Hot take: Flagship chipsets are no longer necessary

25 October 2020
As we approached the limit of Moore's Law, it became apparent that any further advancement would come at a cost

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  • AnonD-964130
  • gM$
  • 26 Oct 2020

Anonymous, 26 Oct 2020Haha amaturer. You have never heard of pixel experience cus... moreLiterally 1% people know the idea of custom rom and also you wont get future software and security support

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    • Anonymous
    • mip
    • 26 Oct 2020

    We are at a point at where gaming phones finally make sense! As for me, Im rocking a 6 year old desktop computer at home. While most of my friends spent 1500+ $ on their gaming machine I did spend 500$. For what I do and the games I play, this machine is perfect.

    Same goes for phones. Till today I was always rocking flagship devices with the most recent processors. Yet I only play quite the graphic-unintensive games and usually read articles on my phone. Sometimes a Video. And I always use my phone one-handed! I'm glad I bought into the pixel 5 series. If not this, I was tempted to buy the OP Nord, though the massive size kept me from doing so. I will never use more power than the 765 offers.

    I hope manufacturers will advance on this level, offering decent processors with all the great aspects (like 5g or photo processing) but lower gaming performance and keep those massive processors to make mobile gaming possible. There is people wanting to play games like Metro Exodus on their phones for sure. I was a big fan of project ara and wish someone would continue their work.

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      • Plutz
      • 0Z5
      • 26 Oct 2020

      My phone with a snapdragon 412 can go up to 70-80°C.

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        • Shiny Dave
        • mpm
        • 26 Oct 2020

        AncientTwo, 26 Oct 2020So much this. Price inflation has gone out of control for p... moreWhich is why I went properly midrange last year with my A70 rather than opting for the "flagship killer" options I'd gone with in previous years (OnePlus 3, Honor 9).

        Then again, I was also nervous about going with a Chinese phone again as a UK consumer given my country's aligned with the US, as I didn't want to run the risk of it being bricked by geopolitics. I might get the S20 FE 5G and pass my A70 to my husband (who's still on his Honor 9) but I'd probably consider a used Note 10+ if it weren't for us being in an Exynos market.

          Seran Mizorogi, 26 Oct 2020This is a pre-emptive strike. Just about time Apple A14 is... moreIf you're a mobile gamer, then maybe you're right.
          Otherwise, current speed is not enough because you're on the wrong firmware/ software. Simple. Try running a 3-4 generation old version of your OS. I'm on Android Kitkat, on 2GB RAM, and 16GB internal storage, and 40~ apps and games.
          Well... Let me try getting convinced that 2 billion bytes of Random access memory is not enough.. And still, it has bloat that I'd like removed... how about seeing it after that?

          By the way, Snapdragon 875 and Exynos 2100 will be used on Android, not iOS, so they're not comparable, even if A14 is weaker in pure numbers... So, it won't make a sense.

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            • AnonD-940827
            • 8pQ
            • 26 Oct 2020

            talha5007, 26 Oct 2020suggest me any 865 device with $365 price tag and 12gb/256g... moreAsking for flagship, comparing with the lowest end oneplus. 7t costs the same, and are 3 times more powerful than the nord. 5g is nothing useful in the next 3 years.!

              These are my reasons against flagships:-

              1. Unneeded power,
              2. When there's unneeded power, companies bundle heavy firmwares which only bring lots of bloatware, and "spying" features which being you closer to wasting more time on phones, or your privacy being exposed online.
              Realme C11, an entry level phone being bundled with a 11GB firmware is an example.
              3. AI... It has only signaled to bring in unemployment, privacy issues, crimes against women, etc. Nothing good came out of it ever... Tell me one good thing?! What, it made you a lazy by editing your pic as it wants, is it?
              Instead of being a manual/ RAW editor, this is what you've become, a machine dictated human?! Progress?
              4. Huge batteries, a lot of weight, energy wastage, etc that comes with it.
              5. Heating phones...
              6. With huge batteries, companies bundle features that burn energy for God knows what reason... Like Wifi version 6 on Samsung S10 series, which caused it to be so bad at battery, even my Redmi 2 Prime does standby miles better. Tell me one user who complained of Wifi 5 being bad, so why Samsung??

              The progress should stop here. We're slowly reaching the point where machines will know all about us, including things we ourselves don't know. And it will go to companies, and to Governments.
              Realme already includes fingerprints in their privacy policy as a "data they have access to", a technology initially promised to be "secure on the chip level" by Redmi... Wow.
              The limit is here.
              I'm using a Redmi 2 Prime for as long as I can.

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                • Anonymous
                • gJt
                • 26 Oct 2020

                cherry, 26 Oct 2020I also liked miui. I haven't seen any ads. I liked it ... moreOneui is amazing. Biggest selling point for OnePlus.

