • Reply 65 of 131
    froodfrood Posts: 771member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Baka-Dubbs View Post

     

    I would recommend going to Anandtech if you want an actual comparison. Two excerpts that directly contradict DED's conclusions:

     

    "The Exynos 7420 SoC appears to be class-leading in performance, although there is the obvious question of power consumption that still has to be answered. Samsung’s first 14LPE SoC seems promising, although we’ve yet to validate whether big.LITTLE is more efficient than when we last tested it in the Exynos 5433. The GPU is generally quite close to the Adreno 430, with about a 10-20% advantage in performance depending upon the workload, although at the same clock speed it probably wouldn’t have any advantage. The 1440p display can also reduce performance compared to a 1080p display."

     

    So its class leading according to their benchmarks, and the GPU actually outperforms the Adreno 430(due to the higher clock speed)

     

    And speaking about the display(with some Edge specific issues)

     

    "Speaking of displays, Samsung has integrated an incredible display into both versions of the Galaxy S6. I’m really blown away at how far AMOLED has come in the past few years, as the Galaxy S6 is one of the best displays we’ve tested for luminance and overall color accuracy. The only real problems I can see are color shifts with viewing angles, and white point tending to be a bit green depending upon the unit we’re looking at. There are some edge-specific issues, namely uneven luminance and odd color shifting towards green hues on white at the edge of the display. Other than this, the display of the Galaxy S6 is relatively perfect with its dark, inky blacks and amazing color."


     

    They don't really contradict DED's conclusions.  The S6 with its Octacore and 'design decisions' is clearly ends up with a higher processing speed.

     

    The S6 has a higher resolution display so it has to do much more work than the iPhones.  If you give one person much more work to do, and another very little work, then declare the one that did less work is 'faster' because they get the work done quicker, you are either being misleading.

     

    It is the same reason the iPhone 6 plus is considerably "slower" than the iPhone 6.  It has a better display which requires it to do more work.

     

    Instead of pretending the iPhone is faster for any of the misleading arguments Daniel presents, he could have just summarized his opinion in a sentence or two:

     

    "The S6 runs slower than the iPhone 6 and 6 plus because it has a higher resolution screen.  I don't feel the trade off in having a nicer screen is worth slowing the performance down.  Samsung should have built their phone with the same resolution as the iPhones, and as the data shows, if they had, their phone would run faster than the iPhones"

  • Reply 66 of 131
    fallenjtfallenjt Posts: 4,053member
    As I always said: samsung chip is POS since quad cores ( only 2 cores work at a time).
  • Reply 67 of 131
    chiachia Posts: 713member
    taniwha wrote: »
    No there are not. A removable battery is a hallmark feature, particularly when you're out and about and a long way from a power source.

    Removable batteries are actually a liability.
    You have to use the one specific to a specific phone, unlike a battery pack.

    The battery pack can be used for not just your own phone, but your next phone and the phones of those around you who need a charge.
  • Reply 68 of 131
    cnocbuicnocbui Posts: 3,613member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by fallenjt View Post



    As I always said: samsung chip is POS since quad cores ( only 2 cores work at a time).

    You're wrong.  So since that's what you always say you must always be wrong.

  • Reply 69 of 131
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by cornchip View Post

     

    Samsung: We must win at CORES!

    Me: OK

    S: We must win at SIZE!

    M: Uh, alright

    S: We Must win at RESOLUTION!

    M: Fine

    S: We must win at SENSORS!

    M: yeah, great

    S: We must win at DESIGN!

    M: Let me just stop you there. What about ecosystem? 

    S: Yes... we berieve we can win at ecosystem... ecosystem take lots time to deverop and need very measured approach... currentry we have googer pray store as well as our own app store with... thousands of great apps rike angry birds.

    M: Hmmmmm.... Ok... that sounds great... as soon as my... contract's up... I'll... think about maybe...


    Really?  Racist comments are the best you can do?  

    Shame on you!

  • Reply 70 of 131
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    At some point these types of sniping articles become really pointless. Like 3 years ago.
  • Reply 71 of 131
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by cropr View Post

     

    Indeed, and it is cultural.  All East Asian companies suffer from it.  There is a lot social pressure in these countries to follow the hurd


    Wow, thank you for the deep insight into 1/4 of the earths population.  This explains why all East Asian companies look the same and I can't tell them apart!  Now could you help me understand what ALL African companies are like?  Perhaps I am overreacting, I expect some of your best friends are East Asian companies.

