Power isn’t everything, but sometimes it’s all you crave. This is often the case with phones, where new devices often scream about how strong the silicon is in hopes of selling you the phone.
When we review a smartphone in Tom’s Guide, we put it through a variety of tests, including several benchmarks that test the phone’s CPU, GPU, and other processing capabilities. But in our reviews we usually only compare two or three phones together, depending on what we think you, our readers, are likely to consider buying. But as the year comes to an end, it’s time for a free-for-all battle to see which phone is the most powerful of them all.
After rummaging through our database of test results, we looked at the twenty best performing phones of the year, then narrowed the list down so there was only one phone left with each type of chipset. Let us introduce you to those phones now, before the sweet five-way showdown for the performance crown begins.
The most powerful phones of 2022
We have five phones on this list, each representing the best scores for a specific type of chipset. These five are iPhone 14 Pro Max, iPhone 14, RedMagic 7S Pro, Xiaomi 12 Pro, and Google Pixel 7 Pro.
| Row 0 – cell 0 | Slices | RAM |
| iPhone 14 Pro Max | A16 Bionic | 6 GB |
| iPhone 14 | A15 Bionic | 6 GB |
| RedMagic 7S Pro | Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen1 | 12 GB, 18 GB |
| Google Pixel 7 Pro | G2 tensor | 12 GB |
| Xiaomi 12 Pro | Snapdragon 8 of the first generation | 8 GB, 12 GB |
Perhaps the new iPhones need a little introduction. But to explain why two of them are on this list, we’re using the Pro Max version to represent Apple’s latest A16 Bionic chip and the standard iPhone 14 to represent the improved version of Apple’s older A15 chip.
The Xiaomi 12 Pro has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the same processor found in phones that appeared earlier this year such as the Galaxy S22 and OnePlus 10 Pro, but as a top notch, it should be the representative of these phones. The RedMagic 7S uses an updated version of Qualcomm silicon, the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, while the Pixel 7 Pro uses a custom Tensor G2 chip from parent company Google. This covers the vast majority of chips in flagship phones sold this year, and should therefore give us the most representative comparisons.
So, with the contenders selected, it’s time for three rounds of testing to see how these compare to each other. Pick your favorite and read on to see how they do.
geekbench 5 / geekbench ml
The Geekbench 5 benchmark tests the phone’s CPU, while the ML version sees how well the NPU can perform machine learning tasks. It’s the most abstract test here, but it does allow for a comparison of overall computing power.
| Row 0 – cell 0 | The result is single core | Multicore points | TensorFlow Lite NPU score |
| iPhone 14 Pro Max | 1,882 | 5,333 | 3,165 |
| iPhone 14 | 1,727 | 4553 | 2777 |
| RedMagic 7S Pro | 1,331 | 4230 | 2232 |
| Google Pixel 7 Pro | 1,060 | 3,046 | 1,824 |
| Xiaomi 12 Pro | 1,249 | 3,783 | 1,763 |
The iPhones all perform very well in all three of these tests, especially for single-core results. Even the iPhone 14, which uses the older A15 chipset instead of the 14 Pro’s newer A16 chipset, still compares well in the single-core segment, though it lags behind the multi-core and NPU scores.
The best Android phone in these tests was the RedMagic 7S Pro, which shows that the best Qualcomm can offer Android phones doesn’t quite offer the all-encompassing strength of Apple’s own silicon, even its older version. The Xiaomi 12 Pro is next up, surprisingly far behind its Plus sibling. Finally, we have the Pixel. Google’s outspokenness about Tensor G2 focusing on machine learning rather than raw performance, but oddly enough, the NPU score is still pretty low.
3DMark Wild Life Unlimited and Extreme Unlimited
These two GPU tests give these phones’ graphical capabilities a thorough workout. Your GPU is essential for a great gaming experience, so being able to render and render detailed scenes smoothly is key to success in this test.
| Row 0 – cell 0 | Wild Life Unlimited (FPS) | Wild Life Extreme Unlimited (FPS) |
| iPhone 14 Pro Max | 74 | 16.7 |
| iPhone 14 | 69 | 15.4 |
| RedMagic 7S Pro | 66 | 16.4 |
| Google Pixel 7 Pro | 40 | 10.8 |
| Xiaomi 12 Pro | 61 | 15.1 |
We can see that our two best phones are the iPhone 14 Pro Max and the iPhone 14. You will see that it is the iPhone at the top simply because it has so much power.
Since the RedMagic 7S Pro is a gaming phone by design, it’s understandable that it does quite well, with results not far behind the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Interestingly, the Plus versus non-Plus Snapdragon gap isn’t that great this time around, with Xiaomi just behind RedMagic. Likewise with the Pixel 7 Pro, which remains at the bottom of the list, it doesn’t lose much to its Android brethren.
Adobe Premiere Rush
In a test of our own design, we time the phone to convert a 4K video into a 1080p video using Adobe Premiere Rush, adding a color filter and fade transition just for good measure. It takes a different set of processes for the phone to do the job than others, so it’s interesting to see how different these results are.
| Row 0 – cell 0 | Time to transcode (in minutes: seconds) |
| iPhone 14 Pro Max | 0:30 |
| iPhone 14 | 0:28 |
| RedMagic 7S Pro | 0:46 |
| Google Pixel 7 Pro | 0:47 |
| Xiaomi 12 Pro | 0:48 |
However, we didn’t expect the iPhone 14 to be the fastest phone overall. The result of the iPhone 14 Pro Max is strangely slow, apparently the wheels of the A16 chipset are spinning to lose out to both the regular iPhone 14 and even older models like the iPhone SE and iPhone 13 Pro Max. Apple has nothing to worry about, all Android phones are 15-20 seconds slower. It shows how Apple is doing some work to make its phone practical for creative types who want to produce content without grabbing their camera or laptop.
conclusion
Before trying to identify the winners and losers, we first have to thank Matthew and Madeline, who did the vast majority of smartphone tests for Tom’s Guide (and its sister brands), and thus made it possible to compare these results!
As for the overall results, it’s another year with the Pro iPhone sitting at the top in the form of the iPhone 14 Pro Max. But what is different this year is that Apple also ranked second with the iPhone 14, which indicates that its old chip is still able to compete with Android competitors and win most of the time. Even if it still feels a bit stingy to deny this phone’s users the latest silicon.
The Pixel 7 Pro and its Tensor G2 chipset are significantly less powerful. Perhaps with the upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which we found to be more effective when testing the reference design, it will allow 2023 Android phones to make that gap even smaller.
However, strength isn’t everything. There’s a lot more to a phone that’s good, or just right for your needs, than its benchmark scores — one reason why the Google Pixel 7 Pro is one of the best camera phones out there. If you’re interested in real-world testing and buying advice, see reviews for these phones, or our comprehensive guide to the best phones.
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