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                  • Anonymous
                  • vry
                  • 26 Oct 2020

                  Seran Mizorogi, 26 Oct 2020This is a pre-emptive strike. Just about time Apple A14 is... moreNot surprising. We've put up with Iphone crowd in the olden days saying 16gb storage is more than enough, 2gb ram is enough, and multitasking is unnecessary because short attention spans/brain not built for multitasking. lmao.

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                    • Anonymous
                    • vry
                    • 26 Oct 2020

                    Anonymous, 26 Oct 2020765 still suck comparing even to 845, thats 2 years old flagshipDoes it matter to most people, especially the masses? They buy SD865 phones and use them like SD6XX anyways.

                      Anonymous, 26 Oct 2020Haha amaturer. You have never heard of pixel experience cus... moreYeah not everyone want to tweak something to get cusrom. But in pixel, you get clean, adsfree rom without tweaking

                        This is a pre-emptive strike.
                        Just about time Apple A14 is about to be heavily defeated by Exynos 2100 and Snapdragon 875, they've prepared an article to argue why speed does not matter.

                        No. Current speed is not enough. Just look at Apple A11-A14 even tho it always top the geekbench score, iPhones always feel slow compared to Android. Tbf, iPhones still feel fast at opening apps and games unless you put it right next to flagship Android, you know where iPhones falter

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                          • necropedo
                          • n2M
                          • 26 Oct 2020

                          Power hungry they say.

                          Asus ROG Phone 3 with a 144 Hz panel has the BEST endurance rating.

                          Asus crushed this year (again) all the mainstream flagships. With ease.

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                            • Harris
                            • a4r
                            • 26 Oct 2020

                            If this writer was in charge, humans would still be living in "perfectly useable" caves.

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                              • Idiot101
                              • ITk
                              • 26 Oct 2020

                              I don't agree with this article.

                              1. Google doesn't really work with the hardware manufacturers to produce the same experience that Apple is able to provide as it simply has too many vendors to deal with.

                              It cannot optimise the software across all vendors as it's just not feasible. Google doesn't get anything out of this. It's a business after all.

                              2. There is no other way for vendors to skin android to differentiate themselves which introduces bugs in the system.

                              3. Chip makers aren't really interested in supporting software for long as they want to sell more chips (phones). Qualcomm doesn't provide firmware updates for longer than a year. The rest need to be looked at by the phone vendor.

                              Faster chips help buggy software run better. They do a great job of hiding imperfections in code. They age better despite losing support from the phone vendor and the chip maker. They are absolutely vital for great user experience.

                              We really have no choice in this matter. We need Faster chips.

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                                • cherry
                                • 8XB
                                • 26 Oct 2020

                                Anonymous, 26 Oct 2020Miui is outstanding. Ads can be switched off. For the pri... moreI also liked miui. I haven't seen any ads. I liked it better than iOS, the gestures are more intuitive. My fav is OneUi though, very user friendly.

                                  AnonD-546724, 26 Oct 2020It's called inflationnope, its called greed. the value of money hasn't been that much inflated.

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                                    • AnonD-546724
                                    • 3g5
                                    • 26 Oct 2020

                                    Anonymous, 26 Oct 2020Mid range selling at $700 is good value? Few years back 700... moreIt's called inflation

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                                      • Amy
                                      • pvZ
                                      • 26 Oct 2020

                                      This! I agree a ton

                                      thesedays the bottleneck is always software, there's a reason an old iphone se (the first one) ran faster than a note I had at the time. although samsung has Improved MASSIVELY from then. they still need a ton of work on their software.
                                      I never blame lag on the CPU. unless it's a video game with lotsa complex grapihcs etc

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                                        • Anonymous
                                        • KSu
                                        • 26 Oct 2020

                                        [deleted post]IPhones are exploding left and right. Can't post links here. I'll just post the news.
                                        Sad part is that it's not just one model but a variety of them.
                                        Trillion dollar company dumping out garbage quality devices.


                                        1) IPhone exploding in 11yr old girls hands - iPhone 6 user Kayla Ramos

                                        2) In December, a three-week-old iPhone XS Max reportedly caught fire while in the back pocket of its owners’ pants, emitting green and yellow smoke while burning his skin.

                                        3) Right as class was starting, my phone started smoking in my pocket. It was a fire," said Hlavaty from Burlington County.

                                        4) New Jersey man says that he is unable to work after his iPhone 5C emitted a popping noise and caused a burning sensation.

                                        5) Exploding' iPhone leaves Sydney man (Gareth Clear) with third-degree burns.

                                        6) Apple sued over 'exploding' iPod Touch. A 15-year-old boy's iPod Touch allegedly exploded in his pocket at school, causing second-degree burns and a lawsuit filed against Apple.

                                        I can go on and on.....but I am sure you get the point.
                                        Apple PR has always been paid enough to cover up these news.