For smartphone users interested in testing the performance of their device, a benchmarking app can provide insightful results. While aspects like camera quality, speaker output, display quality, and even battery life can be gauged by a user, figuring out a phone’s maximum performance or ability to handle high-quality graphics will require some testing. Fortunately, benchmarking apps provide an easy solution.

Benchmarking platforms allow users to scrutinize the performance of their smartphones. These apps push the hardware in a smartphone, i.e., its CPU and GPU to their maximum capacity and return a performance score that can be compared with other models. Instead of relying on companies and their claims about the processing capacity of a smartphone, users can download a benchmarking app on their device and run a test on their own. Contrary to what some may think, running a benchmark on a smartphone, either Android or iOS, is not difficult.

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One of the most popular and easy-to-use benchmarking applications is Geekbench. It focuses more on the performance of a smartphone’s CPU and provides single-core and multi-core performance scores. Several smartphone brands run Geekbench tests on their devices in the later stages of development. The Geekbench 5 app is available on the Google Play Store as well as the App Store. On opening the app, users will see the option to Run CPU Benchmark and tapping it will begin the benchmarking process. During the test, Geekbench simulates several tasks to test processing power, including image compression, text compression, navigation, camera operation, and more.

Use Benchmarks To Check A Phone’s Performance

Playing a game on the iPhone 13 Pro

Once the test is complete, which shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, Geekbench reveals the performance scores of the smartphone, which are also uploaded to the platform’s database. For example, the iPhone 13 Pro Max achieved a single-core score of 1,699 points and a multi-core score of 4,667 points on Geekbench 5. On the other hand, the iPhone 12 Pro Max scored 1,577 points in the single-core test and 3,983 points in the multi-core test. Geekbench 5 also has a ‘Compute Benchmark’ that conducts tests to check the performance of the phone’s GPU. Users can run it the same way as the CPU benchmark.

AnTuTu is another popular smartphone benchmark app. Although it isn’t available on the Play Store, Android users can download the app from AnTuTu’s official website. For iPhone users, the app is available to download from the App Store. Once the app has been downloaded, it will ask users to install AnTuTu 3D Bench (about an 800MB download), the module that runs several benchmarking tests on a smartphone. After 3D Bench is installed, iPhone users can tap on Test Now. The app will then run several animated videos on the smartphone’s screen, pushing its CPU and GPU to generate the highest possible resolution and frame rate. The AnTuTu benchmark takes longer than Geekbench to complete.

AnTuTu divides its score into several categories and the total score obtained by a smartphone comprises its CPU and GPU strength. For reference, AnTuTu’s website mentions that the iPhone 13 Pro Max obtains a score of 842,159 points, while the iPhone 12 scores 725,611 points. On both Geekbench and AnTuTu, a higher score equals better performance. Although benchmark scores are indicators of a smartphone’s performance, real-life results will vary based on a person’s usage.