Top smartphones, tablets for gaming

Hardware

December 23, 2014

Futuremark has released a list of the best performing Android devices for gaming, everyday tasks, and battery life, based on 3DMark and PCMark benchmark scores.

The performance score shown for each Android device is the median average of all results received, with obvious outliers excluded. A popular model typically has tens of thousands of results.

The median is the point at which 50% of scores are higher and 50% are lower. Higher scores come from benchmarking under ideal conditions and from devices tweaked by the user to improve performance.

Lower scores come from benchmarking with other apps running in the background, when the device is throttling to avoid overheating, or when it’s trying to save power.

“Though it’s easy to score higher in lab conditions, the median score is a good indication of the real-world performance of each device,” Futuremark said.

Gaming performance

The following table ranks Android devices by 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited benchmark score. 3DMark highlights GPU performance with CPU performance having a lesser influence on the score.

Best Android devices for gaming

Everyday performance

PCMark for Android measures the performance of smartphones and tablets using benchmarks based on everyday tasks, such as browsing the web, watching videos, working with text, and editing photos.

These tests emphasize the interdependence of the CPU, GPU, storage, and memory on overall performance, treating the device as a complete unit rather than a set of isolated components.