- Which? tested speeds of phones made by Apple, Samsung, HTC and LG
- Apple's iPhone 5S came out on top while the HTC One Mini took last place
- Samsung's Galaxy S4 dropped from first to third behind the LG G2
- iPhone 5S was twice as fast as Samsung's Galaxy S4 in certain tests
- Apple's new high-end handset was around 50 per cent faster overall
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In the ongoing battle of the handsets, Apple has taken another swipe at Samsung by being named 'the fastest phone ever' by Which? magazine.
Researchers independently tested the processing speeds and performance of the latest phones from Apple, Samsung, HTC and LG. Processing speed determines how quickly the phones can open apps, play videos and games, multitask and more.
Apple's iPhone 5S came top of list, ahead of LG's G2 in second. Samsung's Galaxy S4 came third.
Which? magazine tested the speeds of the latest Apple, Samsung, HTC and LG phones to see which offered the best performance. The iPhone 5S was found to be the fastest of the lot, pictured centre. LG's G2 handset, left, came second and Samsung's Galaxy S4, right, was third
HTC's One handset was fourth, ahead of the iPhone 5C. The Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini was fifth,
while HTC's One Mini scored the lowest.
Which? said: 'In June of this year we found the iPhone 5 had been eclipsed and that the Samsung Galaxy S4 had seized the number one spot for processor speed. In fact the iPhone 5 languished back in 7th place.
'But Apple is back. New Which? lab tests have revealed that the recently released iPhone 5S has broken all records in our processor benchmarking tests.'
The interesting point to note with these results is that Apple's iPhone 5S has a dual-core 1.3Ghz processor. Its main rivals, including the S4, feature quad-core processors.
Quad-core processors are believed to be faster, yet having more cores doesn't necessarily increase speed. It instead increases the phone's ability to do more things at once, faster, which is a small but significant distinction.
HOW DID THE OTHER PHONES STACK UP?
The Which? results come from benchmarking tests using Geekbench software.
Geekbench is designed to 'replicate real-world tasks' and calculates both single core and multi-core performance, to give an indication to the phone's overall speeds.
The first score is the single core score, while the second is the multi-core score.
Apple iPhone 5s: 1410 (single), 2561 (multi)
LG G2: 882 (single), 2355 (multi)
Samsung Galaxy S4: 687 (single), 1939 (multi)
HTC One: 643 (single), 1805 (multi)
Apple iPhone 5C: 711 (single), 1281 (multi)
Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini: 649 (single), 1135 (multi)
HTC One Mini: 477 (single), 880 (multi)
This shows that in single core tests, Apple's iPhone 5S offers more than double the performance of the S4. In multi-core tests it scored 622 more points.
'As our tests show, more cores do not necessarily mean better performance,' explains Which? in a blog post.
The Which? results come from benchmarking tests using Geekbench software.
Geekbench is designed to 'replicate real-world tasks' and calculates both single core and multi-core performance, that gives an indication to the phone's speeds.
Each phone was run through a series of performance tests, with each test and result being given a score. These scores were then combined and weighted before being calculated into a final numeric score.
Which? measured these scores against a Mac mini computer with an Intel Core i5 processor, to get a baseline score of 2,500 points.
Which? tested the phones against a benchmark score of 2,500 points. The higher a phone's score, the better its performance. Apple's iPhone 5S, left, scored 1410 on single core tests while Samsung's Galaxy S4, right, scored 687. In multi-core tests, Apple scored 2561 and Samsung scored 1939
The higher a phone's score, the better and faster it is and if a score is double, for example, the phone offers double the performance.
'These benchmarks are useful as they let us compare phones against one another but they aren't the be all and end all,' explained Which? technology researcher Jon Barrow.
'In truth most of the top phones feel fantastically smooth in everyday use. The iPhone 5s will feel a little snappier when swiping through menus and opening apps - and that fraction of a second when you launch a programme is not to be underestimated when you consider how often we use our phones.
'But premium handsets, like the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One, also feel lighting fast.'
He continued that the iPhone 5S is 'built for the future' and the extra speed is most noticeable when using 'power-hungry apps and editing videos.'
sceptical, Ware, 7 minutes ago
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