How to choose a smartphone with the right processor

The sheer variety of smartphones available in the market make it quite challenging to pick one that’s just right for you. For example, is there a tangible benefit to spending more for a slightly faster processor? Should you go for a more powerful older processor, or a more efficient newer one? What about cores, how many are enough?

These are a lot of questions that are difficult to answer for most people who don’t follow smartphone hardware closely, which is most people. Let’s try to simplify the decision for you.

The right processor for the right price

If you’re operating under a tight budget, first shortlist all the phones that fit your other criteria i.e. camera, display technology and size, and so on. Once you’ve done that, list out the SoCs of the phones that you like and head here for a ranked list of SoCs.

This website lists all the smartphones currently available and provides a rating as well as two scores: AnTuTu 10, and Geekbench 6. AnTuTu 10 provides a holistic overview of the smartphone SoC’s performance while the Geekbench 6 results focus largely on CPU performance.

ALSO READ: What is a smartphone processor and what does it do

If you don’t know what you’re looking for, simply go by the rating and pick the phone with the highest rated SoC in your price list.

You can of course get more specific depending on what your needs are, and we’ll break these down for you so you can better understand the data.

Single-core performance

Single-core performance, as indicated by the first set of Geekbench 6 results on the site, are an indicator of two things: How responsive the phone is, and the quality of the gaming performance. All else being equal, a phone with a faster single-core score is better for gaming.

Multi-core performance

The second value in the Geekbench 6 results indicates how the phone handles more complex workloads. This is great if you spend a lot of time switching between apps.

ALSO READ: What is a multicore processor?

Say you’re a content creator and need to switch between research and video recording or a teleprompter app for example. MC scores are to be prioritised here.

GPU performance

The AnTuTu 10 scores in this chart are a good indicator of GPU performance. The GPU or graphics processing unit of the SoC is the part that handles all the graphics and visuals on your display. A higher score here is better not only for gaming, but for photo and video editing as well. If you’re not a gamer, ignore this score and focus more on the single-core score in the chart.

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Smartphones today are especially complex computers, more so than even most laptops today. Simplified benchmarks and sites that track them are an easy way to get some initial information so you can make an informed decision. The only way to be absolutely sure that you’re getting the very best SoC for your money is by spending hours on researching the nitty-gritty’s of every phone in your list. This is not feasible for most people though.