Обзор Unless my phone can be a PC too, I don’t want to keep paying for extra performance

[Обзор]

Credit: Rita El Khoury / Android Authority

Opinion post by
Robert Triggs

When was the last time you felt your smartphone really couldn’t cope? I’m running last year’s Pixel 8 Pro — hardly a benchmark topper — as my daily driver, and just as silky smooth as the more powerful ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro I’ve been using on the side. But even before that, I struggle to recall the last time an app jerked and juddered into life. Outside of a few niche use cases, smartphone power has been bountiful for a few years now, but to jump up another level, modern manufacturing is making it more and more expensive but with few real-world benefits. We might have already passed the point of diminishing returns, but we’re also paying more and more for the privilege.

This year’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite is a prime example; it offers significant leaps in benchmark performance but is said to be considerably more expensive than its predecessor. Likewise, MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400 commands a higher price tag too, yet you’ll struggle to tell a phone packing these chips apart from last year’s model when it’s in hand. Money thrown at higher benchmark scores could be spent on better cameras, newer battery tech, or anything else on your wishlist. Returning to the ROG, the baseline model has dropped the telephoto camera, no doubt to keep up with the spiraling costs of top-tier performance.