Austin Evans Names the HTC One the Best Smartphone

[Echodamus]

I didn't say it was bad. I'm saying it's taking up space in this thread

And what is this thread but a space to express opinions? Just because anothers is different than yours, and maybe an unpopular opinion, doesn't make it any less valid to put on this thread. And, its not like there is a limited amount of space either. 

[JAKEBAB]

Why is this even a thread? It's invalid and a YouTube video. It's just like of any of us on the forum made a video saying X phone is the best he's just an ordinary person what makes his opinion more valid than anyone else's? This is not tech news this is some guys opinion nothing new!

[Mauri]

Best mobile tech reviewers on youtube IMO are Pocketnow, mobiletechreview, Android authoriy, and Linus of course (off the top of my head). I used to like watching jon4lakers but it turned into a bunch of rumor infested videos and click baiting titles

[Dylan522p]

Best mobile tech reviewers on youtube IMO are Pocketnow, mobiletechreview, Android authoriy, and Linus of course (off the top of my head). I used to like watching jon4lakers but it turned into a bunch of rumor infested videos and click baiting titles

Anandtech is easily number 1. Pocket now and AndroidAuthority get ALOT of facts wrong, although I will say pocket now's 2 dude easily have the best voices for reviews.

[LAwLz]

I've never seen any of his videos before but here is a rundown of what I thought while watching the video (writing this while watching the video):
 
Right of the bat I think his way of talking is kind of annoying. I'll give him the benefit of a doubt though, it might just be in the intro.
I am surprised that he did not include the Nexus 5 in his comparison.
 
Build quality:
Oh God no... Not another person who think in hand feel is the same as build quality... Let me guess, the HTC M8 will win simply because it's made out of recycled soda cans and he won't bring up anything that would require more thought than "this feels nice, so therefore it must be built well", such as the number of defects, quality of the NAND and stuff like that. I think we should replace the word "build quality" with "how premium the back feels", because that is what people talk about when they say "build quality".
 
Oh... Looks like I was wrong about which phone that won. Tie between iPhone 5S and the M8 apparently.
 
Ergonomics
Extremely subjective. Some people might have big issues with the Moto X's size, and some people might not have any issues with the size of the Galaxy S 5. It also depends on what kind of programs you use. For example the Galaxy S 5 has the back button and a button that can be used as a menu button on the bottom, removing most of the need to reach to the top corners. The buttons are also positioned so that they are easy to reach.
It's just too subjective to use in an "what's the best smartphone" video.
 
 
Features
Wait, he starts out with a feature that is not unique to the M8? Wouldn't it have been better to bring up for example the speakers as a major feature for the M8?
He also forgot to mention a ton of other features each phone has. I could understand skipping some of them to make the video shorter and more entertaining, but he should have mentioned at least a few more for each phone.
 
 
Performance
Oh no. I expect him to run some crappy browser benchmark which in no way represent the actual performance of the SoCs.
Oh I was wrong, he runs what seems to be at least decent benchmarks. Geekbench 3 looks kind of fishy though. Seems like it can only really use 3 cores, and I am a bit suspicious regarding how different the iOS version and Android version are. They are probably not even written in the same language and the results are therefore pretty meaningless (if that is the case, which I am 99% sure they are).
 
On paper, the iPhone has a really fast dual core CPU, not slow dual core CPU. The GPU is also massive.
 
Wait a minute... Most responsive? I thought he said he was going to measure performance, not responsiveness. These two are completely different things. You can get the illusion of high performance by using speed tricks. For example the iPhone with long drawn out animations, limited scrolling speed and showing a screenshot of the app before the app is actually loaded (to trick people into thinking that the app has launched slightly quicker than it actually did).
It doesn't really make sense to compare the GPe version of the M8 vs the regular S5 either, especially not it did not look like he was running the same apps (he had a bunch of programs running in the background on the Galaxy S 5 and I think the HTC One as well).
Bottom line: Not scientific enough if you ask me.
 
 
Audio
Wait... He is comparing speakers by measuring how would they are if you put them against a wall?
Want to see a real audio test? Check this out: Smartphone Audio Quality Testing (Anandtech). This is how you do an audio test, not by leaning the phone against a wall and then measuring how loud it is.
Even in a very unscientific test I expect at least a microphone test but he didn't even give us that.
 
