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This should not be a surprise to anyone. Apple knew what it was doing when it sourced the chips from Samsung and TSMC. Both are very good producers of mobile chips.
 
Even an extra half hour of battery life makes a huge difference by the end of the day, so consumers have a right to be concerned if the TSMC chips can deliver this regularly. My iPhone 5s now lasts only 5 hours on average, far less than its originally-advertised 8 hours. Apple refuses to give me any option to replace the battery, forcing me instead to risk my phone and void its warranty by doing so through a third party.

Battery life is the number one problem of these high powered devices and it's the very reason these tests are being done in the first place. If battery life wasn't an issue nobody would care who made the chip and whether one lasts a bit longer. But it is an issue and people do care as evidenced by how much this issue is blowing up.

Apple is now in full-on damage control and have shot themselves in the foot by consistently failing to address battery life in their phones, preferring instead to make them ever slimmer and even taking the opportunity to (or being forced to) shave off some battery capacity in the latest models.
 
So... should I worry if i receive an iPhone 6s with either chip?

Only if you're OCD over which chip you get or a former Samsung fan who defected but their inner fan is stirring back up lol

Seriously though doesn't seem so

Has anything ever reported on MacRumors been worthy of that dumb label?

Lol never thought I'd see staff/mods say this but too true lol

Granted the "Bendgate" may of been elevated to such perceived worthy status purely by overhype and media sensationalization to the extreme lol

Unrelated side note interesting forum avatar/profile pic

Not sure if I am misunderstanding the results but doesn't the one with the active SIM seem to have the best battery results?

This was honestly legitimately my interpretation too so I don't think you're misunderstanding that person
 
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I'd like to have two iPhone 6S with the same specs with airplane mode on tested. I don't think its fair to test one with a SIM and one without. Even if both were on AT&T, each phone could have a different signal and cause battery drain differently. Airplane mode with WiFi and BT off is the only way to really test. Both screens on full bright or full dim. None of this, well I think its between 70-75%.

These tests have been done. You guys don't read, just look at images and make comments.
 
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Apple refuses to give me any option to replace the battery, forcing me instead to risk my phone and void its warranty by doing so through a third party.

What do you mean? Apple will replace the battery for you at an Apple Store or if you mail it in. Costs about $80.
 
If I had the lesser iPhone 6S I'd be returning it. I end the day at 10% power on my iPhone 6 and that causes me to not use it as I should (it's almost always on lowest brightness). So that little difference would be useful.
 
Even an extra half hour of battery life makes a huge difference by the end of the day, so consumers have a right to be concerned if the TSMC chips can deliver this regularly. My iPhone 5s now lasts only 5 hours on average, far less than its originally-advertised 8 hours. Apple refuses to give me any option to replace the battery, forcing me instead to risk my phone and void its warranty by doing so through a third party.

Battery life is the number one problem of these high powered devices and it's the very reason these tests are being done in the first place. If battery life wasn't an issue nobody would care who made the chip and whether one lasts a bit longer. But it is an issue and people do care as evidenced by how much this issue is blowing up.

Apple is now in full-on damage control and have shot themselves in the foot by consistently failing to address battery life in their phones, preferring instead to make them ever slimmer and even taking the opportunity to (or being forced to) shave off some battery capacity in the latest models.
What test is showing that someone using say Facebook, Twitter, iMessage, Safari are getting a half hour or less battery life if their phone has a Samsung chip? I don't care about stupid benchmarks I care about real world usage. I have no idea what chip is in my 6S. I just know that I don't have battery life issues. I swear some people are bound and determined to find something wrong with their phone and will keep running tests until they do.
 
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Just thought I'd point this out. In the last article showing the parity between battery life tests, one of the phones had an Active SIM and the other phone had No SIM and did not have Airplane mode on, which made it drain more than it normally would have.

geekbench_tsmc_samsung_a9.jpg

am i missing something? the other phone doesnt have airplane mode enabled either, so it should use more power

im more surpised that the samsung runs hotter. thats totally opposite of what youd expect from the smaller chip

a huge % of phones use the TSMC anyway, whats the big deal
 
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Based on the amount of clicks the last article got of the performance "differences" between the TSMC and Samsung A9 chips, MacRumors is at it again making another click-bait article depicting a faulty and irrelevant comparison between the two chip iterations.
 
What do you mean? Apple will replace the battery for you at an Apple Store or if you mail it in. Costs about $80.

I went to the Apple Store and made it quite clear that I wasn't happy with the battery life in my then 1.75 y/o phone. The "genius" ran some tests, told me the battery was fine and then instructed me to turn off features in an effort to extend its life.

