Nexus 4 annihilated by iPhone 5 in a variety of benchmarks

[Pjstock42]

Was actually thinking about jumping ship from the iPhone 5 to get this, but anandtech's in-depth review shows that iPhone is still king.

Very odd how poorly this device performs when it's specs on paper seem to outshine the iPhone 5 in a number of ways.

Seems that time and time again, no matter how impressive the specs of a phone are, it means nothing if the OS isn't properly optimized for the hardware. Keep in mind that the iPhone outpaced the Nexus 4 in these and many more tests with a dual core processor up against the quad core found in the Nexus 4...

 

[daveathall]

Whats a triangle texture test please?

 

[Pjstock42]

Whats a triangle texture test please?

Something to do with the GPU I assume. The Nexus 4 had to be put in a freezer to marginally increase performance because it was overheating.

 

[dalbir4444]

The Nexus devices never had the best benchmarks. If you care about high performance, then wait for the Galaxy S4.

 

[jsw]

The benchmarks are relatively irrelevant, and speculation is that many of them cannot access all the cores on the N4 anyway.

More relevant is user experience - if people say it's slow and laggy, that matters more, since no one depends on benchmarks, but people do depend on apps and screen use.

All the reviews I've read anywhere say that the N4 is really, really fast. Also, it runs Android infinitely faster than the iPhone, which is a huge plus.

I agree that there are many good reasons to choose the iPhone 5 over the N4 (and vice versa), but these benchmarks aren't one of them.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

This is why I never care for benchmarks much: http://www.youtube.com/watch?nomobile=1&v=PtDnhN02k-c

You win some and loss some.

I'm more into hands-on review vids than charts.

 

[zbarvian]

Android is fundamentally slower than iOS it seems, and Apple's optimization is crazy good.

Real life tests between the iPhone 4S (not the 5) and Galaxy S3 I saw showed that the iPhone 4S is just generally quicker.

Also, for having a relatively tiny battery, the iPhone manages best-in-class battery life, bested only by behemoths like the Note 2 or Razr Maxx HD (which have battery capacities well over twice that of the iPhone).

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

Android is fundamentally slower than iOS it seems, and Apple's optimization is crazy good.

Real life tests between the iPhone 4S (not the 5) and Galaxy S3 I saw showed that the iPhone 4S is just generally quicker.

Also, for having a relatively tiny battery, the iPhone manages best-in-class battery life, bested only by behemoths like the Note 2 or Razr Maxx HD (which have battery capacities well over twice that of the iPhone).

That's nonsense. I have both the 4, 4S and GS3.

GS3 is not slower nor is battery any worst. Batt life is just as good as the 4 and better than the 4S. Can't judge batt life on the 5 as I don't own one.

 

[onthecouchagain]

Is that running the final software? Because it is, then there's no denying it, it falls short on benchmarks. Looks like the Nexus 4 is a pass if that sort of stuff is important to someone. But will it be just as important when other phones beat the iPhone in benchmarks, I wonder?

The one thing to truly be concerned about is the battery life. It's good, but I don't get why it's not living up to its specs, especially since the tradeoff for LTE is for better battery life. I'm hoping Google will address this in a near-future update.

Apple did it with the 4S' battery problems, and it took more than one update to fix for everyone.

----------

That's nonsense. I have both the 4, 4S and GS3.

GS3 is not slower nor is battery any worst. Batt life is just as good as the 4 and better than the 4S. Can't judge batt life on the 5 as I don't own one.

You forget who you're quoting.

----------

The Nexus devices never had the best benchmarks. If you care about high performance, then wait for the Galaxy S4.

This is true.

But, shouldn't a quad-core phone be performing better than some of its older dual-core counterparts? Is the software just not fully optimized yet for quad-core?

Personally, I don't care much about benchmarks. The reviews have said the device is smooth and fast and that's enough for me, but it is a bit of a mystery why it's not performing well in these tests. What's going on?

 

[zbarvian]

That's nonsense. I have both the 4, 4S and GS3.

GS3 is not slower nor is battery any worst. Batt life is just as good as the 4 and better than the 4S. Can't judge batt life on the 5 as I don't own one.

Go ahead and look at the battery life posted above. And here's the speed test video:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=msPHKs8cmbs

And another: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o8Qlls346Hk

That's the 4S, just to remind you. The fact that a dual core 800-950 MHz processor is THAT competitive with an Android powerhouse should tell you something about the underlying OS framework.

 

[Dr McKay]

Funny when it was the iPhone being beaten in benchmarks it was "Benchmarks don't matter! It's the experience!"

Yes well now I'm unsatisfied with the user experience iOS offers me. I'm still getting a Nexus 4, and will give my iPhone 5 to my Dad. He's of the age where he wants something simple, I want a little more customization.

 

[zbarvian]

Funny when it was the iPhone being beaten in benchmarks it was "Benchmarks don't matter!

Funny that fellow posters above you argue the same thing

And that battery life benchmark is real-life number, it's not just some vague scientific result.

 

[Dr McKay]

Funny that fellow posters above you argue the same thing

And that battery life benchmark is real-life number, it's not just some vague scientific result.