His way of talking is still annoying by the way... Thought it would get better or that I would get used to it but nope. "It works pretty weeell".
 
Will write more later. I am not even half way through with the video.
 
 
 
Edit:
And here is the rest
 
 
Display
Wait... Lackluster color on the screen? Here are some facts about the Moto X's screen: Color balance is almost perfect. A bit too much blue and a bit too little green but other than that it's pretty much spot on. The colors are oversaturated though, and I mean a lot. It's probably because Android isn't color space aware but still, saying that the colors are dull is just wrong. They are too colorful. The display is not that bright though, so maybe the lack of brightness makes him think the colors are dull, or maybe he is just used to horribly calibrated screens in general.
 
The HTC M8 and Galaxy S 5 have some of the best screens out there? The M8's screen is worse than the M7 in many ways, and the S5 has some pretty big issues.
The M8 has pretty bad black levels (quite a lot worse than the M7, and literally infinitely worse than the Moto X and Galaxy S 5). Color accuracy on the M8 is also pretty terrible judging by the CalMAN Gretag macbeth Average delta E 2000 test by Anandtech. The M8 gets 6.1527 and the Galaxy S 5 gets 3.9102. The higher the number, the less accurate are colors. The iPhone and Nexus 5 are a hair better than the Galaxy S 5 (about a 0.3 difference).
The white point average on the HTC M8 is also far too warm. It is perfect on the Galaxy S 5. Some might prefer a warmer display, but it is not accurate. It's like saying you like Beats because you like the extra bass. You might like them subjectively, but it's objectively bad.
If the HTC M8 wins this then it's because Austin don't know how to objectively compare displays, not because it is actually good.
... A tie? I was expecting him to say the M8 won. maybe he isn't a lost cause after all.
 
 
Software
So he basically gave the win to the M8 because he happened to have the GPe version...? So if he had the Google Play edition of the Galaxy S 5 and the regular M8 model he would have given the win to the Galaxy S 5? That seems pretty unfair...
Not to mention that this is not only very subjective, but something you can easily change.
 
 
Camera
Okay... There is no way he will bullshit his way around the awful camera on the M8. It's even worse than the M7 because of the lack of OIS.
Wait... Bland colors? I was expecting him to complain about the lack of 4K video as well as the butchering of fine details back of the really low resolution. From what I've seen, color accuracy is pretty much the only thing that has improved going from the M7 to M8. I am not sure if this is an issue I just haven't seen, or if he thinks that oversaturated colors looks good and everything else is "dull".
Woah woah waoh... The iPhone 5S wins because it takes photos faster? But it doesn't... In Anand's tests he found that the M8 and S5 are quite a lot quicker than the iPhone 5S to focus, capture and be ready for the next shot. The average speeds in his tests were:
M8 - 536ms
SGS5 - 558ms
iPhone 5S - 850ms
The iPhone's camera is 58% slower than the M8.
 
I honestly have no idea what the hell he was doing in this test at all. Did he do any measurements at all or did he just go "well this seems fast so therefore it is the best" without properly testing the other phones?
 
Battery
In before tests that doesn't represent real world usage, or some terrible actual real world usage test which was in no way in a controlled environment...
Oh I was wrong. he didn't actually show us anything. He just went "it has less bloatware so therefore it lasts longer". I would like to see your scientific tests in a controlled environment to back this claim up with Austin.
 
Price
Well I honestly can't complain about this test.
 
 

"So this has been a long video with a lot of infoou. What's the bottom liiine?"

Not really. It's been a 10 minute video with next to no real info. Just a bunch of opinions and a serious lack of objectivity to back anything up with.

 

 

I give this video a 4/10. The image and audio quality is good, but there is a serious lack of real facts and an excess of "I like it, so therefore it is good".

The host's way of talking is pretty annoying as well. He speaks clearly and has a pretty good voice, but the way he drags certain words out is pretty annoying to me. If other people like it then good for them, it's not my cup of tea though.

Edit 2: I should probably add that Austin is a really nice guy (haven't seen any of his videos but I've heard the things he has done for Linus) so be nice and respectful.

