X
Tech
Why you can trust ZDNET : ZDNET independently tests and researches products to bring you our best recommendations and advice. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Our process

'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean?

ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing.

When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers.

ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form.

Close

An old iPhone can outperform the Samsung Galaxy S22

A flagship device currently available for preorder is outperformed in the benchmarks by an iPhone from 2019.
Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Contributing Writer

While benchmarks don't tell you the whole story, they do serve as a useful measure to compare one device to another.

And sometimes benchmarks can be quite unbelievable.

This is how I feel about the recent benchmarks for Samsung's newest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S22.

Now, we've already seen benchmarks that show that the Galaxy S22 Ultra and S22+ outpaces all other Android smartphones but is still beaten by the A15 chip in the iPhone 13 Pro Max.

But it gets worse.

A lot worse.

Another benchmark has emerged that shows the Exynos 2200 chip present in some versions of the Galaxy S22 being outperformed by the A13 Bionic chip that powers the iPhone 11 and the current-generation iPhone SE.

The iPhone 11 was released in September 2019.

And the Samsung S22 is currently available for preorder.

Now, like I said earlier, benchmarks don't say it all, and CPU/GPU performance is just part of the story. But still, CPU and GPU performance does matter in a lot of situations, and it's a bit strange that the chip in a flagship Android device can be beaten by a chip that Apple developed in 2019.

There's also talk of overheating issues affecting the Exynos 2200, which is not good.

It seems like the S22 has been rushed and is suffering from some pretty big problems.

Now it's possible that some of these issues can be fixed, or at least minimalized, by future updates.

Now, what does this mean for S22 buyers?

Well, to begin with, I'd probably want to avoid the Exynos 2200 chip. Samsung also uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in the Galaxy S22 line, so going for handsets powered by that chip, which offers much better performance, makes a lot of sense.

Because while Samsung might be able to work around the reason for the poor performance, there are no guarantees.

And it's not like the Galaxy S22 is a budget handset. That thing is pricy.

Or you could save yourself some money and buy an iPhone 11. They're pretty cheap now.

Editorial standards