TSMC's A9 Chip Outperforming Samsung's in Early iPhone 6s Battery Benchmarks

[Benjamin Frost]

Interesting. I remember reading before launch that even with the smaller battery, the 6S would have the same battery life as the 6. Now that I've had mine for a week, I've noticed that the battery life is not as good as my 6. I'd like to check with that app. what processor I have, but know I will just end up disappointed at what I find out, especially since you can't just go to Apple and request one with the TSMC chip.

It's like the iPad.

My iPad Air 2 has substantially worse battery life than my iPad 2. They're both still advertised as 10 hours. The Air 2 is awesome, miles better than the iPad 2, but sometimes the battery actually conks out at the end of a day; that never happened with the iPad 2.

I wish I didn't have to worry about the battery full stop.

 

[Benjamin Frost]

T-Mobile 64gb gold
Mkr52ll/a
A1688
Samsung chip

Sorry to hear, bro. Better luck next time.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

It's like the iPad.

My iPad Air 2 has substantially worse battery life than my iPad 2. They're both still advertised as 10 hours. The Air 2 is awesome, miles better than the iPad 2, but sometimes the battery actually conks out at the end of a day; that never happened with the iPad 2.

I wish I didn't have to worry about the battery full stop.

Are you sure that it's really the battery life and not just your use of it? Often with the newer devices we tend to use them more and not notice.

When iOS 2 came out, people complained about worse battery life. In truth, the battery life was the same but people were just using their phone more. Now they had more than just text, YouTube and web browsing they could do from their phone. They could install all kinds of new apps to do so much more, which lead to greatly increased time spent on the phone.

This has happened many times since as new features are added which cause people to be on their phones ore frequently.

 

[The Mercurian]

I have no idea what chip is in my 6s - but I'm very impressed with the battery life - which at my usage levels seems to be around two days. Coming from HTC ONE M7 so have no iPhone reference point on this but I can say its at least a day better than the HTC was


Edit: I just ran the Lirum App lite and I have Model N71mAP - so thats TSMC right ?

 

[Benjamin Frost]

The issue seems to be real :/

Brilliant videos; thanks for linking.

This is now officially ChipGate for Apple.

My advice for those considering purchasing the iPhone 6s or 6s+: go to an Apple Store and buy one. Open it, and use the free wifi to download the free Lirum app from the App Store. If the iPhone is designated Map (TSMC), keep it. If it's ap (Samsung), return it immediately and ask for another one.

Apple will need to recall all the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s+ with Samsung chips.

This is turning into Apple's Volkswagen moment. The damages could be catastrophic. As a shareholder, I'm not best pleased, to put it mildly.

 

[astroboy888]

I wonder how's the split b/n TSMC and Samsung's A9s amongst iPhone of different capacities? I have a 128GB 6s and it came with a Samsung. Assuming the Samsung has higher performance and power consumption, would Apple preferentially use the Samsung A9 in the higher capacity models to churn through presumed greater data load? While the TSMC are used in the 16GB models.

Nah. It is random. The chips are suppose to be pin compatible because there is only one board design. You are suppose to be able to pick the chips out of a bucket, plug it onto the board, and it is suppose to work.

 

[Benjamin Frost]

Are you sure that it's really the battery life and not just your use of it? Often with the newer devices we tend to use them more and not notice.

When iOS 2 came out, people complained about worse battery life. In truth, the battery life was the same but people were just using their phone more. Now they had more than just text, YouTube and web browsing they could do from their phone. They could install all kinds of new apps to do so much more, which lead to greatly increased time spent on the phone.

This has happened many times since as new features are added which cause people to be on their phones ore frequently.

I don't use it any differently.

The only difference I can think of is that maybe background app refresh is draining it more. I have most apps turned off for it, though.

 

[TroyBoy30]

and I really could care less.

So you care lol


i just charged mine for the first time since i got it last wed

Brilliant videos; thanks for linking.

This is now officially ChipGate for Apple.

My advice for those considering purchasing the iPhone 6s or 6s+: go to an Apple Store and buy one. Open it, and use the free wifi to download the free lirium app from the App Store. If the iPhone is designated Map (TSMC), keep it. If it's ap (Samsung), return it immediately and ask for another one.

Apple will need to recall all the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s+ with Samsung chips.

This is turning into Apple's Volkswagen moment. The damages could be catastrophic. As a shareholder, I'm not best pleased, to put it mildly.

i feel dumber after reading this

this is not the first time apple has sourced parts from different places and its not the first time those parts performed differently. buy your iphone, use it and be happy. the average person will never see a difference

 

[ZBoater]

Yes, but we are not average people.

 

[roeiz]

buy your iphone, use it and be happy. the average person will never see a difference

what do you mean? 2 hours less battery is not big enough difference for all users alike?

 

[alleggerita]

I agree, the first 10-20% is most noticeable to me. But even that there may be some minor variances depending on how long your phone has been fully charged but plugged. Your experience does suggest the samsung chip is the inferior chip as the 6S+ is supposed to be 20% longer lasting than the 6+.

Isn't the 6s+ quoted as having the same battery life as 6+? When/where was it stated that the 6s+ should last 20% longer than 6+? Don't recall any articles about that.

 

[Flusspferd]

Brilliant videos; thanks for linking.

This is now officially ChipGate for Apple.

My advice for those considering purchasing the iPhone 6s or 6s+: go to an Apple Store and buy one. Open it, and use the free wifi to download the free lirium app from the App Store. If the iPhone is designated Map (TSMC), keep it. If it's ap (Samsung), return it immediately and ask for another one.

Apple will need to recall all the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s+ with Samsung chips.

This is turning into Apple's Volkswagen moment. The damages could be catastrophic. As a shareholder, I'm not best pleased, to put it mildly.