I like him as a person, but I don't like this video.

[Patres87]

As much as I honour his opinion, the fact is, that HTC messed up the camera. My point is, I hope the best *a flag ship-killer* is still yet to come !

[h3ll0]

I think the nexus 5 is the best smartphone because it costs half of what the other smartphones cost and has the specs to match them.

 

I also love stock android.

 

The only problem I have with it is the hangouts sms app and the camera.daemon battery drain issue.

[Dylan522p]

I've never seen any of his videos before but here is a rundown of what I thought while watching the video (writing this while watching the video):

 

Right of the bat I think his way of talking is kind of annoying. I'll give him the benefit of a doubt though, it might just be in the intro.

I am surprised that he did not include the Nexus 5 in his comparison.

 

Build quality:

Oh God no... Not another person who think in hand feel is the same as build quality... Let me guess, the HTC M8 will win simply because it's made out of recycled soda cans and he won't bring up anything that would require more thought than "this feels nice, so therefore it must be built well", such as the number of defects, quality of the NAND and stuff like that. I think we should replace the word "build quality" with "how premium the back feels", because that is what people talk about when they say "build quality".

 

Oh... Looks like I was wrong about which phone that won. Tie between iPhone 5S and the M8 apparently.

 

Ergonomics

Extremely subjective. Some people might have big issues with the Moto X's size, and some people might not have any issues with the size of the Galaxy S 5. It also depends on what kind of programs you use. For example the Galaxy S 5 has the back button and a button that can be used as a menu button on the bottom, removing most of the need to reach to the top corners. The buttons are also positioned so that they are easy to reach.

It's just too subjective to use in an "what's the best smartphone" video.

 

 

Features

Wait, he starts out with a feature that is not unique to the M8? Wouldn't it have been better to bring up for example the speakers as a major feature for the M8?

He also forgot to mention a ton of other features each phone has. I could understand skipping some of them to make the video shorter and more entertaining, but he should have mentioned at least a few more for each phone.

 

 

Performance

Oh no. I expect him to run some crappy browser benchmark which in no way represent the actual performance of the SoCs.

Oh I was wrong, he runs what seems to be at least decent benchmarks. Geekbench 3 looks kind of fishy though. Seems like it can only really use 3 cores, and I am a bit suspicious regarding how different the iOS version and Android version are. They are probably not even written in the same language and the results are therefore pretty meaningless (if that is the case, which I am 99% sure they are).

 

On paper, the iPhone has a really fast dual core CPU, not slow dual core CPU. The GPU is also massive.

 

Wait a minute... Most responsive? I thought he said he was going to measure performance, not responsiveness. These two are completely different things. You can get the illusion of high performance by using speed tricks. For example the iPhone with long drawn out animations, limited scrolling speed and showing a screenshot of the app before the app is actually loaded (to trick people into thinking that the app has launched slightly quicker than it actually did).

It doesn't really make sense to compare the GPe version of the M8 vs the regular S5 either, especially not it did not look like he was running the same apps (he had a bunch of programs running in the background on the Galaxy S 5 and I think the HTC One as well).

Bottom line: Not scientific enough if you ask me.

 

 

Audio

Wait... He is comparing speakers by measuring how would they are if you put them against a wall?

Want to see a real audio test? Check this out: Smartphone Audio Quality Testing (Anandtech). This is how you do an audio test, not by leaning the phone against a wall and then measuring how loud it is.

Even in a very unscientific test I expect at least a microphone test but he didn't even give us that.

 

His way of talking is still annoying by the way... Thought it would get better or that I would get used to it but nope. "It works pretty weeell".

 

Will write more later. I am not even half way through with the video.

Performance wise, M8 and iPhone are certainly the best. They have the lowest touch latency, and top tier specs.

[LAwLz]

Performance wise, M8 and iPhone are certainly the best. They have the lowest touch latency, and top tier specs.

[citation needed] on the claim that the M8 and iPhone has the lowest touch latency.

The M8 doesn't even have top tier specs. It doesn't have the highest binned Snapdragon 801. The camera is decent at best. The NAND is nothing special. Not that much RAM (there is a significant performance benefit from going to 3GB) and the list goes on.

