Hello and welcome. In today’s post, we’re going to be looking at all major smartphone SoCs according to their tiers.

So we know that phones are not created equally. This is evidently due to the fact that they are made from different materials and parts with varying levels of quality.

Read: Top 100 Smartphone SOCs in the World 2022

The SoC is the most important part of a phone, although some users may favour other important parts like displays, cameras or even battery, some going as far as the outward appearance. These do not the change the fact that the SoC is the brain of the phone. The grade of the SoC used determines the phone’s grading as well.

(Caveat: some manufacturers may put midrange cameras on budget phones sometimes and this may slightly boost the phones grade e.g. Tecno Camon 15 Premier or they could put a flagship camera on an upper midrange phone like Xiaomi did with the Mi Note 10 and upgrade it to a Flagship killer).

In this post, we are going to look at major smartphone SoCs and where they are rated at. Whether it be it in the flagship or flagship killer segment, midrange, budget or entry level.

All ratings were done by sampling Antutu and Geekbench benchmark scores as well ratings from GSMARENA and Tech Centurion.

The idea is not to pitch SOCs against one another but to categorize SoCs into the various smartphone divisions.
So, lets begin…

Read: Top 100 Smartphone GPU rankings

FLAGSHIP LEVEL PROCESSORS

These are the creme de la creme of the smartphone phone world. The pinnacle, the very best. In no particular order we have the SD 865 and 865+, Apple A13 and A12 Bionic, Exynos 990 5G, Dimensity 1000 and 1000+, SD 855 and 855+, Kirin 990 (5G and 4G) and Exynos 9825 and 9820.

2020 Flagships are Kirin 9000, A14 Bionic and SD888.

GSMArena
List of top performing Android SoCs for the first half of 2020 (Image credits: Antutu)

FLAGSHIP KILLERS CLUB

These SoCs are good, very good and can perform really well. The basic idea of this tier is to weaken the monopoly of flagship phones over the high end market and make premium phones more affordable so you do not need to sell your kidney to purchase one.

Starting off, we have the Dimensity 1000L, MediaTek are not joking at all. Moving on we’ll see the Kirin 980, Exynos 980 and 985 5G, Dimensity 820, 800 and 720 (all 5G), SD 765 (4G and 5G), A11 Bionic, SD 845 (once a flagship), Exynos 9810, SD 730G and Kirin 820 and 810.

THE MIDRANGE CREW

The midrange is the sweet spot of the market where all the features are decent and well priced. The phones here preform admirably especially in the upper midrange. The phones here are all sold below $300 or N120,000 (Naira).

In the upper midrange section, you’ll find the very impressive Helio G90T, G90 and P90, there is also the Snapdragon 700 crew (730, 720G, 712, 710), the SD 675 and 670 here. The A10 Fusion is also in the category. Kirin 970 also makes an appearance as well as Exynos 8895. Rounding up is a former flagship SoC, SD 835.

The lower midrange section is full of chipsets to choose from. There is Apple A9, SD 821 and 820, Exynos 8890, Helio G80 and 70, Kirin 960, Exynos 9611 and 9610, Helio P65, SD 660, Exynos 9609, SD 665 and 662, Helio P70, SD 460, Helio P60, Exynos 7885, Kirin 710 and SD 636.

THE BUDGET FAMILY

The budget tier is heavily populated so buyers are spoilt for choice. The budget tire of chipsets are just okay for what it’s worth. Don’t attempt to play Fortnite here. It will disappoint you. High definition games like PUBG and PES will play here but expect some lags and stutters.

We kick off with the Exynos 7904, then there’s the SD632 and 630, Exynos 7884, Kirin 955 and 950, Exynos 7872, Helio X27, Exynos 7420, Helio G35 and P35, SD810, Helio P30, X23, P23, and X25, Exynos 7880, Helio X20 and P25, SD 653, Helio P20, Apple A8, SD 626 and 625, Kirin 659 and 658, SD 650, Kirin 655 and 650, SD 439, Helio G25 and P22, SD 652, 450 and 808.

THE ENTRY-LEVEL

As the name suggests, these are phones for people who are just starting to get a feel of smartphones. They do not really care about high end gaming, video streaming or performance. They only care for the features like chatting, social media, calls, SMS and battery life. Entry level phones do these very well. These phones are aimed at light users, the elderly and children. Anything else will end up in severe lagging, bootloops and premium tears.

Chipsets here include Exynos 7870, Helio A22, Kirin 935, Kirin 930, Apple A7, SD 429, Helio A20, Exynos 5433, Helio P18 and P10. There is also SD 435, Helio X10, Exynos 7580, SD430 and 617. We finish off with Exynos 7570, SD 616/615, MT6750T, SD427, MT6739, SD 425, MT6738, MT6737, and Kirin 620.

With that, we’ve come to the end of this post on major smartphone SoCs. So take a look and see which category your SoC falls under.

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