Flagships from yesteryears may no longer be at the forefront of tech conversations but they are still very much in demand. In this article we are going to have two of these go up against each other. This is the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 vs Apple A15 Bionic.

The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 was Qualcomm’s flagship for the year 2022. It is an upgraded version of the vanilla Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and it is better by a country mile.

In typical Snapdragon fashion, the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is very popular amongst smartphone manufacturers and the general public. It can be found on devices like the Poco F5 Pro, Realme GT 2 Master Explorer, Vivo iQOO Neo 7 Pro, Xiaomi 12T Pro, One Plus 10T, Realme GT3, Asus ROG Phone 6, Nothing Phone 2, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and so many others.

The A15 Bionic is the older of the two SoCs here. It was Apple’s iPhones flagship SoC of 2021. During its heyday, it was the best smartphone SoC in the world.

Apple’s SoCs are exclusively made for and used by Apple products and the A15 sticks to that tradition. It can be found on the Apple iPhone SE 2022, iPhone 13 Mini, iPhone 13 iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max, iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus.

Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 vs Apple A15 Bionic

Performance

Comparing Apple’s Bionic SoCs against Android based SoCs can be quite tricky. This is because these SoCs use vastly different architectures.

That being said, when it comes to CPU performance, on AnTuTu, the 8+ Gen 1 is the slightly better SoC with 244,610 whilst the A15 Bionic comes in second with 210,809. On GeekBench however, the reverse is the case as the A15 Bionic is the better SoC with a score of 1741/4815, whilst the 8+ Gen 1 comes second with a score of 1312/4129.

This is a case of Apples to Snapdragons, literally. People on the different sides of this divide have argued that their preferred SoC is better. However, in this Author’s educated opinion, the performance of both SoCs are on par.

Gaming

When it comes to gaming, the same story repeats itself. GFXBench 3.1 reports that the A15 Bionic has the better GPU whilst 3D WildLife posts that the 8+ Gen 1 has the better GPU.

However seeing as it is that most games are made for the Android ecosystem as opposed to iOS, this author will be learning towards the 8+ Gen 1.

Gaming: Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1

RAM and Storage

The 8+ Gen 1 uses the better (and faster) LPDDR5 (3200MHz) RAM. The A15 Bionic comes a distant second with a slower LPDDR4x (2133MHz) RAM. This gives the 8+ Gen 1 better performance multitasking and app switching. It also helps to boost CPU performance.

On the other hand, the A15 Bionic uses a faster low powered NVMe storage while the 8+ Gen 1 uses a slower UFS 3.1.

RAM and Storage: Tie

Camera and Video

The 8+ Gen 1 supports 200MP cameras which is far more than the A15 Bionic supports. The 8+ Gen 1 does better photography than the A15 Bionic, especially in low light.

In video however, despite having support for 8K video, the 8+ Gen 1 lags somewhat behind A15 Bionic. In a side by side comparison, video from the A15 Bionic looks much better.

Camera and Video: Tie

Network Connectivity

Both SoCs support 4G and 5G, but the 8+ Gen 1 is the clear winner here with much faster upload and download speeds. The A15 comes a distant second here.

Network Connectivity: 8+ Gen 1

Battery life

Both SoCs are built on different TSMC fabrication processes (5nm and 4nm respectively) but they boast almost similar battery life.

Battery life: Tie

Conclusion

Both SoCs may be built differently but they both seem to offer similar levels of performance, gaming, multimedia, camera, video and battery life. At this point, your choice should depend on your personal preferences and ecosystem.

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