Thanks interesting. I guess that definitely answers the question as to whether the paid Qualcomm partnership had any impact on your ratings (not that it would, knowing AT, I know!).
What I found strange about the article is that, unlike most reviews of gaming hardware, there were not any benchmarks for games.
Maybe that's because nobody cares how many frames per second you can render Candy Crush which is why they pack it in with Windows so Intel can claim there is a "game" you can play with the integrated graphics.
If there aren't any games that need a gaming phone, why does a gaming phone have to exist? It's like the sound of one hand clapping. isn't it?
I mean, there area pretty intensive games for smartphones out there, think PUBG, Fortnite, racing games. I don't really know if they provide accurate/useful ingame benchmarks and I don't know if there are any FRAPS / FCAT like apps for Android. I don't think we get anything better than 3DMark and GFXBench right now. :) Everything else is non repeatable and therefore of little use.
Pretty sure the decision to include Candy Crush is between Microsoft and King. It isn't a decision related to Intel. After all AMD based Windows systems ship with it preloaded as well.
I think benchmarks were omitted because "the firmware detects benchmarks and disables thermal throttling in order to get better scores." So benchmarks would be meaningless and misleading.
AT was always one of my go to place to get in-depth analysis and reviews. Now that AT is going with PAID partnership route, my view of AT analysis is definitely going to change, will likely look for other reputable sources ....
The review content is still fully independently written, and the editorial team including myself have no contact with the sponsor in this regard. In any case this series will come to a closure on Monday.
Thanks Andrei, also and especially for calling a (now major) manufacturer -Xiaomi- out for having benchmark cheating built into their software! The hardware side is just as bad - why all style, no substance? The aluminum case almost screams for use as a heat sink, especially now that phones are all closed up. Regarding gaming phones: will you have a chance to test the ASUS ROG2? Might tell us if all these "gaming" phones are all smoke and mirrors. The ROG 2 is even more expensive, so it'd better be spectacular.
Andrei, please be sure to dig into Mate30P's slo-mo with detail, now that the 1-to-4 frame interpolation is confirmed, I'm not the only one suspecting that the 720P is also interpolated from an inferior readout that skips even more lines!
The Rog phone 2's size and weight look huge. Can you please include it's everyday usability in your review? I'm tempted to buy but 77cm wide and 9mm thicc phone looks a bit too much. And 240g weight!
I can tell you the Razer Phone 2 is the real deal. Performance is fine, but holy heck, the screen! Im not even a phone gamer, but 120hz is like night and day, and you couldn't pay me to go back to a phone with a 60hz display.
Its probably pretty similar, as Razer uses the same Sharp LCD line those Aquos phones use.
But on 120hz vs 240hz specifically... I don't know? I've never even laid eyes on 240hz anything. I'd guess that you need more tightly integrated VRR support from base Android and something faster than an LCD to really make use of it, but what do I know?
Also, for a $400 phone, the RP2 is suprisingly good by other metrics. Its not perfect (no 3.5mm, no OLED, 845 instead of 855), but I don't feel like I traded much off to get 120hz.
I thought that was the Chinese "Tencent special edition" price, yet I checked and at least India gets the same price...it seems US customers get ripped off...or is only the top tier available there? $500 sounds good but 128GB really doesn't last.
Well, the Tencent thing is a deal between ASUS and Tencent (I'm guessing mainly subsidised by Tencent). I'm guessing India is a mix of a deal with some company and lower variation due to India having lower household incomes.
No I checked and only the top tier is available in the US, which explains the price there. Though I haven't been keeping track of the base tier price elsewhere.
The ROG Phone II at least has a lot more going for it. It has specs that are actually nice to have outside of gaming. A bit like a top-end PC build that isn't all 'gaming' flash and you can enjoy your films in HDR on, FLAC files on, edit videos on, etc.
I don't think i know anyone who games on a phone outside of simple games that don't require anything but a low end smartphone. We don't need gaming phones.
Playing video games is more than just parking it at a desk behind a 1990's-style box. At least 50% of my gaming is now on a phone and some of the highest grossing titles are mobile ones.
There is a lot of really high end games on android now (Shadowgun, Ark, PUBG, CoD) high end emulation (Dolphin @1080p+, Citra) To each their own though, personally I do 100% of my gaming on a phone.
Sometimes gaming on a phone is fine, but sometimes ports don't work as intended, for example some achievements of RPGs become near impossible on a touchscreen as opposed to a keyboard.
I don't think the attainment of an achievement would move the bar at all on what platform I use to play a game. Those things never really struck me as very important so I admit that I'm surprised someone would even mention them as a factor that influences their decision.
