The OnePlus 8, OnePlus 8 Pro Review: Becoming The Flagship
by Andrei Frumusanu on June 29, 2020 10:00 AM ESTSystem Performance
System performance of the new OnePlus 8 phones shouldn’t be a big concern given the Snapdragon 865 chipsets as well as the fact that both phones have high-refresh rate displays. Still, software can play a big role in the experience of a device, so let’s look at our typical system performance benchmark suite:
The web-browsing workload is a little bit lighter in terms of load, and is most sensitive to the actual performance responsiveness of a device’s scheduler. The OnePlus 8 phones in their regular 60Hz mode don’t seem to be all that convincing as they’re seemingly tuned to be more conservative than most other phones on the market. Increasing the refresh rate to respectively 90Hz and 120Hz ups the scores, but still not quite as high as what other phones are achieving.
The writing sub-test of PCMark is the most representative of a device’s performance and how it will compare in the real world. Here the OnePlus 8 phones also fare relatively average in their rankings. Amongst the Snapdragon 865 devices it’s on par with the Xiaomi Mi10 Pro, but lose out to the LG V60 and particularly the Samsung S20 Ultra which has a considerable lead. Samsung usually tunes their BSP software more than other vendors and this can be seen here in particular.
In the GPU-bound Renderscript photo editing test we see a similar ranking, the new generation devices are the top scoring phones but the OnePlus 8 falls a bit short of the V60 and S20.
The data manipulation score is also very sensitive to performance scaling speed – at 60Hz the OnePlus devices aren’t particularly noteworthy, but at 90/120Hz they more closely match up the top performing devices.
Overall, in the PCMark ranking the OnePlus 8 phones do well, although there’s a lot of other phones which seem to have more aggressive scheduler settings that are able to distance themselves more from the pack, in particular Samsung’s S20 series with the Snapdragon 865.
In the browser based benchmarks, we again see that the OnePlus 8 phones generally fall in line with other phones of its generation such as the V60 and the Mi 10 Pro, however fall short of the performance that the S20 is able to achieve.
The Speedometer scores were quite odd in that I measured a bigger difference in performance between the two phones, with the regular OnePlus 8 for some reason being in the lead. I don’t have any good explanation for this other than possibly we’re seeing differences in the memory architectures of the two units and the benchmark is maybe exposing some sensitivities between the two units.
I had run my memory benchmarks on the two phones as this was the first time we’ve had access to an LPDDR4X version of the Snapdragon 865. The results were mixed – full random memory access latency was better on the LP5 system by about 5ns, but some other access patterns were slightly lower latency on the LP4 system. Sequential memory latency access in particular being oddly 10% lower latency on the LP4 system. Memory bandwidth wise, the LP5 system had a clear win with a 21% lead in memory reads at 35.71GB/s vs 29.31GB/s – however it lost on memory writes at 19.84GB/s vs 20.56GB/s in favour of the LP4 system. In actual memory copy loads it was thus also the LP4 system which had a notable lead of 12% at 10.22GB/s vs 9.09GB/s.
These are all results I hadn’t quite expected and shows that the newer memory technology doesn’t necessarily mean it’s outright better in every regard. The difference here in the Speedometer test could be very much tied to one of the memory performance characteristics of the systems
Overall Performance Verdict
Although the OnePlus 8 phones didn’t particularly top the benchmark scores in our system tests, they still showcase outstanding experiences in the real world. The 90Hz refresh rate on the OnePlus 8 is very much noticeable and a great addition to the product, and the 120Hz scrolling experience of the OnePlus 8 Pro even exceeds it.
I tried hard to compare the OnePlus 8 Pro to Samsung’s S20 series phones, and whilst the differences were minute, Samsung’s devices did seem just a little bit snappier and that fact does materialise in our benchmark scores. It’s possible here that OnePlus opted to leave the more conservative DVFS and scheduler tuneables at the Qualcomm defaults for a more balanced battery life experience.