Does this strike you as good service? I would've been more than happy to buy a new battery had it been offered but was left unaware that it was even an option. My feeling is that Apple doesn't publicise this, preferring instead to "encourage" people to buy new phones when the battery is no longer up to scratch.

Now I know I'll go and get a new battery for my 2-year old 5s, that should give it a bit of a fresh lease on life. Thanks for the tip.
 
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The news that Apple dual sourced its A9 chips for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus has been a point of discussion over the past few weeks, especially when new battery tests on the phones pointed towards the TSMC chips outperforming those made by Samsung. Following the news, several YouTubers have begun creating videos to compare the dual sourced chips in both battery-straining tests and basic real-world scenarios.

In the first video, Austin Evans compared identical models of the iPhone 6s -- one with the Samsung chip and one with the TSMC chip -- and calibrated their screens so they had the exact same brightness. After running the GeekBench 3 battery test until they both ran down to 50 percent battery life, Evans discovered that the TSMC iPhone 6s lasted fifty minutes longer than the Samsung version, "resulting in a nearly 1.5 times difference in battery life." Thermal imaging also showed the Samsung device running hotter than the TSMC version.

Evans also ran a lighter battery test, playing the same hour-long YouTube video on each device to see how a more day-to-day scenario would affect each chip. In the end, he saw only a one-percent difference in battery drain, noting that while heavy-use cases could see the TSMC chips come out on top, highlighting the differences between benchmarks and real-world usage.


The next video is from Jonathan Morrison, who compared each chip by running a 30-minute timelapse with all the same settings and brightness running on each device. After the test, the Samsung iPhone 6s was down to 84 percent battery, while the TSMC version came in on top with 89 percent remaining. Morrison continued testing the battery strength of each chip with a ten-minute 4k video test, exporting the video file in iMovie, and finishing off by running GeekBench 3. At the end of the full set of tests, the iPhone with the Samsung chip was at 55 percent battery while the TSMC device was at 62 percent.


As suspected from early results yesterday, the takeaway from Morrison and Evans' videos today seems to be that while intense cases like synthetic Geekbench tests designed to push devices to their limits can reveal significant differences in battery life between devices using the two chips, real-world impacts are much smaller and are likely to be unnoticeable to many users.

Article Link: Samsung and TSMC iPhone 6s Chips Show Smaller Real-World Battery Impacts Compared to Benchmarks

I'd have thought the Takeaway is to procure one with the TSMC chip if at all possible. I suspect given the heat characteristics (I'm guessing increased resistance/electron leakage St the smaller size), the TSMC is probably more reliable in the long run.
 
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I went to the Apple Store and made it quite clear I wasn't happy with the battery life. The "genius" ran some tests, told me the battery was fine and then instructed me to turn off features on my phone in an effort to try to extend its life.

Does this strike you as good service? I would've been more than happy to buy a new battery had it been offered but left unaware that this was even an option. My feeling is that Apple doesn't publicise this, preferring instead to "encourage" people to buy new phones when the battery is no longer up to scratch.

It's hard to say. If it were offered, I bet some people (maybe not you?) would blast Apple for trying to "steal $80" from them after selling them a "defective" device. Perhaps the tech was reasonably sure a replacement would've only wasted your money and made you more angry.
 
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I still didn't open my 6S. Is there any way to find out what chip I have without opening it?
 
The Lirum app appears to be missing from the App Store. Did Apple yank it as a result of this video!?
I posted several times that I didn't think this whole thing was that big of an issue, due to factors people have already mentioned. I will say though, I'm troubled by the fact that the Lirium app has been removed from the App Store. If Apple really removed the app, this confirms that something is up, regardless of how little performance difference there may be between the two chips. Apple trying to cover its ass...really bad form, Apple. I have an itch to try out the new MS Lumia phone and also the new Dell XPS 13...Apple had better be careful not to piss off its most loyal customers.
 
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I posted several times that I didn't think this whole thing was that big of an issue, due to factors people have already mentioned. I will say though, I'm troubled by the fact that the Lirium app has been removed from the App Store. If Apple really removed the app, this confirms that something is up, regardless of how little performance difference there may be between the two chips. Apple trying to cover its ass...really bad form, Apple. I have an itch to try out the new MS Lumia phone and also the new Dell XPS 13...Apple had better be careful not to piss off its most loyal customers.

Or perhaps Apple doesn't want people making multiple purchases and returns over a non-issue.

Update: Another poster said that the developer pulled the app.
 
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