I'm quite aware of people who never go for the achievements. When my cousin plays Kingdom Rush he DOESN'T EVEN GO FOR ALL 3 STARS. The horror! It's like eating an apple with two or three random bites then throwing away all the rest!
Reviewing stuff as part of a for-pay arrangement must require very high-level mental, ethics, ... jiu-jitsu. I'm not sure how long the partnership w/Qualcomm will last, but, as a reader, thanks for the heads up.
They are trying to imitate Apple. Too much fluff, so people believe they buy a superior device(it is the price too). So they hope they can make some profit out of thin air. I hope you should be critical of the iphones in this fashion as well. They allocate a bigger amount of transistors to the faster cores , so they can claim supremacy, no matter the fact that on general cpu performance they are about the same. No matter that their gpu is anemic and nowhere near snapdragons.
Another phone review where the benchmarks are all wrong. Put the phone in game mode - it is easily in the top 5 855 based phones in terms of gaming performance.
But is that because it cheats and runs without any thermal limitations when it's in game mode? Personally, I don't want my phone getting hot enough to be uncomfortable to hold.
> But it doesnt get hot. They run at full tilt and dont throttle.
I already demonstrated that's not what happens.
> Exactly the same problem with the review of the Oppo Reno 10x zoom....
What's the problem? That phone didn't throttle. It had a performance mode but that's essentially just a cheating button and running all frequencies pegged at max.
Game mode is not a cheating mode if the phone can maintain that speed. If you run CPU throttle on the Oppo for over 10mins the phone maintains a very high score with game mode engaged (around 15% higher than without).
The Exynos 9820 on the other hard throttles hard after a couple of minutes losing about 25% performance.
So why would the game mode that doesnt throttle be more of a cheat mode than the 9820 which throttles hard?
You don't seem to understand, the gaming mode on the BS2 makes absolutely zero difference. It still throttles to the performance levels published here.
As for the OPPO, that phone didn't throttle in either mode so I don't understand what you're on about. The performance mode it has is not like that of other phones and it's not a natural operational mode of the phone.
If we could achieve a new consensus on testing battery life in default mode and performance in performance mode, then I suppose something like that could be reasonable, but many other devices would have to be retested.
I'm testing all devices in their performance modes both for performance and battery - the only exception to this rule until now has been the Reno as its performance mode just blatantly ignores normal DVFS operation.
I'd take "gaming" phones more seriously if they actually had better hardware instead of just having obnoxious styling like this thing. I feel like that won't happen because of the way SoCs are developed, so we'll just see more of these cynical products.
Xiaomi might agree with your sentiment, since Qualcomm paid for a review which called out deceptive practices, poor design, and significant under-performance by a Qualcomm client. Clearly, the payment did not include guarantees of positive coverage or control over the published results. Xiaomi is probably wishing this review hadn't happened, but it does seem to establish the Independence of Anandtech editorial staff to publish a negative review even when sponsored.
Pretty much this stuff. It's really hard to question AT's integrity with this particular paid review given the results do not paint the phone in question in a very good light. Will that always be the case? Dunno, but I think probably, yes it will.
I just ran Slingshot Extreme Unlimited on my own BlackShark 2 with explicitly turned off thermal throttling and maximum speed setting [4] as Gamer Studio allows to tune the option.
With GPU overlocked via Caller hidden menu, I marked 7100~ish Graphics and 4100-ish Physics which seems legit to its clock setting. While that, the temp marked through 35~38C.
And then, I voluntary set Gamer Studio level to [2] which actively uses Silver Cores for battery and heats for non-3D heavy games. the result is similar to the article.
So I wonder, Mr. Andrei might misunderstood about CPU/GPU governor stuff. On Auto setting, it seems natural that SW detects what kind of game or apps which requires how much 3D/CPU power to get most favorable results. Like nowdays modern VGA drivers are doing.
I can understand you're blaming detecting benchmarks software to turn off thermal throttling as a reviewer. It's generally evil thing to trick customers. BUT this device offers various performance levels through it's exclusive Gamer Studio menu and even allows to set thermal throttling level if you want.
So what I cannot get from your article is, it doesn't talk about it's real performance. This is just complaining about "Poor performance in Auto perf setting if an App is not registered properly as it uses lower performance (seems level 2) level."
"if an App is not registered properly" If "real" performance mandates that apps "register" properly, how can you ensure that every game is registered properly then, if "registration" doesn't depend on a load detection?
You can swipe to pop up Game Studio menu overlay to set performance level. It has Auto, 1~4(Max) levels for various dynamic core/clock governors as well as additional "thermal throttling level" options.
