Benchmark of Note 4 versus Note 5 versus Mi Note Pro

[Lobaba]

As the previous owner of Note 4, I have just upgraded to Note 5 while my mum is using the mi note pro.

Managed to run some benchmarks under cooling conditions, I placed the phones without cases on the top of a cupboard right under the air conditioner till they are very cool and ran it in the same position. I also ran them in normal conditions and I have 1 thing to say: Note5 ramps up like a marathon runner, the benchmarks will get better over repeated runs as if you were waking a slumping dragon while mi note pro gave the best results on the 1st attempt before dropping significantly in benchmarks after repeated runs. The irony of my analogy paints exynos 7420 as a better dragon than snapdragon 810.

I guess this means the snapdragon 810 has some serious thermal throttling going on. Note 4 on the other hand gave rather consistent results from repeated runs.

Feel free to ask me to run other benchmarks under normal, cooling or after gaming. I am also open to battery tests. Note 4 may be sold soon so better get the requests coming in for a real world test!

Benchmarks as below at 25 degrees celsius air con

Photo by ipad mini2 with 1st generation redmi making a guest appearance


Photos by redmi




At 1 point, I left Note5 on a slippery support and it dropped all the way by 1m hitting my table (cushioned by stacks of paper and books) before falling another 1m to the ground Was so glad that there wasn't a single dent or scratch.

Further stress test under normal conditions in post below

 

[Kaboose666]

Thanks for the comparison

 

[seh6183]

Thank you for this.

 

[smarcin]

I'm curious, did you see any over-heating of battery, CPU or the whole phone? If so, could you track this on all three phones? Thanks.

 

[Lobaba]

I'm curious, did you see any over-heating of battery, CPU or the whole phone? If so, could you track this on all three phones? Thanks.

Alright! A request!

I did the following test - to repeatedly run antutu to stress the cpus and record the temperatures before and after. 4 runs were made and results as below...all photos taken by ipad mini 2.

Guest appearance by 1st Gen Redmi, 1st Gen Redmi Note

The contestants
From left to right: Redmi, Redmi Note, Mi Note Pro, Note 4, Note 5


Ambient temperature of 33 to 38 degrees celsius on the 4 phones
Look at that amount of sensors on the qualcomm powered phones! There were 10 on note 4 and then there were 15 on mi note pro! Meanwhile, Note 5 featured as much sensors as a redmi..

The First Heat

1st run: Redmi note did not complete the tests and the app crashed halfway. Redmi pulled through to give a result of 18k, well done little fellow!


Detailed breakdown of 1st run's test results of Mi note pro, Note 4 and note 5. Mi note pro with its 810 performs almost similarly to the Note 4 on 805 and is even slightly behind. Hmm, this does not bode well.



Temperature wise, Mi note pro hit a maximum of 65 degrees celsius whereas note 4 hits 84 and note 5 hits 83. Temperatures of the 3 phones some time after the 1st run and right before the 2nd run. I had to spend some time to uninstall and reinstall antutu on the mi note pro as I noticed the version on it was 5.7.2 instead of 5.7.1.

The second heat

Detailed breakdown of 2nd run's test results of Mi note pro, Note 4 and note 5. Mi note pro with its 810 performs almost similarly to the Note 4 on 805 once again and trails behind yet again. Both faced a 6% decrease in performance. Note 5 continues to ace the heat with a 2% decrease in performance.


Temperatures of the 3 phones right after the 2nd run and before the 3rd run. Mi note pro hit a maximum of 65 degrees celsius once again whereas note 4 hits 84 and note 5 went further up to 86.

The third heat

Detailed breakdown of 3rd run's test results of Mi note pro, Note 4 and note 5. Mi note pro with its 810 performs almost similarly to the Note 4 on 805 once again and trails behind yet again. Both faced an almost 10% drop in performance with mi note pro dropping more. Note 5's performance took a nosedive but it is still comfortably ahead of both Mi Note pro and note 4. As Note 5 is now my main phone, there could have been a interference of some sort. I did clear all the active apps and turned off sync for all phones before beginning the tests. We will let the next test determine the effects of running 4 runs 1 after another.


Temperatures of the 3 phones right after the 3rd run and before the 4th run. Mi note pro hit a maximum of 65 degrees celsius once again whereas note 4 and note 5 went up to 86.

One shall rise...and one shall fall.

STAHP. Mi Note pro...what? It stopped at 55% and after 20 minutes, I gave up waiting. note 4 and note 5 went up to 86 degrees celsius while I had no idea what mi note pro was at.


Note 4 faced a 12% decrease in performance. Note 5 amazingly recovers to a 0.5% decrease in performance. Do note that the 2nd to 4th runs had no stoppage in between. Meanwhile, Mi Note Pro joins its older brethren redmi note on the sidelines.

Conclusion
It seems that Xiaomi has effectively throttled the temperatures of Mi Note Pro to 65 degrees celsius and no more. The result of that can be seen such that it effectively performs no better than a note 4 (unless it was placed under an air conditioner at 25 degrees celsius). That is bad news since Mi Note supposedly performs similar to a Note 4 (any singaporeans willing to meet up for me to try it out?). Note 5 on the other hand was a beast and leads comfortably ahead even with a sudden handicap. Could mi note pro perform similar to Note 5 if the thermal throttling is changed to 86 degrees celsius or will that result in an even worse result? Do also consider that note 4 has been used for 11 months and could be suffering from old age.

As for temperatures, samsung has effectively not give a * about the high temperatures and let loose on note 4 and 5 without compromising on the performance. Both phones were definitely warm to touch and the mi note pro was no better at 65 degree celsius. If you have sensitive hands, get a thick TPU case to shield your pretty hands. Good night folks!

 

[Lobaba]

Reserved for GFX Bench 3.1