The iPhone 5S doesn't have top tier specs either. It has the best dual core of any phone, but it's not even close to being the most powerful if you just look at raw performance.

[Dylan522p]

[citation needed] on the claim that the M8 and iPhone has the lowest touch latency.

The M8 doesn't even have top tier specs. It doesn't have the highest binned Snapdragon 801. The camera is decent at best. The NAND is nothing special. Not that much RAM (there is a significant performance benefit from going to 3GB) and the list goes on.

The iPhone 5S doesn't have top tier specs either. It has the best dual core of any phone, but it's not even close to being the most powerful if you just look at raw performance.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2706200

 

bin of the S801 is irrelevant especially because the M8 is able to retain higher clocks compared to something like the S5 which throttles so much.

 

You are also wrong on the nand

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7903/samsung-galaxy-s-5-review/7

 

iPhone has the best single threaded performance which is far more important in mobile workloads and it has a top tier GPU which coupled with the less pixels to push has it perform far better in games.

 

3GB RAM is also pretty much pointless unless you have a Note 3 with S-Apps that take up a 1-1.5GB RAM just by having them running/cached in the background.

[Scheer]

I wonder how he broke his Moto X, it is literally the only phone I've had that I haven't broken, with most of them breaking multiple times. I guess I haven't broken my S4 yet... but that is because it is a work phone and I don't normally have it on me.

[LAwLz]

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2706200

So there is a 29ms difference between the M8 and Nexus 5, and no difference whatsoever between the iPhone 5S and the Nexus 5... Not really what I'd say qualifies them as "certainly the best".

The 16ms difference between the Galaxy S 5 and the iPhone 5S is next to nothing either. Lower is obviously better, but it's silly to try to argue that a 16ms lower delay makes the device much higher performing.

 

 

bin of the S801 is irrelevant especially because the M8 is able to retain higher clocks compared to something like the S5 which throttles so much.

That's not how a lot of workloads on phones work though. The CPU usually wake up, do a burst of work and then go back to idle as soon as possible. Sure the Galaxy S 5 will throttle quicker and faster than the HTC M8, but in normal usage scenarios the CPU will only be fully loaded for a few seconds. The longer time you keep the CPU maxed out, the less difference the SKU makes, but most normal workloads are short bursts of work.

 

 

You are also wrong on the nand

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7903/samsung-galaxy-s-5-review/7

Oops yeah you are right. The NAND in the M8 is pretty good actually.

I stand corrected.

 

 

iPhone has the best single threaded performance which is far more important in mobile workloads and it has a top tier GPU which coupled with the less pixels to push has it perform far better in games.

I disagree. I often have 3 and 4 cores active on my phone. Yes single threaded performance is very important but in the end even two great cores won't be as good as four very good cores.

The GPU is really good, I will give you that. Having less pixels is not what I'd call a good thing though. You might get higher frame rate but lower quality. Personally I take the quality into consideration when talking about how something performs in a game.

 

 

3GB RAM is also pretty much pointless unless you have a Note 3 with S-Apps that take up a 1-1.5GB RAM just by having them running/cached in the background.

1920x1080 phones benefits from the bigger VRAM buffer you can have with 3GB. This is why we saw the Note 3 outperform the G2 in GPU benchmarks, even though they have the same GPU.

You don't have to expunge as much data (this drives me insane on certain phones when having multiple tabs open in the browser) as quickly if you have more RAM. This can have a pretty decent performance impact on someone who switches between several apps often, since you won't have to recompile the apps as often.

[werto165]

They tingle a bit lol

[Dylan522p]

So there is a 29ms difference between the M8 and Nexus 5, and no difference whatsoever between the iPhone 5S and the Nexus 5... Not really what I'd say qualifies them as "certainly the best".

The 16ms difference between the Galaxy S 5 and the iPhone 5S is next to nothing either. Lower is obviously better, but it's silly to try to argue that a 16ms lower delay makes the device much higher performing.

 

 

That's not how a lot of workloads on phones work though. The CPU usually wake up, do a burst of work and then go back to idle as soon as possible. Sure the Galaxy S 5 will throttle quicker and faster than the HTC M8, but in normal usage scenarios the CPU will only be fully loaded for a few seconds. The longer time you keep the CPU maxed out, the less difference the SKU makes, but most normal workloads are short bursts of work.