Detection is only for Auto performance level and pretty much decent. It even has overlay CPU Clock/FPS counter to check current performance. You can always gear up performance level and save it per each App. Like you might want to save bettery time by turning off some graphic options in the game, and then you can set lower performance level for overall endurance. Or pitch up to maximum level with GPU overclock to beat every handset in the market.
" I saw device skin temperatures rise to a peak of 58°C before I decided to call it quits and stop the app – the phone had gotten so hot I couldn’t comfortably hold it anymore." I don't think just increasing the thermal allowance is the solution.
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Jon Tseng - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
Thanks interesting. I guess that definitely answers the question as to whether the paid Qualcomm partnership had any impact on your ratings (not that it would, knowing AT, I know!).PaulHoule - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
What I found strange about the article is that, unlike most reviews of gaming hardware, there were not any benchmarks for games.Maybe that's because nobody cares how many frames per second you can render Candy Crush which is why they pack it in with Windows so Intel can claim there is a "game" you can play with the integrated graphics.
If there aren't any games that need a gaming phone, why does a gaming phone have to exist? It's like the sound of one hand clapping. isn't it?
Death666Angel - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
I mean, there area pretty intensive games for smartphones out there, think PUBG, Fortnite, racing games. I don't really know if they provide accurate/useful ingame benchmarks and I don't know if there are any FRAPS / FCAT like apps for Android. I don't think we get anything better than 3DMark and GFXBench right now. :) Everything else is non repeatable and therefore of little use.PeachNCream - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
Pretty sure the decision to include Candy Crush is between Microsoft and King. It isn't a decision related to Intel. After all AMD based Windows systems ship with it preloaded as well.crimson117 - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
I think benchmarks were omitted because "the firmware detects benchmarks and disables thermal throttling in order to get better scores." So benchmarks would be meaningless and misleading.s.yu - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
Generally Anandtech's benchmarks should be immune to detection, which is stated in the article.Andrei Frumusanu - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Yes, we bypassed detection for the published scores.raghusa - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
AT was always one of my go to place to get in-depth analysis and reviews. Now that AT is going with PAID partnership route, my view of AT analysis is definitely going to change, will likely look for other reputable sources ....Andrei Frumusanu - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
The review content is still fully independently written, and the editorial team including myself have no contact with the sponsor in this regard. In any case this series will come to a closure on Monday.Wardrive86 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
I wish that it was not coming to an end! I very much enjoyed this series.eastcoast_pete - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
Thanks Andrei, also and especially for calling a (now major) manufacturer -Xiaomi- out for having benchmark cheating built into their software! The hardware side is just as bad - why all style, no substance? The aluminum case almost screams for use as a heat sink, especially now that phones are all closed up.Regarding gaming phones: will you have a chance to test the ASUS ROG2? Might tell us if all these "gaming" phones are all smoke and mirrors. The ROG 2 is even more expensive, so it'd better be spectacular.
Andrei Frumusanu - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
We'll have a ROG2 review out next week.s.yu - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
Andrei, please be sure to dig into Mate30P's slo-mo with detail, now that the 1-to-4 frame interpolation is confirmed, I'm not the only one suspecting that the 720P is also interpolated from an inferior readout that skips even more lines!isthisavailable - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
The Rog phone 2's size and weight look huge. Can you please include it's everyday usability in your review? I'm tempted to buy but 77cm wide and 9mm thicc phone looks a bit too much. And 240g weight!brucethemoose - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
I can tell you the Razer Phone 2 is the real deal. Performance is fine, but holy heck, the screen! Im not even a phone gamer, but 120hz is like night and day, and you couldn't pay me to go back to a phone with a 60hz display.s.yu - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
What do you think of 240Hz then? A phone with that was just released by Sharp.Mediocre phone by other metrics though.
brucethemoose - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
Its probably pretty similar, as Razer uses the same Sharp LCD line those Aquos phones use.But on 120hz vs 240hz specifically... I don't know? I've never even laid eyes on 240hz anything. I'd guess that you need more tightly integrated VRR support from base Android and something faster than an LCD to really make use of it, but what do I know?
Also, for a $400 phone, the RP2 is suprisingly good by other metrics. Its not perfect (no 3.5mm, no OLED, 845 instead of 855), but I don't feel like I traded much off to get 120hz.
hemedans - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
RoG 2 is around $500 base model with 128GB/8GB memory, probably best Gaming phone for now, waiting for Review too.s.yu - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
I thought that was the Chinese "Tencent special edition" price, yet I checked and at least India gets the same price...it seems US customers get ripped off...or is only the top tier available there?$500 sounds good but 128GB really doesn't last.
