TECH

Test: Apple A12 vs Huawei Kirin980

With the launch of the new iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max, we can see Apple’s A12 Bionic in action as of September 21st and this same chip will be joining the iPhone XR as well in October this year. While on the other hand the Kirin 980 will be powering the Huawei Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro which too will be released in October this year. After the reveal of these chipsets in mid 2018, people have been itching to find out about the bench scores for both these processors so let’s jump right into that.
The Apple A12 Bionic gets a single core score of close to 4700 which is about 40% higher than that of the Kirin 980, but as far as the multi-core score goes, both these processors are hovering around a score of 11,400.  But the GeekBench scores are not the only thing that customers look at when buying their brand new smartphone. The battery life of the device is also one of the biggest factors that customers will be looking for. Apple has been really confident in their processor when it comes to energy efficiency. The A12 Bionic is 50% more energy efficient in comparison to its predecessor the A11 when we compare their performance scores. Huawei not too far behind; the Kirin 980 is claimed to be 45% more energy efficient than the previous Kirin 970. These efficiency increases can be attributed to the shift to 7nm, for both the chips.


Don’t be fooled though, the processors are not the only comparison basis when it comes to the battery life. We cannot really compare the battery life of these devices because it also depends a lot on the screen size, battery size as well as the software optimization, but we can be a assured that battery life will be better in this generation of smartphones as the companies have been putting in the effort to make more energy efficient devices.
Now let’s talk about the mobile gaming fad that has been hitting the smartphone markets like crazy. The two giants PUBG mobile and Fortnite mobile have been the go-to mobile game for users across the world and with these new chipsets, users will not be blaming their device’s sloppy performances as both Apple and Huawei chipsets are around 50% better than their previous line of processors. It’s worth noting though that the Apple A12 bionic only has 4 GPU cores compared to the 10 GPU cores present on the Kirin 980. But AnandTech published a very interesting article, which showed that the Kirin processors actually rendered games in a different manner, resulting in lower graphical quality than it’s competitors. So it’s more of a apples to oranges comparison here.
To conclude, both these devices are much better in terms of performance and energy efficiency than their previous counterparts. Apple called their A12 Bionic, “The smartest and the most powerful chip to ever be seen in a smartphone.” It will be interesting to see if Huawei can stand up to their claims of making a better chip and smartphone than the newest Apple devices. We will find out more in October with the release of the Huawei Mate 20 Pro.


Umang Chauhan and mundophone