Performance: Snapdragon 800 for Windows Phone

First we'Re seeing a Windows Phone powered by a Snapdragon 800 SoC, which is currently the most powerful SoC that Qualcomm makes and a touristed one with a range of manufacturers. I've had a lot of experience with this particular cow dung, the MSM8974, in the past fewer Android flagships that I've reviewed, and it's definitely delivers a great deal of power to the user.

The Snapdragon 800 consists of a 2.26 Gigahertz quad-core Krait 400 CPU, Adreno 330 GPU clocked at 450 MHz, a Hexagon QDSP6V5A DSP at 600 Megacycle per second, a multiple-communication channel LPDDR3 accountant capable of providing 12.8 GB/s of throughput, Category 4 LTE, equal to WI-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0, IZAT Gen8B GPS and treble look-alike signal processors. As you can realise, it provides the legal age of the Lumia 1520's mainstay on the one die, particularly when considering the package-on-package 2 GB of RAM that's enclosed.

The Lumia 1520 also comes with NFC As provided by a secondary chip, too as 32 GB of internal NAND complemented away a microSD placard time slot. Some other expansion slot is provided for the SIM card, which oddly is a nano-SIM rather than the micro-SIM that the smartphone community has been usual to in all phones block off the iPhone.

In the past, Windows Phone has proven itself to be an highly optimized operational system, on computer hardware ranging from the low end Snapdragon S4 MSM8227 in the Lumia 520, to the MSM8960 that we saw in the Lumia 925 and Lumia 1020. However the Snapdragon 800 is very much Thomas More stiff than any of the SoCs we've seen in a Windows Phone before, making the performance of the Lumia 1520 especially interesting.

Atomic number 3 you might expect, the overall system carrying into action of the Lumia 1520 is precise good. Everything from loading apps and using the camera, to browse through the interface and changing settings is incredibly fast. Animations are also very liquid, which is expected from the powerful Adreno 330 GPU that accelerates all aspects of Windows Phone. But it's non the fastest smartphone that I've used.

Correspondent to iOS 7 connected the iPhone 5s, it's actually the operating system itself that makes the Lumia 1520 appear slower in comparison to top-end Android devices, despite its speediness compared to sr. Windows Phones. Where flagship handsets like the Nexus 5 load applications instantly, thanks to minimal use of animations in Android, Windows Phone is press-packed with animations throughout every aspect of the operating system. When using the Lumia 1520, IT feels like tasks are being completed along the powerful Krait 400 Central processing unit cores fit before the transmutation animations are complete, giving an illusion that the twist is slower because content isn't displayed as quickly.

Unequal iOS 7, there is no 'Reduce Motion' setting to shorten the length of animations, or any setting to turn on them off, so in that respect is no way to truly deliver the full potential of such a powerful SoC while navigating the operating system of rules. Naturally apps are some other story, as the extra grunt allows webpage manipulation to be quicker than ever before; multitasking has also received a quicken bump, both from the inclusion of 2 GB of RAM and the Snapdragon 800.

Gaming is a whole other history, because until right away thither hasn't been a GPU in a Windows Earpiece that's as powerful as this. Previously we've had the Adreno 225 delivering art power to Windows Phone handsets, but the come ou to the Adreno 330 is huge: the Snapdragon 800 SoC delivers three times (if not four times) the GPU functioning of the previous MSM8960. This substance that even considering the jump from 720p to 1080p displays - 2.25x more pixels to render to – the Adreno 330 is a more capable GPU that gives developers more room to solve with.

I tried a range of titles from the Windows Call Store and naturally all of them performed passing well connected the Lumia 1520. Non only is gaming gravid on the six-inch display, but the Adreno 330 keeps everything fine and fluid, disregardless what title you're playing. It will also be great for star upcoming titles much atomic number 3 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which are reliable to require a bit of grunt to turn tail smoothly on 1080p displays.

Moving on to the benchmarks and it's stimulating to learn how the Lumia 1520 performs in browser benchmarks versus some else top-end Snapdragon 800-powered Mechanical man handsets. Windows Phones have typically posted unimposing scores in Futuremark's Peacekeeper bench mark, and the Lumia 1520 is no exception: it may be 53% quicker than the Lumia 1020, but it's still 45% lower than the Galaxy Note 3.

To support that Internet Explorer 11 on Windows Headphone 8 is in fact slower than Chrome/Android browser, I also ran Mozilla's intense Kraken bench mark on a range of smartphones. Here the performance gap is even more pronounced, with the Galaxy Banker's bill 3 additive the benchmark Sir Thomas More than ternary times faster. I wouldn't say this difference entirely translates to real-world experiences, but IT does feel like the Lumia 1520 has a slower web browser than guiding Mechanical man smartphones.

WPBench, an all-round Windows Phone only benchmark, shows just how fast the Snapdragon 800 is in comparison to some older handsets. The Lumia 1520 is 116% faster in this trial run than the Lumia 120, which goes to show how more (and quicker) CPU cores, a better GPU and Sir Thomas More memory bandwidth can boost carrying out importantly.

Comparable with most devices of this class, you'Re given top-end connectivity options that function utterly. I had no upset connecting to Optus' LTE web in Australia, achieving speeds upwards of 30 Mbps in good coverage areas. Wi-Fi functioned perfectly for me arsenic well, being able to connect to both my 2.4 Gc and 5 GHz 802.11n networks (802.11ac is also available) with little effort. I also found no issues with Bluetooth, GPS or NFC during my testing, although NFC calm down struggles in transfers to Android devices.

The Snapdragon 800 SoC is equal to of 4K encryption and decoding, but it appears as though Windows Headphone 8 currently lacks suffer for this capability. The Music+Videos Hub in Windows Phone recognizes and tail play support Radical HD videos, but it stutters significantly as if decryption was occurring on the CPU rather than fast with the assistanc of the Hexagon DSP. This isn't much of an outcome right now, but the issue of 4K content in the next a few years will make this a more critical feature.

Boilers suit the performance of the Lumia 1520 doesn't disappoint, easily cementing itself as the fastest Windows Phone available with the best range of hardware, including Wi-Fi 802.11ac, LTE Category 4, 2 GB of RAM and a microSD card slot. IT doesn't quite match Android devices with similar specifications, simply it keeps Windows Headphone right upbound at that place with the lie.