Oh my god! Yeah Apple is doomed! Like every year...
You should sell your stock NOW before it is too late

 

[hammy434]

My advice for those considering purchasing the iPhone 6s or 6s+: go to an Apple Store and buy one. Open it, and use the free wifi to download the free lirium app from the App Store. If the iPhone is designated Map (TSMC), keep it. If it's ap (Samsung), return it immediately and ask for another one.

Would you be allowed to do that? I've never really returned anything before so idk the rules, I'm in the UK. I'm getting mine early next year anyway so hopefully it's fixed by then, or more tests confirm it to be false.

 

[Gudi]

People without a background in statistics should not use the term significant so causally. With an N of 1 you can't claim a statistically significant difference. There may be real differences, but anecdotal crap like this just fuels clicks and wild irresponsible posting.

People without a background in computer science should not use the term NOT so casually. These are all deterministic computers, same input same output. Unless you want to imply that one of these phones might have a defect, I'm perfectly fine with running the benchmark just once.

 

[TroyBoy30]

Brilliant videos; thanks for linking.

This is now officially ChipGate for Apple.

My advice for those considering purchasing the iPhone 6s or 6s+: go to an Apple Store and buy one. Open it, and use the free wifi to download the free lirium app from the App Store. If the iPhone is designated Map (TSMC), keep it. If it's ap (Samsung), return it immediately and ask for another one.

Apple will need to recall all the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s+ with Samsung chips.

This is turning into Apple's Volkswagen moment. The damages could be catastrophic. As a shareholder, I'm not best pleased, to put it mildly.

what do you mean? 2 hours less battery is not big enough difference for all users alike?

nope. this is not the first time they have had a product that had vastly different performance depending on what parts were in it. its also too early to say there is actually a difference. these user battery tests mean nothing at this point. there are simply too many variables involved.

 

[kuoann]

In the Geekbench test, rate of work done may not be constant
However, the constant should be work done, i.e. A fixed task. Eg playing one round of a movie.

This is because if the Samsung is running faster than the TSMC, then in the same time it may actually have done more work, hence more energy used.

Analogy:
Car A is driven at 50km/h
Car B is driven at 100km/h

Assuming equivalent efficiency,
Car A would use up its fuel twice as fast as Car B.
However if you consider fuel used for the same 100km travelled, then both cars would have the same fuel usage.

Am I right?

 

[AleXXXa]

SOCgate?
This is the first S phone with a gate. GJ Apple!

 

[Kareem Michel]

Just ran the Lirum Device Info Lite app and apparently I have Model N66mAP on my iPhone 6s Plus 64GB Space Grey

 

[Benjamin Frost]

Would you be allowed to do that? I've never really returned anything before so idk the rules, I'm in the UK. I'm getting mine early next year anyway so hopefully it's fixed by then, or more tests confirm it to be false.

As far as I'm aware, you can replace it within 14 days for any reason.

 

[cmichaelb]

This observation lacks any bit of rigor or statistical significance, but I was looking through some comments on another site, and it seemed like perhaps, maybe, the phone color is correlated with the chip inside. For example, it seemed, based on a tiny handful of data points, that gray and pink tend to be Samsung, and silver tends to be TSMC (like my 6S+ as well - silver TSMC). Would be interesting to know if there is statistical significance here in a larger set of points. If the correlation is real, it would allow someone to improve their chances at a TSMC, by choosing a particular color. The correlation would make sense, as the components are presumably sourced in huge batches, and not put in a hat and shaken around like raffle tickets.

Interesting, my Samsung sourced A9 is in a Space Grey 6s Plus 128GB.

 

[bruinsrme]

I guess Samsung owners will be easily identified. They'll be the ones with a tether one their phone. Tethered to an external battery.
Just thing people will be like, "is that the new iPhone with the Samsung chip?"
"I noticed the ice pack, is that the iPhone 6s you're carrying?"

Oh last week was so long ago. Now who's laughing.

 

[shk718]

Brilliant videos; thanks for linking.

This is now officially ChipGate for Apple.

My advice for those considering purchasing the iPhone 6s or 6s+: go to an Apple Store and buy one. Open it, and use the free wifi to download the free Lirum app from the App Store. If the iPhone is designated Map (TSMC), keep it. If it's ap (Samsung), return it immediately and ask for another one.

Apple will need to recall all the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s+ with Samsung chips.

This is turning into Apple's Volkswagen moment. The damages could be catastrophic. As a shareholder, I'm not best pleased, to put it mildly.

a bit dramatic a response don't you think "catastrophic" ?? perhaps there is a software solution - some tweaking of the processor?

 

[Rogifan]

No, I'm waiting for the "I had the TMSC chip and made them change it to the Samsung model and now I'm going to go and make them change it again" posts

I wonder how much money someone is making off all these apps to do tests and show you what processor you have. People need to stop being so OCD. Just use your phone. If you're using your phone as you normally would and battery life really is horrible then return the phone.

 

[Surf Donkey]

New cell antennas due to iPhone 4 ? Lol, that's beyond ridiculous...
Apple demonstrated that in the right conditions every competitors could have the signal strength decreased.
iPhone 4 antenna wasn't the best on the market for sure, and with 4S they refined it, but there wasn't any Antennagate out of the forums.

This is unreal. Are you claiming they did not redesign the antenna for the 4S, or as you say just refined? What is the difference in your eyes? Going to 2 antennas sure sounds like a redesign to me. Do you not remember how big of a deal they made about this when they introduced the 4S?

No one outside the forums cared? So there wasn't a class action lawsuit in which Apple settled on this?

 

[bevsb2]

As far as I'm aware, you can replace it within 14 days for any reason.

You can return it within 14 days for any reason. I don't think you'll get a second phone that day on the basis of the chip.