Weekly poll results: flagship chipsets still matter, but most people don't need the latest one

27 November 2022
A phone with an older flagship chip is great value for money - faster than a mid-ranger but costs the same or sometimes less. 

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I think that mid range chips are powerful for 85% of people but the isp, neural engine and encoder and decoders aren’t as good in flagship chipsets.

    • t
    • tammifizzle
    • XBA
    • 27 Nov 2022

    The new Vivo X90 series phone seems promising. Love all I see on paper.

      • ?
      • Anonymous
      • 4NP
      • 27 Nov 2022

      Personally I don't see the point in flagship chipsets anymore. They may have mattered back when the gap between midrange and flagship phones was huge but nowadays the gap is nowhere near as huge. Flagship chipsets have a bunch of practically unusable performance headroom, drain your battery more and make your phone cost more compared to the highest end midrange chipset which, in real world scenarios, wouldn't be that much different from flagship chipsets.

        I struggled a bit for the need of latest flagship chipset because it depends on whether that latest one can solve the critical issues of its predecessor, or it creates new issues. In general I don't need the latest one, but if I have to buy an Android before the 8 Gen 2, I'll only have the 8+ Gen 1 left for me as it solves the unacceptable overheating issues of the 8 Gen 1, and the last flagship chip before the 8+ Gen 1 that doesn't overheat is already the 870 (865 if you don't count variants and minor updates)

          We always need companies to do research, invest, and ultimately be innovative to create better and better products for the future. So a Flagship Chipset would almost always be a necessary part of the market.

          With that said, I think most people could rely on "midrange" chips going as far back as 2017.
          - Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 (or higher)
          - Samsung Exynos 7904 (or higher)
          - MediaTek Dimensity 700 (or higher)
          - Huawei Kirin 710 (or higher)
          - Unisoc Tiger T618 (or higher)

          More specifically, anything with at least a Cortex-A73 in a 2+6 design, built with 16nm lithography, and 4GB RAM, 64GB storage is useable even today. Throw in a 1080p IPS screen, 4000mAh, and at least 64bit Android 6.0 Marshmallow, yes it's still very functional for +80% of needs. That last +15% of needs cane be met with a high-end chipset, and the other +4% of people may require a luxury device. There's always 1% of the population who's needs can't be met though.

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