Because I hardly touch my phone except playing with it during breaks at work, my battery life is normally pretty high. It's been off the charger since 7AM and it's 16:20 right now, I'm on 78% battery on the iPhone 5, I should be good.

 

[Pjstock42]

Because I hardly touch my phone except playing with it during breaks at work, my battery life is normally pretty high. It's been off the charger since 7AM and it's 16:20 right now, I'm on 78% battery on the iPhone 5, I should be good.

Well then clearly these tests aren't important to you. For people (like myself) who have a job that requires travel/constant communication, these benchmarks are extremely important. There are many days where I am on my iPhone almost every waking second in an attempt to keep up with emails/other communications.

 

[sc4rf4c3]

Something is wrong with this Nexus 4. Even the U.S S3 and One X are beating it.

 

[jsw]

Well then clearly these tests aren't important to you. For people (like myself) who have a job that requires travel/constant communication, these benchmarks are extremely important. There are many days where I am on my iPhone almost every waking second in an attempt to keep up with emails/other communications.

Since battery life is of utmost importance to you, it seems pretty clear that the iPhone 5 is a better bet for you. I mean this in all sincerity. It's a great phone with great battery life. There are no real downsides if you're not strongly keen on Android.

The benchmarks remain irrelevant, except for battery life. It's one of the few (that, to a large extent screen brightness, etc.) which actually matter. The others have little to no impact on day-to-day use for most users, except, typically, for gamers, who, typically, have better platforms than small phone screens for gaming.

 

[nickchallis92]

probably the pre-release ones they sent out which were woeful. New ones are almost certainly going to offer much better performance

 

[Pjstock42]

Since battery life is of utmost importance to you, it seems pretty clear that the iPhone 5 is a better bet for you. I mean this in all sincerity. It's a great phone with great battery life. There are no real downsides if you're not strongly keen on Android.

The benchmarks remain irrelevant, except for battery life. It's one of the few (that, to a large extent screen brightness, etc.) which actually matter. The others have little to no impact on day-to-day use for most users, except, typically, for gamers, who, typically, have better platforms than small phone screens for gaming.

I agree that the battery life tests are the most important of the bunch, what surprises me the most is how the iPhone's is so much higher on LTE than the N4 is on 3G...

I also wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Sunspider test...Web-browsing speed is something that's important to pretty much anyone who owns a smartphone.

 

[Oletros]

Web-browsing speed is something that's important to pretty much anyone who owns a smartphone.

Like succeeded with 3DMarks, when the browser developers optimize thwy browsers to have better scores in Sunspider, it doesn't really mean so much.

 

[jsw]

I also wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Sunspider test...Web-browsing speed is something that's important to pretty much anyone who owns a smartphone.

I disagree to some extent - being able to surf on a smartphone is nice, but it's never a great experience due to being so constrained (it sucks on a 7" as well), so unless you're using the mobile-friendly versions of a page - which load quickly on almost anything you can buy today - load speeds are just one of your many browsing problems.

Granted, there are users to whom speed differences such as these really matter, and to those users, it is significant, but to many users, I do not think it matters all that much.

 

[dalbir4444]

Why does the iPhone 5 with LTE have a better battery life than the iPhone without it?

 

[Oletros]

I disagree to some extent - being able to surf on a smartphone is nice, but it's never a great experience due to being so constrained (it sucks on a 7" as well), so unless you're using the mobile-friendly versions of a page - which load quickly on almost anything you can buy today - load speeds are just one of your many browsing problems.

Granted, there are users to whom speed differences such as these really matter, and to those users, it is significant, but to many users, I do not think it matters all that much.

And Sunspider doesn't have direct relation with browser speed, it is Javascript performance

 

[zhenya]

Yeah, in light of how poorly the device performs, on benchmarks, on battery life, on available storage space, lack of LTE, and even price, (in the US market, no contract = no big deal for the majority of people not on T-Mobile), I thought that Brian Klug's review was remarkably positive under the circumstances.

If Apple were to have released a new flagship device like this, the criticism would have been deafening. I love Anadtech's reviews, but I leave this one feeling like it was heavily moderated in order to not offend his connections within the industry.

 

[dalbir4444]

Yeah, in light of how poorly the device performs, on benchmarks, on battery life, on available storage space, lack of LTE, and even price, (in the US market, no contract = no big deal for the majority of people not on T-Mobile), I thought that Brian Klug's review was remarkably positive under the circumstances.

If Apple were to have released a new flagship device like this, the criticism would have been deafening. I love Anadtech's reviews, but I leave this one feeling like it was heavily moderated in order to not offend his connections within the industry.

If Apple released the same device for $300, most people wouldn't complain either.

 

[michaeljohn]

Seems that time and time again, no matter how impressive the specs of a phone are, it means nothing if the OS isn't properly optimized for the hardware.

Thats a big problem with Android. The software isnt optimized to run on the hardware of every Android phone but you would figure it would be optimized to best run on Google's own phone. Apparently not. iOS is designed to run on Apple's Ax processors and it makes a huge difference. Having owned 7 Android phones in the past and now owning an iPhone 5, I am still surprised at how blazing fast it is doing everything.