As it has been happening for months now, the ranking of the most powerful smartphones is monopolized by Chinese manufacturers, both among the high-end and the mid-range
The dominance of Chinese smartphones in the ranking of AnTuTu, the most popular benchamarking platform for mobile device performance, continues in October. In October, among the top 10 high-end smartphones there are 9 devices made in China.
The Chinese dominance is total, with 10 out of 10 smartphones in the top ten of mid-range devices. The only non-Chinese device among the top ten most powerful in the world is the Taiwanese Asus ROG Phone 2. Another very interesting fact is that all ten smartphones in the top ten mount the SoC Snapdragon 855+ from the American Qualcomm. This means that (and maybe Donald Trump won't like this) the collaboration between China and the US works great, at least in consumer electronics. This, on the other side of the coin, leads to a very even top ten where the performance of the first in line is not that much higher than that of the tenth.
Most powerful Android smartphones: AnTuTu's top ten
These, according to AnTuTu's benchmarks, are the most powerful devices tested in October 2019 with the memory denomination of the tested device specified and, in parentheses, the score achieved:
1) Vivo NEX 3 5G - 8 GB/256 GB (482.917)
2) Vivo iQOO Po 5G - 8 GB/256 GB (481,997)
3) OnePlus 7T - 8 GB/256 GB (481,784)
4) OnePlus 7T Pro - 8/256 GB (480.902)
5) ASUS ROG Phone 2 - 8/128 GB (477,596)
6) Xiaomi Mi 9 Pro 5G - 12/256 GB (467,415)
7) Xiaomi Black Shark 2 Pro - 12/256 GB (466.373)
8) Realme X2 Pro - 8/128 GB (4664,354)
9) Meizu 16s Pro - 8/128 GB (459,982)
10) Redmi K20 Pro Exclusive Edition - 12/512 GB (456.034)
How to read AnTuTu's ranking
As it's easy to notice by reading the ranking, with the same SoC it's not the amount of memory that makes the difference in performance between one top smartphone and another: the Vivo NEX3 5G first in the ranking has 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage, but it's faster than the Redmi K20 Pro Exclusive Edition with 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage.
It should also be noted, however, that if we move from brute numbers to percentage points: between the first in the rankings and the last there is a performance gap of about 6%. The next time we're about to buy a top-of-the-line smartphone, therefore, let's also take into account this data to make the best choice. The performance gap is there and can be felt, however, among the top ten of the mid-range market: in first place is the Honor 9X Pro with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage, which totals 299,194 points, while on the last step is the Vivo X27 with 8/256 GB that stops at 213,546. Here the performance difference is almost 30%.