Chip, mobile phone, and communication index: Whose 5G performance was the most eye-catching in the first half of the year?

As of the first half of 2021, China Mobile has opened more than 500,000 5G base stations, and the field throughput of 5G network terminals has increased by 18% on the basis of a 10% increase in 2020. At the same time, the power consumption of 5G service terminals has further decreased by 8% on the basis of a 35% decrease last year. In terms of 5G services, China Mobile's high-definition video ringtone users have increased significantly, up 36% from the end of last year, and the number of active 5G message users has increased by 213% from the end of last year.

The booming 5G market is complementary to the progress of 5G terminals. On August 24, China Mobile released the "China Mobile 2021 Smart Hardware Quality Report (First Issue)" and "China Mobile 5G Communication Index Report (Fourth Issue)" online. The report is based on a variety of factors that affect user experience, such as technology maturity, quality level, and business richness. It conducts in-depth evaluations on a variety of application terminals such as 5G mobile phones, mobile games, mobile cameras, WiFi6 routers, video ringback tones, and cloud games.

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5G chips

Mu Jiasong, general manager of the quality assurance department of China Mobile Terminal Company, said that after the SA network was deployed in China, the performance of 5G chips under the SA network determined the growth trend of 5G users. This time, China Mobile evaluated three chips: Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, MediaTek Dimensity 1200, and Samsung Exynos1080. It conducted a comprehensive investigation based on 16 scenarios and 69 indicators in four dimensions: download, upload, high-definition voice calls, and ultra-low power consumption. In general, the current 5G chips have good high-speed data capabilities and stable voice communication capabilities under the SA network, and the power consumption performance has also improved significantly.

Among the three chips, Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 and MediaTek Dimensity 1200 performed particularly well, followed by Samsung Exynos1080. In terms of data performance, all three chips performed well, with Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 and Samsung Exynos1080 slightly ahead. China Mobile believes that it will be necessary to optimize for high-speed rail scenarios in the future and improve the demodulation performance of evolutionary technologies such as carrier aggregation. In terms of voice performance, China Mobile believes that all three chips have excellent EPS FB voice experience, and the next step is to focus on improving VoNR performance. In terms of power consumption, MediaTek Dimensity 1200 performed outstandingly, and Samsung Exynos1080 and Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 also made progress. China Mobile recommends continuing to optimize the power consumption of uplink dual-transmission.

5G mobile phone

For 5G mobile phones, China Mobile selected 15 key indicators and 100 test indicators based on four dimensions: communication, multimedia, usability, and user reputation, and conducted a comprehensive capability evaluation of 43 5G mobile phones from 11 brands launched from December 2020 to June 2021. Among them, Samsung S21 Ultra, OPPO Find X3, Honor 50, and Redmi K40 Gaming Edition were ranked first in the price range of more than 4,500 yuan, 3,500-4,500 yuan, 2,500-3,500 yuan, and less than 2,500 yuan, respectively.

China Mobile pointed out in the report that over the past six months, 5G mobile phones have been continuously optimized in terms of communication, power consumption, and heat generation, and users' experience of 5G networks has also been greatly improved. Among the mobile phones participating in this evaluation, OnePlus, OPPO, and Samsung products have the best communication capabilities, and vivo and Honor mobile phones have also been greatly improved; the overall power consumption of terminals equipped with MediaTek chips is leading. In addition, OPPO, Honor, and vivo mobile phones have the best user reputation, and the cost-effectiveness of Redmi, Realme, and Honor mobile phones has been highly recognized by users.

5G Communication Index

In China Mobile's 5G Communication Index Report (Fourth Issue), the communication capabilities of 43 5G mobile phones under the SA network were comprehensively evaluated from four dimensions: data transmission, key functions, call performance, and power consumption performance. The results showed that OPPO Find X3 ranked first, Honor 50 Pro, and vivo s9 ranked second and third. Among them, Honor 50 had the fastest speed and won the Speed ​​Award, and Redmi Note10 had the lowest power consumption and won the Energy Saving Award. Mu Jiasong said that due to the continuous optimization of chip algorithms, terminal antennas, and power consumption, the average communication index score of 5G mobile phones participating in this evaluation was 86 points, an increase of 3 points from last year.

In terms of sub-items, this evaluation has improved the data transmission performance by an average of 4.5 points compared to last year. With the optimization of antenna performance and the support of uplink dual transmitters, the uplink and downlink speeds of SA terminals are very good. In terms of call performance, the proportion of full-score terminals has dropped by 17.9% compared to 2020 as a whole, and different terminals using the same chip have large performance differences, which shows that the mobile phone industry needs to continue to optimize EPS FB voice services.

In terms of key communication functions, the participating terminals support more frequency bands, stronger uplink capabilities, and more complete SRS round-robin transmissions, with excellent performance. In terms of power consumption, thanks to the continuous efforts of end-to-network collaborative optimization, the SA power consumption of the participating mobile phones is significantly improved compared to the NSA network, and the average power consumption performance score has increased by 1.6 points. The overall performance of terminals equipped with MediaTek chips is still leading, and the power consumption of terminals using Qualcomm and Samsung chips has also been reduced by more than 15% compared with the previous period.

China Mobile suggested in the report that the mobile phone industry needs to continue to optimize key performance, including key voice performance, uplink dual-transmission, EPS FB and other SA key functions and end-to-end interoperability performance, while continuing to improve power consumption performance. China Mobile also believes that the mobile phone industry should jointly explore new parameters such as VoNR's CDRX parameters, flexible MIMO scheduling, WUS, and continue to improve the performance experience of Wi-Fi6 routers such as MU-MIMO and OFDMA. In terms of 5G services, China Mobile recommends strengthening the allocation of cloud server resources, increasing the introduction and optimization of high-quality game resources on the cloud platform, and strengthening the adaptation of new services such as cloud games and high-definition video ringtones to ensure that these services are implemented with high quality on the terminal.