 

 

Oops yeah you are right. The NAND in the M8 is pretty good actually.

I stand corrected.

 

 

I disagree. I often have 3 and 4 cores active on my phone. Yes single threaded performance is very important but in the end even two great cores won't be as good as four very good cores.

The GPU is really good, I will give you that. Having less pixels is not what I'd call a good thing though. You might get higher frame rate but lower quality. Personally I take the quality into consideration when talking about how something performs in a game.

 

 

1920x1080 phones benefits from the bigger VRAM buffer you can have with 3GB. This is why we saw the Note 3 outperform the G2 in GPU benchmarks, even though they have the same GPU.

You don't have to expunge as much data (this drives me insane on certain phones when having multiple tabs open in the browser) as quickly if you have more RAM. This can have a pretty decent performance impact on someone who switches between several apps often, since you won't have to recompile the apps as often.

I disagree. The difference is quite noticable 16ms is actually quite large.

 

Very few workloads are bursty yet require the most of the performance out of the SOC. The workloads that demand the max performance are games and the camera which both are not bursty.

 

Thing is 2 Cyclones offer better performance than 4 Krait's. Benchmarks show this. It is objectively better.

 

The "poor" quality thing doesn't make sense. It has far fewer pixels as it is far smaller too. The quality isn't poor. Most games perform better and look just as good on iOS and that is a fact.

 

Proof for the VRAM buffer? The GPU rarely utilizes more than even 512mb. The Note 3 outperformed the G2 because it had higher clocks on the GPU side with a higher bin AC vs AB in G2. Look at the S5 and M8 both perform just as well if not better in gaming benchmarks yet they have 2 GB RAM, the same CPU with slightly higher clock, and same GPU clocks.

 

3GB theoretically can help when multitasking, but none of the "best" phones have 3GB RAM except the Note 3 which like I said has 1GB-1.5GB used just from Touchwiz unremovable bloat. Thing is that I can multi task between 4-5 apps and none of them have to reload. I can do it with more too, but that is simply useless. For now 2GB is more than enough, and until Android or iOS get REAL (multiple windows) multitasking, 2GB is more than enough.

[Lyons]

I like how the title of this thread makes it sound like Austin Evans is an authority on smart phones. His videos are so bland and lack real substance. He seems like a nice guy though.

[Dylan522p]

Battery

In before tests that doesn't represent real world usage, or some terrible actual real world usage test which was in no way in a controlled environment...

Oh I was wrong. he didn't actually show us anything. He just went "it has less bloatware so therefore it lasts longer". I would like to see your scientific tests in a controlled environment to back this claim up with Austin.

 

 

 

Objective proof

 

http://anandtech.com/show/7903/samsung-galaxy-s-5-review/5

[i_build_nanosuits]

this kid can ''name'' all he wants i wont listen..

[Thibaudv]

I've never seen any of his videos before but here is a rundown of what I thought while watching the video (writing this while watching the video):

 

Right of the bat I think his way of talking is kind of annoying. I'll give him the benefit of a doubt though, it might just be in the intro.

I am surprised that he did not include the Nexus 5 in his comparison.

 

Build quality:

Oh God no... Not another person who think in hand feel is the same as build quality... Let me guess, the HTC M8 will win simply because it's made out of recycled soda cans and he won't bring up anything that would require more thought than "this feels nice, so therefore it must be built well", such as the number of defects, quality of the NAND and stuff like that. I think we should replace the word "build quality" with "how premium the back feels", because that is what people talk about when they say "build quality".

 

Oh... Looks like I was wrong about which phone that won. Tie between iPhone 5S and the M8 apparently.

 

Ergonomics

Extremely subjective. Some people might have big issues with the Moto X's size, and some people might not have any issues with the size of the Galaxy S 5. It also depends on what kind of programs you use. For example the Galaxy S 5 has the back button and a button that can be used as a menu button on the bottom, removing most of the need to reach to the top corners. The buttons are also positioned so that they are easy to reach.

It's just too subjective to use in an "what's the best smartphone" video.

 

 

Features

Wait, he starts out with a feature that is not unique to the M8? Wouldn't it have been better to bring up for example the speakers as a major feature for the M8?

