With the widespread development of smartphones, users’ understanding of smart devices has become increasingly profound. The notion that “user experience does not equal hardware stacking” has taken root in people’s minds. Indeed, a product’s user experience is determined by many factors, including design, configuration, software, network, and battery life… Many aspects influence your experience when using a smartphone.
Interestingly, users’ attention to smartphone hardware specifications has not diminished; particularly, the processor, as the core of the hardware, is a consideration for most users when purchasing a phone. This is not blind faith; after all, the importance of hardware specifications as a fundamental aspect of smartphones is self-evident. As the saying goes, a clever woman cannot cook without rice; without a good hardware foundation, a good user experience is hard to guarantee.
As chip companies optimize their product lines, there are actually not many mainstream smartphone processors. It is foreseeable that in 2016, we will see these star processors.
Flagship Choice: Snapdragon 820 (MSM8996)
The Snapdragon 820 will symbolize the identity of most flagship smartphones, and there is almost no doubt about this. Qualcomm Snapdragon has always held an unshakable market position in the high-end smartphone processor field. Despite a slight setback with the Snapdragon 810 in 2015, feedback from the industry on the Snapdragon 820 indicates that manufacturers’ enthusiasm for Qualcomm has returned—Samsung’s S7 and S7 Edge have chosen Snapdragon 820 in the domestic market.
From current evaluation results, the overall performance of the Snapdragon 820 is undoubtedly No.1, leading other chips, with only Apple’s A9 and Samsung’s Exynos 8890 coming close. This also reiterates that having more cores is not necessarily better; the Snapdragon 820 is merely a quad-core chip, while the Apple A9 is a dual-core chip. In terms of GPU performance, the Adreno 530 in the Snapdragon 820 is exceptionally powerful, leading competitors by at least 30%.
The advantages of the Snapdragon 820 also lie in its network capabilities. Full network support is naturally a given, but its biggest advantage is that it supports LTE three-carrier aggregation, achieving download speeds of 600 Mbps (Cat 12) and upload speeds of 150 Mbps (Cat 13), a capability that will not become obsolete before the arrival of 5G.
In terms of power consumption, thanks to the 14nm process, self-developed CPU architecture, and upgraded DSP, the Snapdragon 820 controls heat generation significantly better than the Snapdragon 810. Of course, given that it is such a powerful chip, it is unrealistic for it not to generate heat. From actual experience, smartphones using the Snapdragon 820 still heat up during large applications, but the amount of heat generated is very good among flagship products.
Currently, this processor has been mass-produced and commercially used in products such as the Samsung S7, Vivo Xplay5 flagship version, and Xiaomi 5. From the actual performance of these products, the performance advantage of the 820 processor is very clear, whether in benchmark scores or user experience, it stands apart from other platform products.
Deca-core Monster: Helio X25/X20 (MT6797)
From quad-core to octa-core, MediaTek processors have given the deepest impression of increasing CPU core counts. In 2016, MediaTek’s approach has been upgraded again, with the shocking debut of the deca-core Helio X20/X25. It must be acknowledged that in the competitive landscape of domestic smartphones, emphasizing core count is indeed an effective gimmick, and it is believed that MediaTek’s Helio X20/X25 will still be favored by customers.
The biggest feature of the Helio X20 is its tri-cluster deca-core architecture, which consists of two Cortex-A72 big cores, four high-frequency A53 middle cores, and four low-frequency A53 small cores. Since no products have officially launched yet, we can only refer to the Antutu score of 100,000 announced by MediaTek at the press conference. Compared to the previously mentioned Snapdragon 820, Apple A9, and Samsung Exynos 8890, it still has a certain gap, but it is definitely a leading level in the second tier. Its GPU is Mali-T880MP4, which, if compared to the performance of the same model on the HiSilicon Kirin 950, should be at a mid-to-high-end level, with a significant gap from the Snapdragon 820.
From a network perspective, the Helio X20 inherits the LTE Cat 6 level full network modem, which compensates for the shortcomings of previous products, adapting to this year’s mainstream 4G+ networks. In terms of power consumption, MediaTek’s demonstrations show that control over this deca-core monster is very effective, even surpassing the Snapdragon 820, but this also awaits verification from commercial products.
