Android benchmarks that could actually reduce device fragmentation

What if Android benchmarks/reviews started using these metrics to compare devices (beyond just the camera pixels, CPU) - this could be an alternative to Google-enforced hardware certification (which has been weak). Google could then continue to focus on seasonal Material Design tweak diktat (like the fashion industry), and leave manufacturer pressure to benchmarks/reviewers:

• Audio Latency - usability for real-time performance (drum-kits, cosplay) - half of Oreo 8.0 devices crash with new low latency audio introduced in Oreo 8.0 due to a bug that was fixed later - caught by some manufacturers, not by others (including Samsung). A benchmark would lay bare claims of "pro audio" by the manufacturer, and push faster to close the gap with iOS (extremely low latency vs. android).

• Whether it supports Stereo Audio Recording (some devices from LG misbehave like LG G6 - LG Nexus 4 famously didn't have stereo) - these were never mentioned in reviews, but users found out when they one day wanted to record stereo audio.

• Touchscreen Latency (again drum-kits, real-time performance) - compare with iOS touchscreen latency.

• Standardization of settings for audio - the standard Audio Source setting behaves differently for different manufacturers, there is no default working setting for stereo (i.e. the default setting causes stereo to not work on many devices) - some manufacturers work at one setting, others at others. Google could have asserted a certain setting as default - but nevermind, the benchmark would do that indirectly (as those devices would visibly fail that benchmark).

• Benchmark for minimum time to snap a photo from screen off (some reviews do do this, but it is not a recognized benchmark - of all the suggestions here, this is probably the most consumer-facing benchmark one could think of).

• Some measure of how android devices slow over time as installed apps pile up (probably deserving of a research paper, since there are many variables)

• Call recording - have a benchmark: does call recording work or not (have a suite of pro call recording apps to test against). Understandably call recording is disabled in some regions - but there is no point to hiding this from consumers (usually they find this one day when they need to record a call). Manufacturers go to the trouble of doing echo cancellation to prevent recording of the speaker output even (Nexus/Pixel were famous for this - newer Samsung even in non-US markets are even more aggressive). Since call recording is a feature many users (usually later) find they need to use, they should be informed of this in the benchmarks - they are not going to go out and buy another $800 phone at that point (call recording capability should be transparently known to users on purchase, not discovered later).

• Battery Life - phone call battery life is a good measure, but there should be a new one for high battery tasks - video playing time in hours (using suite of video player apps - though complicated by improvements in the apps themselves). Video game benchmarks exist, but I am not sure if they include battery life - this is a very consumer facing metric "how many hours can I play PUBG".

What benchmark would you add for greater transparency for consumers/developers ?

Submitted June 29, 2018 at 02:03AM by stereomatch https://ift.tt/2tNxwyo https://ift.tt/eA8V8J