Android’s next-gen Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip can’t compete with Apple’s A16 (or A15)

One thing you can always count on in the battle of devices for your money is that chip manufacturers will tout the breakthrough performance of their latest CPU. Earlier this week, Qualcomm revealed its new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, and the company is of course touting performance gains of up to 35 percent over its predecessor, the Snapdragon Gen 1.

While iPhone users likely don’t give a hoot about a chip that’s for Android phones, it is interesting to see how it compares to Apple silicon in the real world. According to DealNTech, Geekbench 5 scores for Qualcomm’s latest chip have already been posted and Apple’s A16 Bionic is faster, by a wide margin. In single-core performance, the A16 Bionic is 28 percent faster, and in multi-core testing, the A16 Bionic is 14 percent faster.

In fact, Apple’s older chips, the A15 Bionic and the A14 Bionic are also faster than the Snapdragon Gen 2 in single-core performance, which is arguably more important on a phone. The new Snapdragon chip fares a little better than the A15 Bionic and A14 Bionic in multi-core testing, but still, it’s very close.

While Qualcomm’s press release states that the Snapdragon Gen 2 will “revolutionize flagship smartphones for truly extraordinary experiences,” there aren’t any direct references to the iPhone or Apple’s A-series processors. So to be fair, Qualcomm’s claims are likely made in the context of Android phones, and as PCWorld points out, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 brings interesting features such as ray-tracing and a new AI Sensing Hub, and will “likely power your next Android smartphone.”

Well, okay, not your Android phone, because, well, this is Macworld and you’re probably a longtime, dedicated iPhone user and you don’t have an Android phone. You’ll just have to sit back and enjoy with the benefits of having the fastest CPU of any mobile phone.