Tams80 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Well, the Tencent thing is a deal between ASUS and Tencent (I'm guessing mainly subsidised by Tencent). I'm guessing India is a mix of a deal with some company and lower variation due to India having lower household incomes.s.yu - Friday, September 27, 2019 - link
No I checked and only the top tier is available in the US, which explains the price there.Though I haven't been keeping track of the base tier price elsewhere.
Tams80 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
The ROG Phone II at least has a lot more going for it. It has specs that are actually nice to have outside of gaming. A bit like a top-end PC build that isn't all 'gaming' flash and you can enjoy your films in HDR on, FLAC files on, edit videos on, etc.masteiffy - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
Hello Andrei, when are we getting the new iPhone reviews, I’ve been waiting for the review to decide which to buy. Thanks!Andrei Frumusanu - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
Next week.imaheadcase - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
I don't think i know anyone who games on a phone outside of simple games that don't require anything but a low end smartphone. We don't need gaming phones.StormyParis - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
You're old ;-p and not old enough to have (pre-)teen kids !PeachNCream - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
Playing video games is more than just parking it at a desk behind a 1990's-style box. At least 50% of my gaming is now on a phone and some of the highest grossing titles are mobile ones.Wardrive86 - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
There is a lot of really high end games on android now (Shadowgun, Ark, PUBG, CoD) high end emulation (Dolphin @1080p+, Citra) To each their own though, personally I do 100% of my gaming on a phone.s.yu - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Sometimes gaming on a phone is fine, but sometimes ports don't work as intended, for example some achievements of RPGs become near impossible on a touchscreen as opposed to a keyboard.PeachNCream - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
I don't think the attainment of an achievement would move the bar at all on what platform I use to play a game. Those things never really struck me as very important so I admit that I'm surprised someone would even mention them as a factor that influences their decision.s.yu - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
I'm quite aware of people who never go for the achievements. When my cousin plays Kingdom Rush he DOESN'T EVEN GO FOR ALL 3 STARS.The horror! It's like eating an apple with two or three random bites then throwing away all the rest!
StormyParis - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
Reviewing stuff as part of a for-pay arrangement must require very high-level mental, ethics, ... jiu-jitsu. I'm not sure how long the partnership w/Qualcomm will last, but, as a reader, thanks for the heads up.IUU - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
They are trying to imitate Apple. Too much fluff, so people believe they buy a superior device(it is the price too).So they hope they can make some profit out of thin air.
I hope you should be critical of the iphones in this fashion as well.
They allocate a bigger amount of transistors to the faster cores , so they
can claim supremacy, no matter the fact that on general cpu performance
they are about the same.
No matter that their gpu is anemic and nowhere near snapdragons.
melgross - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Exactly what fluff are you talking about?You really are deliberately ignorant.
edsib1 - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
Another phone review where the benchmarks are all wrong. Put the phone in game mode - it is easily in the top 5 855 based phones in terms of gaming performance.cfenton - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
But is that because it cheats and runs without any thermal limitations when it's in game mode? Personally, I don't want my phone getting hot enough to be uncomfortable to hold.edsib1 - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
But it doesnt get hot. They run at full tilt and dont throttle.Read the other reviews on the internet about these phones. It is Anandtech that is out of step with the other sites.
The gaming phones are basically running in saver mode - unless you turn game mode on.
Exactly the same problem with the review of the Oppo Reno 10x zoom....
Andrei Frumusanu - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
> But it doesnt get hot. They run at full tilt and dont throttle.I already demonstrated that's not what happens.
> Exactly the same problem with the review of the Oppo Reno 10x zoom....
What's the problem? That phone didn't throttle. It had a performance mode but that's essentially just a cheating button and running all frequencies pegged at max.
edsib1 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Game mode is not a cheating mode if the phone can maintain that speed. If you run CPU throttle on the Oppo for over 10mins the phone maintains a very high score with game mode engaged (around 15% higher than without).The Exynos 9820 on the other hard throttles hard after a couple of minutes losing about 25% performance.
