Skip to main content

benchmarks

See All Stories

Tests reveal how Apple improved iPad Pro’s display, & why iPad mini 4 is still best overall

ipad-pro-diary-5-4

DisplayMate is out today with a comparison of iPad displays following the introduction of Apple’s new larger 12.9-inch iPad, and the results might surprise you.

While the larger display on the iPad Pro is one of the device’s standout features on Apple’s latest and greatest iPad, the iPad mini 4, introduced alongside the iPad Pro to not quite as much fanfare, actually beats out its bigger sibling in several categories. The iPad Pro, however, does hold its own and DisplayMate’s analysis shows a number of improvements Apple has made to make it one of its best displays for a mobile device yet.
Expand
Expanding
Close

New 15-inch 2.5 GHz MacBook Pro unboxed and compared to other 2015 configurations (Video)

lea

Apple’s new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display is here and available in a few different configurations. We’re take a closer look at the 2.5 GHz model with 16GB of RAM, and 512 GB of internal storage today, but also comparing some benchmarks to Apple’s two other 15-inch configurations for this year.

This MacBook features slight improvements in the battery department, makes the switch from NVIDIA to AMD for discrete graphics, faster internal storage, and also includes Apple’s new Force Touch trackpad as we’ve seen with other MacBook releases this year….


Expand
Expanding
Close

First 12″ MacBook 1.3GHz benchmarks: top model rivals 1.4GHz iMac, 2014 MacBook Air

Following Apple’s shipments of the first 1.3GHz versions of the 12″ MacBook this week, benchmarks have started to appear online for the new Intel Core M-5Y71 machine. Geekbench 3 shows the following results for each model, which vary based on the testing mode (32/64-bit) and number of processor cores used (single or multiple cores).

MacBook 1.1GHz

  • 32-Bit: Single-Core Average 2212, Multi-Core Average 4070
  • 64-Bit: Single-Core Average 2428, Multi-Core Average 4592

MacBook 1.2GHz

  • 32-Bit: Single-Core Average 2348, Multi-Core Average 4603
  • 64-Bit: Single-Core Average 2579, Multi-Core Average 5185

MacBook 1.3GHz

  • 32-Bit: Single-Core Average 2387, Multi-Core Average 4673
  • 64-Bit: Single-Core Average 2816, Multi-Core Average 5596

The 1.3GHz MacBook’s 64-Bit scores represent 16%-22% improvements over the 1.1GHz model, and 8%-9% gains over the 1.2GHz model. On April 27, we updated the 32-Bit scores now that additional benchmarks have been posted; they show smaller gains over the lower-speed models. More details are below…


Expand
Expanding
Close

Triple-core iPad Air 2 pegged as 55% faster than any other iOS device, Retina 5K iMac top score beats low-end Pro

Site default logo image

retina-imac-macpro-64bit-october-2014-multicore-thumb

Geekbench results for the iMac with Retina 5K Display have hit the web and show that when it comes to 64-bit processing, the 4.0 GHz model of the new all-in-one comes out ahead of the lowest-end (3.7 GHz) Mac Pro. Of course, the rest of the Mac Pro family handily beats the iMac in the same category.

The extra power is almost certainly dedicating to keeping things running smoothly on the impressive new 5K display.

Meanwhile, on the mobile, new benchmarks for the iPad Air 2 have revealed…

Site default logo image

Apple Marketing SVP Phil Schiller calls out Samsung’s Note 3 benchmarking ‘shenanigans’

Phil_Schiller

Apple Marketing SVP Phil Schiller has been known to take to Twitter in the past to voice his views on rival platforms, and today the Apple executive is once again taking a jab at Android through his Twitter account. Today, Schiller points us to some more Android “shenanigans” with a link to a story from ArsTechinca about inflated Galaxy Note 3 benchmarks.

Ars reports:

After a good bit of sleuthing, we can confidently say Samsung appears to be artificially boosting the US Note 3’s benchmark scores with a special, high-power CPU mode that kicks in when the device runs a large number of popular benchmarking apps. Samsung did something similar with the international Galaxy S 4’s GPU, but this is the first time we’ve seen the boost on a US device. We also found a way to disable this special CPU mode, so for the first time we can see just how much Samsung’s benchmark optimizations affect benchmark scores.

Earlier this year Schiller took another shot at Android on Twitter by tweeting the words “Be safe out there” with a link to a study showing a much higher number of threats on Android compared to iOS. Schiller isn’t the only Apple executive on Twitter as earlier this month CEO Tim Cook started communicating with customers for the first time through his official account. 

Screen Shot 2013-10-01 at 11.55.23 AM