It is expected that in the second quarter, we will see many smartphones with X20 chips from various brands, while the X25 should arrive in the second half of the year. Meizu has already stated that the PRO 6 will debut with the X25 and hold exclusive rights for a period. Overall, in MediaTek’s product planning, the X20 is aimed at high-end products, while the X25 may become the choice for some manufacturers’ high-end flagship products, with the P series aimed at mid-range and entry-level products. However, based on previous experience, it cannot be ruled out that disruptors like Xiaomi will directly use the X20 in budget devices.
Super Dark Horse: Snapdragon 652 (MSM8976)
The Snapdragon 600 series is actually positioned as high-end in Qualcomm’s product roadmap (the 800 series is flagship), but under the pressure of competitors, the 600 series processors have had some difficulty establishing themselves as high-end over the past two years. This year, we see a difference, with the key product being the Snapdragon 652 (MSM8976). In fact, listing it in the 600 series is somewhat of an injustice, as the MSM8976 is originally positioned in the 800 series.
The Snapdragon 652 (MSM8976) is Qualcomm’s first processor to adopt the Cortex-A72 architecture CPU, featuring a design of four A72 cores and four A53 cores, making it a significant upgrade over the previous 600 series predecessors, which all used A53 architecture and did not even adopt A57. Its GPU is Adreno 510, which, while not as powerful as the 530 in the Snapdragon 820, is still a significant upgrade from previous generations. From the performance tests of already launched products, this processor’s overall performance can basically reach the level of last year’s flagship Snapdragon 810, making it very powerful.
The Snapdragon 652 (MSM8976) excels in Qualcomm’s networking capabilities, integrating an LTE Cat 7 basic modem, providing peak download rates of up to 300 Mbps and peak upload rates of 100 Mbps. Naturally, full network support, various dual-SIM dual-standby combinations, and VoLTE features are also included. This aspect surpasses the flagship chips launched by competitors.
Additionally, the ISP, DSP, video, audio, and charging technologies integrated into the Snapdragon 652 (MSM8976) are close to or even reach the 800 series level, making it a reliable choice in the industry. The chip’s process technology remains at 28nm, which may be more of a consideration for production capacity, but its power consumption and heat control are very ideal (perhaps due to frequency limitations; otherwise, performance could be even more impressive).
Overall, the Snapdragon 652 (MSM8976) is an outstanding processor that can genuinely hold its ground in the high-end market. In the first quarter, we have already seen many products using this processor, including the Samsung A9, Vivo Xplay5, and X6S/X6SPlus, all of which have demonstrated very strong competitiveness. It is expected that more brands’ “flagship” models will be equipped with the Snapdragon 652 (MSM8976) in the future.
Samsung and Huawei Have Their Own Exclusive Chips
The above several processors are the “star chips” we are likely to see frequently in high-end products in 2016. Of course, companies like Samsung and Huawei will also use their self-developed chips in their products, but they may not provide them to other manufacturers.
Samsung’s Exynos 8890 has already been used in the international version of the Samsung S7 and S7 edge. This is Samsung’s first processor based on its self-developed CPU architecture, designed with four Mongoose cores and four Cortex-A53 architecture cores, while the GPU is Mali-T880 MP12. In terms of overall performance, this processor is on par with the Snapdragon 820. It also integrates LTE Cat 12/13 modem, supporting peak download rates of 600 Mbps and upload rates of 150 Mbps. The only regret is that it cannot achieve full network support due to the absence of CDMA.
Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin has also shown very strong competitiveness. The Kirin 950, which was applied in the Huawei Mate 8 last year, has drawn industry attention, and the newly released Huawei P9 adopts an upgraded version, the Kirin 955. However, the Kirin 955 is merely a minor upgrade rather than a generational change, and its performance improvement over the Kirin 950 is limited, leaving it still behind the Snapdragon 820 and Exynos 8890. This is sufficient for the more fashion-oriented P series products, while a more powerful Kirin chip may appear in the Mate new products in the second half of the year.