  • Reply 72 of 131
    ewiltsewilts Posts: 5member

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/samsung-galaxy-s6-review-the-iphone-6-has-met-its-match-1427825674

     

    Quote:


    However, in our grueling battery test, which cycles through a series of websites with brightness set at about 75%, the S6 lasted just over seven hours (a little less than the Galaxy S5). The iPhone 6 conked out after 6½ hours


     

    http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Samsung-Galaxy-S6-edge-vs-Apple-iPhone-6_id3967/page/4

     

    Quote:


    The end result is in favor of the Galaxy S6 edge: it scored 8 hours and 11 minutes, while the iPhone 6 got 5 hours and 22 minutes.


     


    The other huge new breakthrough in the battery department for the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge is in its lightning-fast recharge times. The Galaxy S6 edge is among the fastest charging phones we’ve seen so far: it takes just an hour and 23 minutes to recharge from 0 to 100, while the iPhone 6 - despite its much smaller battery - takes nearly double that time: 2 hours and 27 minutes.


  • Reply 73 of 131
    alfiejralfiejr Posts: 1,524member

    all this back and forth about tech benchmarks just don't matter to 99% of users (or me). they care about the everyday results of that tech on the screen when they are using the phone:

     

    - camera performance, like point and shoot quality in all kinds of light and any lag times

    - video recording performance, like image stabilization and maybe slo mo

    - game performance, like no stutters and the graphic level of detail of the games

    - does it get uncomfortably hot to hold after a while

    - the strength of the screen image in outdoor light

    - how long does the battery last during intensive use for taking video, games, and streaming

     

    so tech wizards, how does the S6 stack up against the iP 6 for these real life criteria? that's what's worth talking about ...

  • Reply 74 of 131
    Look closely at the table of benchmark results and you'll find that the Samsung phone does have more powerful hardware than Apple.
    However, like the article said, Samsung is too obsessed in cranking up resolution that in the real world where users will use the native resolution on their respective phone, The iphone user will inevitably enjoy a faster performance thus better user experience.
    I guess the point is that high resolution looks great on paper specs but iphone is better user experience.
  • Reply 75 of 131
    ewiltsewilts Posts: 5member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by tmay View Post

     

    The problem for Samsung is that 6 months from now, they will have to compete against the A9 and probably haptics, and in the meantime, that small (30%) performance advantage today may not even survive the onslaught of Snapdragon 810 devices coming (late!) to the market. 


    Yes, and I'll bet Samsung is just sitting on its collective arses waiting for that to happen and not do any development in the mean time.

     

    The Snapdragon 810 is getting slaughtered in the benchmarks and it's got known heating issues that have forced HTC to slow down the clock rate even more in its latest update.    I hope the 810-based phones come with mandatory ball coolers.

  • Reply 76 of 131
    ewiltsewilts Posts: 5member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by argonaut View Post



    I also read that battery life is awful compared to iPhone 6... and.. you can't remove the battery.

    Ouch!

    http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Samsung-Galaxy-S6-vs-Apple-iPhone-6_id3971/page/4

     

    Quote:


     To get a more accurate understanding of battery life, we turn to our rigorous battery test where we put the Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6 through identical workloads representing typical smartphone use, but do so with no idle, off-screen time. We have also pre-set both screens to output an equal amount of brightness - 200 nits, a level comfortable in many environments. The end result is in favor of the Galaxy S6: it scored 7 hours and 14 minutes, while the iPhone 6 got 5 hours and 22 minutes. That’s quite a noticeable difference.


  • Reply 77 of 131

    I don't buy this benchmark FUD for a minute.  The CPU and display hardware are absolutely there, the ability to render off-screen is absolutely there, it's a good performance given the enormous display resolution, and likely it will also be yet another Samsung device with better reception and less radiation output than Apple.

     

    The problem is in the software.  Google has become completely unfocused with Android, having ditched Android's creator and then foolishly dumped Motorola and in the process abdicating from setting a direction for Android just as Apple continues to double down on and refine iOS.  I think part of the backstory at Samsung is that they're trying to restore some order.  But in all likelihood we're now entrenched in a world of seriously forked Android, with multiple players trying to pick up the pieces.  The only good thing in this mess is that Google's slimming down of the core of Android, while parceling out even basic apps like GMail into separate modules, makes it at least theoretically easier for system updates to roll out quickly.