So why would the game mode that doesnt throttle be more of a cheat mode than the 9820 which throttles hard?
edsib1 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Reviewing a gaming phone without using gaming mode is like testing an Audi RS6 without putting it into sport mode - pointless.Andrei Frumusanu - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
You don't seem to understand, the gaming mode on the BS2 makes absolutely zero difference. It still throttles to the performance levels published here.As for the OPPO, that phone didn't throttle in either mode so I don't understand what you're on about. The performance mode it has is not like that of other phones and it's not a natural operational mode of the phone.
s.yu - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
If we could achieve a new consensus on testing battery life in default mode and performance in performance mode, then I suppose something like that could be reasonable, but many other devices would have to be retested.Andrei Frumusanu - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
I'm testing all devices in their performance modes both for performance and battery - the only exception to this rule until now has been the Reno as its performance mode just blatantly ignores normal DVFS operation.s.yu - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Right, that also works.melgross - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
The point is. That it can’t maintain that speed without burning something out.melgross - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Anandtech is the only site that does it correctly. The others don’t do real reviews.brucethemoose - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
Or, more importantly, heating up your (non replacable) battery and degrading its useful life.s.yu - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
It should all be run in whatever default mode available out of fairness, and comparability of results.Total Meltdowner - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
The specs on these phones are all so boring.Give me an 8000mAH battery and a screen that isn't a downgrade from an S6 Active.
How about some ports or SOMETHING that separates these devices from one another? 0 innovation. It's just a bunch of chinese garbage.
plsbugmenot - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
I think you'll enjoy the ROG Phone 2 review, then.Flunk - Wednesday, September 25, 2019 - link
I'd take "gaming" phones more seriously if they actually had better hardware instead of just having obnoxious styling like this thing. I feel like that won't happen because of the way SoCs are developed, so we'll just see more of these cynical products.wrkingclass_hero - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
So it has finally come to paid reviews... this will not end wellAndrei Frumusanu - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
It will end come Monday.Galcobar - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Xiaomi might agree with your sentiment, since Qualcomm paid for a review which called out deceptive practices, poor design, and significant under-performance by a Qualcomm client. Clearly, the payment did not include guarantees of positive coverage or control over the published results. Xiaomi is probably wishing this review hadn't happened, but it does seem to establish the Independence of Anandtech editorial staff to publish a negative review even when sponsored.PeachNCream - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Pretty much this stuff. It's really hard to question AT's integrity with this particular paid review given the results do not paint the phone in question in a very good light. Will that always be the case? Dunno, but I think probably, yes it will.Imran-Shaikh - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
What benefits AT had through these paid reviews?Money or anything else?
Thanks in advance.
Badelhas - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
What do you mean?Average James - Friday, September 27, 2019 - link
I just ran Slingshot Extreme Unlimited on my own BlackShark 2 with explicitly turned off thermal throttling and maximum speed setting [4] as Gamer Studio allows to tune the option.With GPU overlocked via Caller hidden menu, I marked 7100~ish Graphics and 4100-ish Physics which seems legit to its clock setting. While that, the temp marked through 35~38C.
And then, I voluntary set Gamer Studio level to [2] which actively uses Silver Cores for battery and heats for non-3D heavy games. the result is similar to the article.
So I wonder, Mr. Andrei might misunderstood about CPU/GPU governor stuff. On Auto setting, it seems natural that SW detects what kind of game or apps which requires how much 3D/CPU power to get most favorable results. Like nowdays modern VGA drivers are doing.
Average James - Friday, September 27, 2019 - link
I can understand you're blaming detecting benchmarks software to turn off thermal throttling as a reviewer. It's generally evil thing to trick customers. BUT this device offers various performance levels through it's exclusive Gamer Studio menu and even allows to set thermal throttling level if you want.So what I cannot get from your article is, it doesn't talk about it's real performance. This is just complaining about "Poor performance in Auto perf setting if an App is not registered properly as it uses lower performance (seems level 2) level."
s.yu - Friday, September 27, 2019 - link
"if an App is not registered properly"If "real" performance mandates that apps "register" properly, how can you ensure that every game is registered properly then, if "registration" doesn't depend on a load detection?
Average James - Friday, September 27, 2019 - link
You can swipe to pop up Game Studio menu overlay to set performance level. It has Auto, 1~4(Max) levels for various dynamic core/clock governors as well as additional "thermal throttling level" options.Detection is only for Auto performance level and pretty much decent. It even has overlay CPU Clock/FPS counter to check current performance. You can always gear up performance level and save it per each App. Like you might want to save bettery time by turning off some graphic options in the game, and then you can set lower performance level for overall endurance. Or pitch up to maximum level with GPU overclock to beat every handset in the market.
s.yu - Saturday, September 28, 2019 - link
" I saw device skin temperatures rise to a peak of 58°C before I decided to call it quits and stop the app – the phone had gotten so hot I couldn’t comfortably hold it anymore."I don't think just increasing the thermal allowance is the solution.
Chad - Saturday, September 28, 2019 - link
Thanks for a great review, sir.