Global Top 10 Best Performing Flagship Phones and Mid-range Phones,December 2020

Compared with constant release of new models with 5nm processors on China’s mobile phone market, there are only a handful of new phone models with 5nm processors released globally. Among the Global Top 10 Best Performing Android Flagship Phones on the ranking list, only Huawei Mate 40 Pro remaining the first place on the list this month, the same as last month, adopts 5nm processor, while the other nine phones on the list carry Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 series.

Let’s take a look at the ranking list.

The data was collected from December 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020 and the results on the ranking list are average scores instead of highest ones. There are more than 1,000 pieces of data for a single phone model. The data was calculated based on Antutu V8. If several memory capacity versions of any single phone model are available on the List, the version of highest memory capacity shall prevail.

1. Flagship phones

No. 1: HUAWEI Mate 40 Pro

Average score: 657,784

Xiaomi 11 powered by the Snapdragon 888 flagship processor has been released, but it is only available in China, so Huawei Mate 40 Pro still leads the global market, with its average score of 657,784, a big win over iQOO Neo3 ranking No. 2 by more than 20,000 points.

In the first few days of 2021, the news came out that Huawei, despite severe restrictions suffered, seems to have not given up on processor development. The next-generation Kirin processor will be called Kirin 9010 and the 3nm process it will be using can be viewed as an iteration of 5nm. Compared to the 5nm process, 3nm process will bring 25~30% power reduction and 10~15% performance improvement. Whether this news is true or not depends on the actual situation of Huawei in the second half of this year.

No. 2: iQOO Neo3

Average score: 646,016

iQOO Neo3, which had been out of the top three for years, rushed into the second place this time. With the Snapdragon 865 processor series, it even has a higher average score than that of ROG Phone3, a ASUS gaming phone, which is to be congratulated. We know that ROG Phone3 carries 865 Plus, a slightly more powerful version than Snapdragon 865, so such a score can be viewed the glory of the Snapdragon 865 era. Probably on the ranking list from next month, Snapdragon 865 era is coming to an end and the new flagship Snapdragon 888 has officially debuted.

No. 3: ROG Phone 3

Average score: 630,307

Being the first phone with Snapdragon 865 Plus processor and with the support of ASUS’s super gaming performance, ROG Phone3 remained on the first place on the performance ranking list for several months. However, with more and more new 5 nm flagship processors making their debuts now and the difference in nature making this veteran model a little bit out of its depth, ROG Phone3 only came in the third place this time.

Following them, the seven phone models are respectively OPPO Find X2 (average score: 610,749), Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G (average score: 604,401), OnePlus 8 Pro (average score: 584,057), Mi 10T Pro 5G (average score: 581,233), Black Shark 3 (average score: 574,438), Galaxy S20 FE 5G (average score: 574,187), and Poco F2 Pro (average score: 572,474).

Two new phones on this List are Galaxy S20 FE 5G and Poco F2 Pro. The former is a fan-only version of Samsung’s S20 series and the latter is a new Xiaomi phone on the Indian market. These two phones are very cost effective and has good performance, so it is a natural thing for them to make the List,.

2. Mid-range phones

Compared with the rapidly changing flagship phone market, the heat of mid-range phone market is obviously much lower, without release of new SoC and new models. So there is little change in phone models on the list. Let’s take a look in details.

No. 1: HONOR 30

Average score: 404,970

Since there has been no new competitive mid-range phones released on the market, Honor 30 still topped the List this month, which has held the first place on the mid-range phone performance list for the third consecutive month. It carries Kirin 985 processor independently developed by Huawei, which is second only to the previous flagship Kirin 990 in terms of performance. Therefore, Kirin 985 processor is suitable to be used in mid-range phones, and crucially, it is better than Qualcomm’s mid-range Snapdragon processors. Therefore, Huawei contributes a lot in terms of performance of processors of mid-range phones.

No. 2: HUAWEI nova 7

Average score: 402,080

Huawei Nova 7, also equipped with Kirin 985 processor, still took the second place this time. It has been the quarterly champion of the second place of Global Top 10 Best Performing Mid-range Phones. The biggest difference between HONR 30 and HUAWEI nova 7 is their camera. HONOR 30 supports 5x optical zoom while HUAWEI nova 7 supports 3x optical zoom. Other than that, they are pretty much the same thing, so there’s not much difference in their final performance. These two products are also expected to occupy these two places for a long time in the absence of release of new phones.

No. 3: Redmi 10X 5G

Average score: 394,545

The phone model ranking the third is Redmi 10X 5G released by Redmi in May last year. Its biggest feature is that it is equipped with MediaTek Dimensity 820 processor exclusively cooperated with Media Tek. Inc, which is better than MediaTek Dimensity 800 or MediaTek Dimensity 800U processor in performance, so it finally achieved a very good score.

MediaTek Dimensity 820 is targeted at mid-range to high-end smartphones, using TSMC 7nm process. There are four 2.6GHz ARM Cortex-A76 high-performance cores and four 2.0GHz ARM Cortex-A55 energy-efficient cores. In addition, MediaTek Dimensity 820 also uses 5-core ARM NATT MC5 GPU, with the gaming performance raised by up to 33% compared with its peers at the same level.

Following them, the seven phone models are respectively Mi 10T Lite 5G (average score: 331,796), Redmi K30 5G (average score: 325,915), Mi 10 Lite 5G (average score: 323,260), HUAWEI nova 7i (average score: 313,322), realme 7 (average score: 297,910), Redmi Note 8 Pro (average score: 292,901), and realme 6 (average score: 291,109).

In terms of mid-range phones, Redmi 10X 5G and Mi 10T Lite 5G made the List this time, which are developed by Xiaomi. It seems that Xiaomi still stands out in terms of performance as always, and it can also maintain a stable update frequency on the global market and mid-range market.

That’s all about the ranking list of Global Top 10 Best Performing Android Phones in December 2020. Since there are no new products released, the ranking list of global markets has not changed much this time. Two Huawei models still occupy the first place of flagship and mid-range phones. Congratulations to Huawei again.