Like every month, also for January 2022, we have the first ranking of the year by Antutu, which tells us which are the most powerful smartphones. Usual but necessary premise: the benchmarks tell us a partial story, a story made up of synthetic performances, therefore “the most powerful on Antutu” does not necessarily mean “the best”.
But at the same time, it is a window on the technological evolution that Android smartphones constantly experience. Knowing which smartphone brands and models are the most powerful in the benchmarks gives us a taste of what to expect in daily use.
Here’s how the ranking of the most powerful smartphones on Antutu is updated
And as expected, the month of January is also the month of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, having almost monopolized the ranking of Antutu. From the first to the seventh position we find only smartphones with the latest SoC from Qualcomm, and also in the following positions, it is Qualcomm who dictates the law with the Snapdragon 888+.
The reason why the ranking is all signed by Qualcomm is soon said: the US ban against Huawei. Since it can no longer produce proprietary chips, the top of the Huawei range is missing from the ranking that we would once have found with the related Kirin SoCs.
Here, then, that iQOO 9 Pro, iQOO 9 and Realme GT 2 Pro sit on the podium, followed by OnePlus 10 Pro, Xiaomi 12 Pro (have you seen the comparison between these two ?), Moto Edge X30 and Xiaomi 12. Finished the group with Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the one with Snap 888+ includes Black Shark 4S Pro, Red Magic 6S Pro and iQOO 8 Pro.
The monopoly discourse does not change much if we move to the other Antutu ranking, that is the one that exclusively concerns the mid-range. Also in this case it is the US chipmaker who prevails, starting from iQOO Z5 passing through Honor 60 Pro, OPPO Reno 7 5G, Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G and CIVI, Honor 60, Honor 50 Pro, Honor 50 and Huawei Nova 9.
The only exception is represented by OPPO Reno 6 5G and its Dimensity 900, the only MediaTek exponent that appears in the January Antutu rankings. But it will be interesting to see how things change with the debut of the MediaTek Dimensity 9000, with the first benchmarks putting it above all competition.