He also forgot to mention a ton of other features each phone has. I could understand skipping some of them to make the video shorter and more entertaining, but he should have mentioned at least a few more for each phone.

 

 

Performance

Oh no. I expect him to run some crappy browser benchmark which in no way represent the actual performance of the SoCs.

Oh I was wrong, he runs what seems to be at least decent benchmarks. Geekbench 3 looks kind of fishy though. Seems like it can only really use 3 cores, and I am a bit suspicious regarding how different the iOS version and Android version are. They are probably not even written in the same language and the results are therefore pretty meaningless (if that is the case, which I am 99% sure they are).

 

On paper, the iPhone has a really fast dual core CPU, not slow dual core CPU. The GPU is also massive.

 

Wait a minute... Most responsive? I thought he said he was going to measure performance, not responsiveness. These two are completely different things. You can get the illusion of high performance by using speed tricks. For example the iPhone with long drawn out animations, limited scrolling speed and showing a screenshot of the app before the app is actually loaded (to trick people into thinking that the app has launched slightly quicker than it actually did).

It doesn't really make sense to compare the GPe version of the M8 vs the regular S5 either, especially not it did not look like he was running the same apps (he had a bunch of programs running in the background on the Galaxy S 5 and I think the HTC One as well).

Bottom line: Not scientific enough if you ask me.

 

 

Audio

Wait... He is comparing speakers by measuring how would they are if you put them against a wall?

Want to see a real audio test? Check this out: Smartphone Audio Quality Testing (Anandtech). This is how you do an audio test, not by leaning the phone against a wall and then measuring how loud it is.

Even in a very unscientific test I expect at least a microphone test but he didn't even give us that.

 

His way of talking is still annoying by the way... Thought it would get better or that I would get used to it but nope. "It works pretty weeell".

 

Will write more later. I am not even half way through with the video.

 

 

 

Edit:

And here is the rest

 

 

Display

Wait... Lackluster color on the screen? Here are some facts about the Moto X's screen: Color balance is almost perfect. A bit too much blue and a bit too little green but other than that it's pretty much spot on. The colors are oversaturated though, and I mean a lot. It's probably because Android isn't color space aware but still, saying that the colors are dull is just wrong. They are too colorful. The display is not that bright though, so maybe the lack of brightness makes him think the colors are dull, or maybe he is just used to horribly calibrated screens in general.

 

The HTC M8 and Galaxy S 5 have some of the best screens out there? The M8's screen is worse than the M7 in many ways, and the S5 has some pretty big issues.

The M8 has pretty bad black levels (quite a lot worse than the M7, and literally infinitely worse than the Moto X and Galaxy S 5). Color accuracy on the M8 is also pretty terrible judging by the CalMAN Gretag macbeth Average delta E 2000 test by Anandtech. The M8 gets 6.1527 and the Galaxy S 5 gets 3.9102. The higher the number, the less accurate are colors. The iPhone and Nexus 5 are a hair better than the Galaxy S 5 (about a 0.3 difference).

The white point average on the HTC M8 is also far too warm. It is perfect on the Galaxy S 5. Some might prefer a warmer display, but it is not accurate. It's like saying you like Beats because you like the extra bass. You might like them subjectively, but it's objectively bad.

If the HTC M8 wins this then it's because Austin don't know how to objectively compare displays, not because it is actually good.

... A tie? I was expecting him to say the M8 won. maybe he isn't a lost cause after all.

 

 

Software

So he basically gave the win to the M8 because he happened to have the GPe version...? So if he had the Google Play edition of the Galaxy S 5 and the regular M8 model he would have given the win to the Galaxy S 5? That seems pretty unfair...

Not to mention that this is not only very subjective, but something you can easily change.

 

 

Camera

Okay... There is no way he will bullshit his way around the awful camera on the M8. It's even worse than the M7 because of the lack of OIS.

Wait... Bland colors? I was expecting him to complain about the lack of 4K video as well as the butchering of fine details back of the really low resolution. From what I've seen, color accuracy is pretty much the only thing that has improved going from the M7 to M8. I am not sure if this is an issue I just haven't seen, or if he thinks that oversaturated colors looks good and everything else is "dull".

