With CPU and GPU vendors laser-focused on power consumption, modern gadgets such as notebooks and smartphones are getting cooler by the year. Mobiles in particular are still near-doubling in performance with each generation, without a matching leap in heat output. But how do today’s popular phones stack up against each other in pure numbers? Pass over that heat gun, would you?
TechRadar’s James Peckham decided to get a bunch of phones together — specifically the iPhone 6S Plus, Galaxy S7 Edge, HTC 10, LG G5, Nexus 6P and the OnePlus 3 — run them hot and record their highest temperatures.
To get them toasty, the Aussie-made mobile game Real Racing 3 was loaded onto each device. Over the course of a couple of hours, a Rolson Infrared Thermometer was periodically aimed at the hottest part of each phone. Finally, to spice things up, TechRadar pointed a CAT S60 phone — which comes with a thermal-imaging camera — at the competitors.
Peckham admits in the video that it “might not be the most scientific test”, a point I agree with. For one, the phones are all bunched together, which might not have a massive impact in the temperatures, but will taint the results nonetheless. That said, none of them were intentionally placed on a stove or anything, so the numbers should be representative enough.
The super-good news is none of the phones exploded, which I hear has been a bit of an issue recently. The regular good news is for Galaxy S7 Edge owners — congratulations, Samsung’s phone consistently pulled the coolest results (36.1-38.7°C).
For HTC 10 owners, the news is much warmer. It was the hottest, with temperatures ranging between 42-44°C. That makes for an eight degree difference between the lowest and highest temperatures, which is not insignificant.
One the Apple side of the equation, the 6S Plus hovered in the middle of the pack with temps of 39-40.5°C;.
So, what should you make of all these numbers? Well, all the temperatures were within operating norms and nothing melted. Honestly, if you’re going to be playing something like Real Racing 3 for hours on end, battery endurance is the bigger concern.