iPhone 12 embarrasses the competition in first benchmarks — Your move Qualcomm

(Image credit: Apple)

The early reviews for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro are in and while the battery life looks like it might be an issue compared to previous models, the overall response to both has been extremely positive.

One feature that we knew would be a standout is that new A14 Bionic chip powering all four iPhone 12 variants. However, our sister site Tom's Guide, published benchmark comparisons and the degree to which it outshines even the high-end competition is astounding.

Not surprisingly, the only real competition for the A14 Bionic was last year's A13 Bionic, Qualcomm's current top of the line option the Snapdragon 865+ was next, but a pretty distant third in most of the tests. Now it's worth noting that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 875 is expected at the Snapdragon Tech Summit on December 1-2, but we have yet to see any benchmark leaks for it.

Here's a look at the Geekbench 5 results for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro versus some of the most popular Android smartphones on the market.

iPhone 12: Geekbench 5 test

Swipe to scroll horizontally
PhoneCPUGeekbench 5 single-coreGeekbench 5 multi-core
iPhone 12A14 Bionic1,5933,859
iPhone 12 ProA14 Bionic1,5853,669
iPhone 11 Pro MaxA13 Bionic1,3343,517
Samsung Galaxy Note 20 UltraSnapdragon 865+9853,294
Asus ROG Phone 3Snapdragon 865+9743,393
OnePlus 8TSnapdragon 8658873,203
Samsung Galaxy S20 PlusSnapdragon 8658113,076
Google Pixel 5Snapdragon 765G5961,617

As you can see, the iPhone 12 sweeps both the single-core and multi-core results with the iPhone 12 Pro close behind, although slightly less so on multicore. The iPhone 11 Pro Max and its year old A13 Bionic finish roughly 19% behind on the single-core, but only about 5% slower on multicore versus the iPhone 12 Pro.

None of the Android models even managed to crest the 1,000 mark on single-core results, placing even the overclocked Snapdragon 865+ found in the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra and the gaming-focused Asus ROG Phone 3 well behind last year's iPhone 11 Pro Max and its A13 Bionic.

iPhone 12: 3DMark Wild Life test

Turning from the more general performance Geekbench 5 to a graphics-focused benchmark from 3DMark, things actually get worse for the Android competition. This test is meant to simulate gaming performance.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
PhoneCPU3DMark Wild Life score3DMark Wild Life FPS
iPhone 11 Pro MaxA13 Bionic7,70942
iPhone 12 ProA14 Bionic6,56739
iPhone 12A14 Bionic6,56239
Samsung Galaxy Note 20 UltraSnapdragon 865+4,18225
Samsung Galaxy S20 PlusSnapdragon 8653,80923
OnePlus 8TSnapdragon 8653,77223
Google Pixel 5Snapdragon 765G1,1387

The iPhone 11 Pro Max and the A13 Bionic actually manage to take this one home by a decent margin, which is a bit perplexing. The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro finish almost identically this time and with a wide lead over any of the Android options. 

There was no question that the A14 Bionic was going to take over the top spot in the world of mobile processors, it was simply a question of by how much. Qualcomm is really the only game in town on the Android side of things and while catching the A14 Bionic seems clearly out of reach for the Snapdragon 875, perhaps Qualcomm can finally catch the A13 Bionic.

Sean Riley

Sean Riley has been covering tech professionally for over a decade now. Most of that time was as a freelancer covering varied topics including phones, wearables, tablets, smart home devices, laptops, AR, VR, mobile payments, fintech, and more.  Sean is the resident mobile expert at Laptop Mag, specializing in phones and wearables, you'll find plenty of news, reviews, how-to, and opinion pieces on these subjects from him here. But Laptop Mag has also proven a perfect fit for that broad range of interests with reviews and news on the latest laptops, VR games, and computer accessories along with coverage on everything from NFTs to cybersecurity and more.