So, I actually had the opportunity to test both chips side by side and felt like I should share my results for whatever you all feel they are worth. I'd first like to start off by thanking the MacRumors community for making me crazy enough about this issue to actually take the time to do these tests.
What happened was this: I bought 2 sim-free 64 GB 6S+ for me and my girlfriend. I was upgrading from my 6+ and knew I wanted to stick with the bigger size. My girlfriend had the regular 6 but wanted to give the bigger phone a try since I liked mine so much. I ran System Status on my 6S+ and found I had the Samsung A9 chip. I figured oh-well, hers probably had the same chip since both phones came from the same factory and were manufactured the same week according to the serial number. So, I never bothered to test hers and went on with my life. I was getting around 10 hours usage, which wasn't quite as good as my 6+, but still fine for my needs. Fast forward eight days later and she decided the Plus was simply too big and that she wanted to stick with the 6. Before erasing her phone for return, I decided on a whim to check which chip it had. To my surprise, it was a TSMC. So, I decided to do some tests to see if there was a real difference between the two chips in everyday use.
For these tests, both phones were restored as new running iOS 9.0.2. Since I only had one SIM, I put both phones in airplane mode to keep the radio usage from skewing the tests. Each test started with both phones recharged fully to 100%. Here's what I did:
- Ran a GPS test by using google maps for 30 minutes. Both phones drained 8% battery.
- Recorded 4K video on both phones for 30 minutes. The TSMC chip drained 9% while the Samsung drained 10%. I would consider these to be essentially the same given the inaccuracy of the iPhone's battery meter.
- Recorded a time lapse on both phones because I read that this taxed the CPU more than recording video for some reason. I let both time lapses run for 1 hour 20 minutes. Here, I found the TSMC chip was down to 75% while the Samsung was all the way down at 70%. Extrapolating that out, the Samsung chip would have lasted 4 hours 26 minutes while the TSMC would have made it 5 hours 20 minutes, almost a full hour more.
- Finally, I used the TSMC phone as my main phone for the remaining 6 days of the return period. I loaded all the same apps and used it the same way (as much as possible). I averaged 11-12 hours of use compared to the Samsung's 10. I wouldn't say the difference was huge, but it was noticeable. It's entirely possible this difference could also have been due to other components since it was so small.
So, basically my tests showed what has already been reported. Under
very high loads, the TSMC is more power efficient than the Samsung. However, you really have to run it in the highest power state almost constantly to really notice a difference. I am not at all ready to say the extra hour or so of battery life I was getting in day-to-day usage on the TSMC phone was due to the chip alone. I ended up returning the Samsung because I had the option to keep the TSMC. But, I don't think the difference is so great that I would have been devastated had I been forced to keep the Samsung phone. And I certainly don't think it's worth running out and playing the exchange game just to get the TSMC chip.
Those are my results. You can believe them or not. But I felt they were worth sharing since few people outside of the tech blogger world actually have the chance to test both chips at the same time. Hope at least someone finds this information useful!