  • Reply 78 of 131
    drgrogdrgrog Posts: 1member
    What hattig says.

    Author does not lie. But I can not deny this article feels somewhat biased toward iPhone 6/6p.

    Seriously, if you want to compare somthing you do it on same conditions. Even in middle school science experiments they teach you to practice this simple rule.

    i6p and g6 does not have same resolution. Higher resolutions give better screen quality when lower resolutions gives better performance. And as hatting said, games, which demands and require most processing power, many times they render at same resolution then upsample(or downsample in few cases) to device's native resolution.

    Interestingly the author mentions that sometimes i5 performs better than i6 and they should because i5's resolutions are lower. If this article's title and contents are to be valid i5's hardware should perform better in same tested conditions than that of i6s.
  • Reply 79 of 131
    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger Posts: 1,583member
    PenTile AMOLEDQuote:

    Originally Posted by kevliu1980 View Post



    "only benchmarks that run at native resolutions are impacted"


     "S6 will probably gobble up android flagship sakes from other OEMs, not cause iPhone 6 users to switch."

     

    The high price of the S6 will not allow it to "gobble up" much of anything.

     

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hattig View Post



    Contrary to the article's headline and content, the Galaxy S6 is more powerful in offscreen rendering at the same resolution (1478 vs 1189 and 2636 vs 2391).



    Besides, when comparing the onscreen figures with the iPhone 6 Plus, the performance isn't that dissimilar, it's in the same ballpark. So the headline is very conflating of the actual issue.

     

    As other readers have commented, the S6 is 6 months newer than the iPhone 6 Plus (and comes after three disastrous quarters of bombing high end Galaxy sales). So it needs to do more than achieve ~75% of the real world performance of iPhone 6. New generations of iPhones have been (at least) doubling their graphics performance every year.

     

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bradipao View Post





    From my understanding (I can be wrong) above screenshot is about native resolution performances, that is 1334x750 for iP6 and 2560x1440 (four times the pixel quantity) for S6. When you switch to "offscreen" performances you factor out the display and you can test at the same resolution. If you want to benchmark the device, "onscreen" is the correct scenario, while if you want to benchmark the SoC, "offscreen" is the one.

     

    The performance difference of iPhone 6 is even higher. The article compares the 6 Plus. 



    You can't "factor out" the screen Samsung is using because it is a physical reality. Benchmarking "the device" on an artificial level is something tech sites like to do, but (as Samsung apologists are stating here) nobody cares about the theoretical specs of chips, but rather how well it performs in the real world.

     

    That's why the "theoretically functional" fingerprint swiper on the last Galaxy S5 wasn't as impressive in practice.

     

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cnocbui View Post

     

    Samsung had a 301 ppi retina class screen in their S8000, a year prior to the iP4, so that is untrue.  Their S8500 had a 283 ppi screen and was also released prior to the iP4, but let's not let inconvenient facts get in the way of a good story.


     

    Samsung's S8000 had a 3.1" screen, smaller than iPhone 4 as the article states. It was also a PenTile screen that looked terrible had did not have the real resolution pixel density you cite, because... PenTile. You can copy and paste from Wikipedia in an attempt to rewrite history, but I was alive when iPhone 4 was released, and it was a big deal. It was something Samsung had not achieved earlier. Samsung was busy copying the iPhone 3GS.

     

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cnocbui View Post

     

    The S6 has 368% more pixels than the iP6 and 174% more than the Plus, so it's not surprising it's performance is less than the iP6.

     

    However, it's not less than the iP6 Plus according to Anandtech benchmarks.  The Anandtech GFXBench 3.0 score for the Samsung S6 is 15.8 and for the 6 Plus it's 14.8.  The GFX 3.0 offscreen results are 26 for the S6 and 19.2 for the 6 Plus.  For T-Rex it's 39.4 and 34.4 respectively.  For T-Rex offscreen it's 59.4 and 42.8 respectively.

     

    Why not write an article trashing the graphics performance of the iPhone 6 Plus vs the iPhone 6 given it is a bigger phone than the 6 with a larger screen?  Did Apple make poor engineering choices there?

     

    If you look at Basemark X benchmarks, which supposedly equate closely to gaming performance, the S6 trounces the iP6 with a score of 38651.49 vs 30626.66

     

    I have wondered why Samsung were so extreme in the ppi and I think it might have to do with the VR headset where each eye views half the screen.