Still – you can’t go wrong either OnePlus phone as both are exemplary in their performance characteristics.
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Dexter101 - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
I feel like the conclusion leaves out some details on pricing. You can compare the MSRP prices and come to conclusions but in 1 month or so the first big deals will start showing up for Samsung flagships with heavy price drops. You'll be able to get an S20+ for less than 700€ then, while the OnePlus phones stay true to their MSRP pricing year round.Considering the quality control issues, the 200€ you save on the Samsung and the generally less buggy software I would likely go for the S20+, although the Snapdragon in all markets is a good advantage in Europe for Oneplus!
Andrei Frumusanu - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
I compared it at current street prices - the price drops already happened.PeachNCream - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
In order to be a flagship, generally said thing should be able to float on water and support fly the fleet commander's flag. I suppose Anandtech tested both of those requirements in order to verify the accuracy of the claim as such for the OnePlus 8, but publishing the benchmark data and testing methods used would be good journalism. Also, pics of the command center from which fleet operations are coordinated inside of the OnePlus 8 would be a nice addition to this review given the high importance of tossing about the term "flagship" in even opening the article.eastcoast_pete - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Actually, regarding the ability to float: that is a key problem with many (all?) protective cases! What good does IP68 etc. do me if the damn phone (in its protective case) will still sink to the bottom of whatever body of water one is on or close to? I haven't dropped my phone into the sea yet, but friends of mine have while out fishing. So, any protective cases that will let the $ 1,000 smartphone float?Omair - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Hi Andrei, The 8 pro actually supports 10W Qi Wireless Charging, not 5W. You can verify it on the Wireless Power Consortium's Website: https://www.wirelesspowerconsortium.com/products/8...Of course, the charger will need to support Qi's Extended Power Profile to get 10W, which most don't (They usually only support 5W Qi, and then Samsung's and Apple's fast charge above that).
But if the charger is advertised as doing 10W on LG, Sony, or Xiaomi phones, it will most likely do 10W on the 8 pro. You can also just check the charger on the WPC's website and see what wattage is listed.
ads295 - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
I think we're well past the point where meaningful differences in computing hardware made much difference, such as the jump Samsung made with the Exynos 7420 in the GS6, or the jump from eMMC to UFS storage. Even for screen resolution for a 5.5-6" display, you can't get much better than 1440p at 90Hz. At this point companies should focus ONLY on the differentiating features, such as putting in a huge battery (path breaking to have a thicker phone that last long), better camera (no one has perfected this yet), better phone protection (less snowflake), and other tiny lil goodies such as an IR port, heart rate sensor, SpO² sensor that actually are different.ads295 - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
But it's as if no one has realised this and people are willing to overpay for LaTeSt CPU BrO and MoAr JiGgAbYtEs and establishing phallic measurements.Alistair - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
They raised the price on the base model from $700-$800 (depending on launch time frame) to $1100 in Canada. Oneplus is dead. Failed company, a huge disappointment. I finally bought an iPhone for the first time, saved a ton of money. How far Android has fallen in the last 5 years in price and quality is sad.alufan - Monday, June 29, 2020 - link
Agree Android is in trouble, Google has let it down badly by allowing all these suppliers to make so much bloat on handsets after starting with the very first Android and now on a S20 Ultra which frankly is rubbish compared to my mate 30pro I had before I think my next phone will be an Apple, I use one for work and whilst its frustrating due to the lack of or ease of customisation options fact is it just works on Android I have 2 calenders, 2 Music players, 2 browsers, I could go on I want to uninstall the Samsung browser and bixby etc etc but I cant, its my goddam device i want them off but you cant and if I root it then my bank apps no longer work...great way to keep customers GoogleAlistair - Tuesday, June 30, 2020 - link
What is especially worrying is the price bloat. Snapdragon and various Android phone part suppliers seem to be upping their prices dramatically. A Snapdragon 865 should be a lot cheaper and we're hearing rumors they want to charge even more for next year.