Woah woah waoh... The iPhone 5S wins because it takes photos faster? But it doesn't... In Anand's tests he found that the M8 and S5 are quite a lot quicker than the iPhone 5S to focus, capture and be ready for the next shot. The average speeds in his tests were:

M8 - 536ms

SGS5 - 558ms

iPhone 5S - 850ms

The iPhone's camera is 58% slower than the M8.

 

I honestly have no idea what the hell he was doing in this test at all. Did he do any measurements at all or did he just go "well this seems fast so therefore it is the best" without properly testing the other phones?

 

Battery

In before tests that doesn't represent real world usage, or some terrible actual real world usage test which was in no way in a controlled environment...

Oh I was wrong. he didn't actually show us anything. He just went "it has less bloatware so therefore it lasts longer". I would like to see your scientific tests in a controlled environment to back this claim up with Austin.

 

Price

Well I honestly can't complain about this test.

 

 

Not really. It's been a 10 minute video with next to no real info. Just a bunch of opinions and a serious lack of objectivity to back anything up with.

 

 

I give this video a 4/10. The image and audio quality is good, but there is a serious lack of real facts and an excess of "I like it, so therefore it is good".

The host's way of talking is pretty annoying as well. He speaks clearly and has a pretty good voice, but the way he drags certain words out is pretty annoying to me. If other people like it then good for them, it's not my cup of tea though.

Now I am really curious as to which one you would pick to be the winner. Seems like you've read up on most aspects of every single one of these phones, so I am interested.

 

Also, why is the Nexus 5 not in this test?

[LAwLz]

I disagree. The difference is quite noticable 16ms is actually quite large.

Well, it's not.

The difference is that you got a 5.46 frame delay instead of a 4.5 frame delay (at 60Hz). It's really really hard to notice. Of course, lower is better, but saying that there is a significant enough difference to impact the performance more than something more important like CPU and GPU horsepower is just silly.

 

 

Very few workloads are bursty yet require the most of the performance out of the SOC. The workloads that demand the max performance are games and the camera which both are not bursty.

Loading web pages. Post-processing on photos. Decompressing files. Loading long lists. Rendering lots of images (like in an app with lots of thumbnails, especially if you got a high quality down scaling algorithm). Opening applications.

Please note that not only are these all things that are usually short bursts but they are also things that can benefit from having multiple cores.

 

 

Thing is 2 Cyclones offer better performance than 4 Krait's. Benchmarks show this. It is objectively better.

No it doesn't... And please don't link me to some horrible browser based benchmark. If you don't understand the issue with them then it's not even worth discussing with you, because you don't understand the basics of benchmarking.

In terms of raw performance, four Krait cores are much much more powerful.

I know DMIPS isn't that great to measure performance with but let's use it anyway (since it removes software bias, unlike browser tests):

Krait 400 - 3.39 DMIPS/MHz

Cyclone - Don't have exact numbers but let's estimate it fairly high and say 4 DMIPS/MHz (which is quite a lot over the performance increase claim Apple said at the press conference, ~3.6 DMIPS/MHz would be more inline with their performance claims)

 

A6 = 1.3GHz

Snapdragon 801 = 2.45GHz

 

MHz of the chip * DMIPS/MHz * cores = DMIPS

 

A6: 1300 * 4 * 2 = 10400

Snapdragon 801: 2450 * 3.39 * 4 = 33222

 

Even the great performance per MHz and core is still not even close enough to make up for the huge frequency difference and only having half the cores.

Like I said before, DMIPS aren't that great for measuring performance, but please remember that I was generous with how powerful Cyclone is as well.

 

 

The "poor" quality thing doesn't make sense. It has far fewer pixels as it is far smaller too. The quality isn't poor. Most games perform better and look just as good on iOS and that is a fact.

I never said the quality was poor. I said it was lower quality, which it is. The screen being smaller is a drawback, not a benefit. Other phones has higher resolution, PPI and screen size.

Just saying "this is a fact" does not actually make it a fact. Want to claim something is a fact? Back it up with evidence.