     

    If you read the article, it links to GFXBench benchmarks, and you can run them yourself. The median iPhone 6 Plus scores on their site are slightly higher than the iPhone 6 Plus scores AI first reported last fall (possibly due to iOS enhancements since). The brand new S6 scores are lower. You can cite Ars numbers without context, but it doesn't change the facts. After all, you already admitted that you agree with the article that the problem is pairing a too-high resolution screen with a not-powerful-enough chip. 

     

    Basemark X relies on software optimized for Android. Unfortunately, in the real world, games are not optimized for Android. Many top games (and other graphics intensive apps) even make it to Android, and those that do are not optimized for high end phones because those only make up a tiny sliver of the installed base. All iOS games are optimized for the latest model because iOS is optimized for high end hardware, because that's all Apple sells. 

     

    Also, the article links to the original (initial) article comparing iPhone 6 to iPhone 6 Plus, which actually noted that the higher resolution of the Plus, paired with the same A8 CPU, results in slower benchmarks. That was the first article written about the subject on AI, and has been linked to in every successive article looking at how Android phones compare. 

     

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bradipao View Post





    From my understanding (I can be wrong) above screenshot is about native resolution performances, that is 1334x750 for iP6 and 2560x1440 (four times the pixel quantity) for S6. When you switch to "offscreen" performances you factor out the display and you can test at the same resolution. If you want to benchmark the device, "onscreen" is the correct scenario, while if you want to benchmark the SoC, "offscreen" is the one.

     

     

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Baka-Dubbs View Post

     

    I would recommend going to Anandtech if you want an actual comparison. Two excerpts that directly contradict DED's conclusions:

     

    'GPU actually outperforms the Adreno 430(due to the higher clock speed)'

     

    "I’m really blown away at how far AMOLED has come in the past few years"


     

    There is not a contradiction. Anandtech is comparing Samsung's terrible PenTile screens on the original Galaxy models to their latest, best screens. Yes they are much better! From a baseline of crap, it's easy to make progress.

     

    Anandtech did not extensively compare the Exynos 7 against Apple's A8. However, you misrepresent what that site actually reported (surprise!). In onscreen, real world graphics benchmarks, Anandtech reports that the latest Galaxy S6 has a OpenGL 3 frame rate that is only 60% of iPhone 6. http://www.anandtech.com/show/9111/samsung-galaxy-s6-and-s6-edge-preview/2

     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Blastdoor View Post

     

    The better point (which is barely touched on in the article) is that Samsung didn't make the best design choices here. 


     

    Except that was the entire theme of the article, pulled out in quotes and repeated over and over. I'm glad you agree and came to the same conclusion though. 

     

    Reality is that Galaxy S5/Note 4 both performed poorly as flagships and as key product introductions for Samsung, and the S6 is essentially a Note 4 scaled down physically, with similar performance. It doesn't move the needle, and won't attract throngs of volume buyers. But most problematically, it targets Android buyers (all it can do) while being more expensive than even Samsung's other most expensive phones. Anyone who thinks this is going to challenge the iPhone 6 (after missing out on Christmas and Chinese New Year) is wishing for the impossible. Value buyers do not pay more for nicer, Apple-styled hardware. 

  • Reply 80 of 131
    auxioauxio Posts: 2,717member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Baka-Dubbs View Post

     

     

    Those were just non "technobabble" quotes.   The article on Anand is much more detailed and includes all those useless benchmarks.   I am simply saying calling the GPU cheap when it outperforms most other competitors in offscreen performance(IE same number of pixels), seems to be innacurate at best or a blatant lie at worst.  He is pulling very specific benchmarks to further his weekly hit piece, and then making up FUD to go with it.   If he stuck to arguing simply that the GPU is underpowered for the resolution(which it isn't really, but comparative performance is lower for on screen benchmarking) I would be okay with that as well.  Its just all the other garbarge that is rediculous.  He really needs to look at how Anand does comparisons, but I doubt he believes in accurate comparisons.




    I still don't understand how onscreen performance is being dismissed.  Even if you render everything to an offscreen pixel buffer, you still need to copy the contents of that pixel buffer to the one which is being used for displaying on the screen a certain number of times per second.  So you're still limited by the throughput performance of your GPU at that point.

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