Hello.
A topic that you can always talk about, repeat what has already been said, and still it will not be superfluous. The other day, Qualcomm announced the new Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset; in its description you can read what the company says about each new chipset for flagship products every year – it has become faster, consumes less energy, and the list goes on. The final decision that will change everything forever. The problem is that you and I live in the future and you can look back at the past, compare the promises and the reality around us.
Journalists sometimes ask me the same questions, this happened with the new processor from Qualcomm, a typical set of questions sounds something like this:
- How fast is the processor?
- Which companies will be the first to release devices based on it?
- Will these devices be able to outperform the Apple processors found in the latest iPhones?
Every time I try to explain that simplifying any product to a single component does not lead to a true assessment of its features and capabilities. For example, in synthetic parrots, the iPhone 16 Pro Max usually breaks the records and shows an unprecedented number of synthetic parrots. And it seems to be the best processor that has no direct competitors. But if we try to convert 8K video on it, we realize that it is not for these devices, at best 4K. We agree that 8K is not the most common format for most people, so let’s put the issue of its support aside. But if you take the standard 4K videos, the difference with smartphones on the same Snapdragon 8 Gen.3 will not be particularly remarkable, and this difference is not always for the iPhone. Why is this so? Yes, because a phone is not only a processor, but also other subsystems: memory, screen, operating system. And the interaction of all these systems determines exactly how you see the device as a whole and how satisfied you will be with it.
Note that many Chinese manufacturers put fast processors in their smartphones and try to match the level of the main products. But at the same time, they have to solve a problem that is not so small, to ensure that the price of the machine does not increase, because each part costs money. And the cost of processors is growing every year, and the same chipsets from Qualcomm have already exceeded the $200 mark. Considering their cost, it is simply impossible to dream of branded products for them for $500-600 at retail prices; they cannot exist in such an economy, that is exactly what we see. Qualcomm hit a ceiling and they had to release Snapdragon 8s Gen.3 to increase their sales, because their main products were not sold for that kind of money, they started to lose the market for the same MediaTek .
The new Tecno Phantom V Fold2 is powered by a Mediatek Dimensity 9000+ (4 nm) processor. This is not the fastest, but in the same Antutu it easily gives 1.1 million points. The only problem is that it gets very hot in a certain device. The problem is heat dissipation, as the company felt that the use cases for the Fold did not include heavy loads, that people would not be driving heavy toys or ‘ do anything like that.
The same reasoning was in the Flip line from Samsung, where they installed powerful processors, but did not add an evaporation chamber to cool the device. For what? After all, these are fashionable folding beds, and no one will overdo them. Suddenly, it turned out that there are several AI features, video shooting, all this leads to overheating, shorter operating time, and so on. Starting with Flip6, the devices have an evacuation chamber. And this is another example of the fact that the processor alone is not what makes any phone come alive. You cannot achieve good performance if your device gets hot, and starts throttling immediately.
Above is the throttle graph on Honor Magic V3, Folded form factor, the model does not heat much, but because it slows down the performance, you can see it in the graph (42-43 degrees at the top) .
The Fold6 does not reset the frequency of the processor so aggressively (the models are the same in memory and processor), as a result, more performance is available for a longer period of time. Also, the average performance of the solution is higher.
And here is the question of who and how she dealt with this issue ideologically. Protect the device from heating as much as possible, because this will still lead to shutdown, or it will create components that are more expensive, but protected from heating, but provide the highest performance for a longer time. Each manufacturer chooses its own solution for its own tasks.
To finish with this question, I will give an example of the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Energy chipset, first found in the realme 13+ 5G. The model is mid-level, but it used a large stainless steel vacuum chamber; there is even a comparison in the promo box with standard devices in this category that use a graphene plate.
Because they added a very expensive heat removal component, this machine didn’t have the same thrust as its direct competitors. In addition, there is no heating so you can play heavy games on it for a long time and not feel that your hands are burning the case, and the battery lasts games for almost a long time taller, in his class for sure.
And what happens? I am sure that we will see many other devices using this processor, but if there is no effective cooling, they will not even come close to the model from the real one.
The above examples are roughly the same; a smartphone is a collection of different parts, where the manufacturer tries to combine them successfully and achieve good performance. In addition, sometimes a flagship processor is redundant and useless, and at the software level its capabilities are limited, otherwise it causes heating and short battery life. In the same iPhone, all background processes of third-party applications are killed at the root, which provides additional operating time, but does not allow you to use the device comfortably.
Another example is modems from Qualcomm that are installed in cars. The same modem from different manufacturers shows completely different results, although formally there should not be any differences. The question is not even about the antennas, that the plus/minus is the same for everyone, because they go in conjunction with the modem. It all comes down to licensing, when Chinese companies agree to buy hardware with limited software support to save money. And it turns out that you bought something that looks like a good solution, but in reality everything is not so rosy.
So, please, let’s assume that our device is still a set of parts and the final result depends on how well they were chosen and combined with each other and the software. Of course, the quality of individual components is important, but it seems in construction, even a bad beginner will not get anything out of the best brick, knowledge and skills are needed.