 

 

Proof for the VRAM buffer? The GPU rarely utilizes more than even 512mb. The Note 3 outperformed the G2 because it had higher clocks on the GPU side with a higher bin AC vs AB in G2. Look at the S5 and M8 both perform just as well if not better in gaming benchmarks yet they have 2 GB RAM, the same CPU with slightly higher clock, and same GPU clocks.

Nope, they both are exactly the same (GPU wise).

Adreno 330 at 450MHz. The SoC they use is exactly the exact same one (MSM8974).

 

 

I’ve confirmed that GPU clocks on the Note 3 are indeed maxing out at 450 MHz, and quite honestly it’s a bit early for 8974AB in the first place, though it wouldn’t surprise me to see Samsung eventually get that faster bin at some point and put it in something.

-Brian Klug

 

The GPU in the Galaxy S 5 and HTC One are clocked at 578MHz. That's why they are comparable to the Note 3. That's an increase of almost 30%.

 

 

3GB theoretically can help when multitasking, but none of the "best" phones have 3GB RAM except the Note 3 which like I said has 1GB-1.5GB used just from Touchwiz unremovable bloat. Thing is that I can multi task between 4-5 apps and none of them have to reload. I can do it with more too, but that is simply useless. For now 2GB is more than enough, and until Android or iOS get REAL (multiple windows) multitasking, 2GB is more than enough.

And the Xperia Z2, and the LG G3 (according to rumors), and the LG G Pro 2, and the OnePlus One, and the Find 7, and a bunch of tablets.

Oh and the iPhone expunges the browser cache very very quickly to keep RAM usage down. It's really really annoying and a huge waste of your mobile data connection.

My Nexus 10 is also RAM starved quite often with its puny 2GB.

[matin94]

the thing i dont like about austin is the ending of the video where he said ill catch you in the next one and makes the FAKEST smile ever. that smile. makes me want to murder him with chicken claws.

[snes]

It's MAY, so there's 6 more months to go.

 

Why do people even care about what that guy says? He's a f+cking moron who's just trying to get you to fight over nothing in the comments section. More hits = more money in his bank and more of your own time wasted. At least with Linus' and the boy's videos we get to learn something useful from time to time.

[vyogan]

Now I am really curious as to which one you would pick to be the winner. Seems like you've read up on most aspects of every single one of these phones, so I am interested.

 

Also, why is the Nexus 5 not in this test?

 

Nexus 5 is not a 2014 smartphone.   Which begs the question why is iPhone 5S in it..........weird  :mellow:

 

Honestly, I prefer Android Authority's Best Android Phones for 2013 because it is tailored to the needs of the users rather than just specs/feature war. As we all know, there is no such thing as a perfect phone. We can always find flaws or faults with each phone model if you look hard enough.

[Syfes]

I think the hate on this thread is a bit much? I get some of the comments, but maybe you could consider he appeals to a different audience compared to the linus tech tips community? As far as I can tell he targets a much more mainstream crowd who don't care as much about in depth specs. This is clearly reflected in the products he reviews and how he reviews them. And although I'm not a huge fan of his work, I think he doesn't do a bad job either.

[Misanthrope]

I think the hate on this thread is a bit much? I get some of the comments, but maybe you could consider he appeals to a different audience compared to the linus tech tips community? As far as I can tell he targets a much more mainstream crowd who don't care as much about in depth specs. This is clearly reflected in the products he reviews and how he reviews them. And although I'm not a huge fan of his work, I think he doesn't do a bad job either.

 

Yep, pretty much. Think of his channel as being akin to "Tech quickie" not "Linus Tech Tips" Besides that some people have gone as far as calling him a douche: Did you people know that Austin was the one that actually send Linus a 295x for testing and such? Yep, he did an awesome thing considering that he's sort of a competitor to Linus but understands there's no reason for animosity. I wouldn't call a guy like that a "douche".

[Syfes]

Yep, pretty much. Think of his channel as being akin to "Tech quickie" not "Linus Tech Tips" Besides that some people have gone as far as calling him a douche: Did you people know that Austin was the one that actually send Linus a 295x for testing and such? Yep, he did an awesome thing considering that he's sort of a competitor to Linus but understands there's no reason for animosity. I wouldn't call a guy like that a "douche".

 

If I remember correctly he also let Linus use his credit card to buy his google glass