Every time there is a chart ranking the superiority of Smartphones, more often than not, Samsung and Apple appear at the top of the list, from best cameras to best phones overall and even highest profit margins. However, every once in a while, an underdog battles its way up the ladder and disrupts the status quo. In this case, the best performing Smartphone in terms of Antutu benchmark speed test was none other than the HTC U11, the same phone whose camera was recently crowned as the highest rated shooter by the photography ranking site DxOMark.com. HTC seems to be having one hell of a comeback with this one.
Current Rankings (Top 5)
- HTC U11 180,079
- iPhone 7 Plus 174,299
- Xiaomi Mi 6 172,494
- Samsung Galaxy S8 172,368
- Samsung Galaxy S8+ 172,359
NOTE: These rankings are based on the average scores of the Antutu benchmark results
Now some might be wondering how HTC dethroned the usual tech giants, here is a possible explanation. Software updates usually have a lot to do with a phone’s overall performance, Apple just released iOS 10.3 update, some reports say that this version might be the reason for the lower benchmark results. On the other hand, HTC has issued updates of their own, despite the U11 running the same hardware as the US based Samsung Galaxy S8 & S8+, the company has driven towards a leaner version of their Sense UI skin, most apps that have a stock version such as the music player and calendar have remained unchanged. Previously, we saw manufactures having duplicate apps for instance, HTC calendar used to be accompanied by a stock Google Calendar, this trend has stopped a nd its benefits have already started manifesting themselves. It’s still an amazing feat for HTC to beat Apple considering that the latter company controls both their software and hardware in-house, to fine tune them to work together seamlessly unlike the off-the-counter approach of the Android OS.
Lastly, it’s very interesting for Xiaomi Mi 6 to fall at number 3 given that it is only half the price of most phones on the list, not to mention that it comes from a company whose age is still in single digits, very impressive. This revelation enforces the argument that customers ought to go for value over brand.