The State of Flagship Phones: A Disappointing Trend

As we look at the latest generation of flagship phones from Qualcomm and their manufacturers, it's hard not to feel a sense of disappointment. The specs sheets may show slight improvements over the previous generation, but in reality, these new phones are not significantly better than their predecessors.

When you take a closer look at the specs, it becomes apparent that the differences between these new phones and their older counterparts are marginal. The comparisons are often drawn out to two two scores, with one slightly higher than the other. However, this doesn't reflect the real-world performance of these devices. Once they get hot or overheat, they can become completely unresponsive and fail to deliver even on demanding games like Jen Shen Impact.

This is not just a minor issue; it's a major problem that can be frustrating for users. For example, playing Jen Shen Impact on the highest possible settings can only last around 20-25 minutes before the phone becomes unusable. This is completely unacceptable from companies like Qualcomm and their manufacturers. They're not innovating enough, and instead of pushing the boundaries of what's possible with mobile technology, they're just releasing incremental updates.

It seems that both Qualcomm and their manufacturers have become complacent. They've realized that as long as their fans continue to buy their phones in droves, they can get away with releasing subpar products. The idea of being a "flagship killer" or a "value champ" has become nothing more than a marketing slogan. Instead of offering something new and exciting, these companies are just playing catch-up with the competition.

Take OnePlus, for example. They've lost their path and are now stuck in a rut of releasing mediocre phones that fail to impress. The OxygenOS skin is gone, and in its place is ColorOS 12, which is more stable but still lacking in innovation. Meanwhile, Xiaomi's Miui 13 is plagued by software issues, crashes, and stability problems. It's clear that these companies are not prioritizing the needs of their users.

Oneplus

OnePlus is another company that has failed to impress with their latest flagship phone. The OnePlus 9 Pro is a good device, but it's not significantly better than its predecessor. In fact, it's hard to see what's changed between the two phones. The camera performance is lacking, and the software issues are a major concern. The OxygenOS skin was a favorite among Android enthusiasts, but it's gone now.

Xiaomi

Xiaomi's Miui 13 is also a disappointment. The phone has some nice features like faster performance and better battery life, but the overall experience is marred by software issues and crashes. The lack of electronic image stabilization on the front-facing camera is a major drawback, and the fact that it doesn't have 4K video recording is another disappointment.

The Front Facing Camera

The front-facing camera is still lacking in features, with no 4k resolution or electronic image stabilization. This makes for poor selfie performance and low-quality video conferencing. The lack of innovation from Xiaomi and OnePlus is disappointing, especially considering the high prices they're charging for their phones.

Rant

I'm sorry to say it, but this comparison turned into a rant. I had to get all these feelings out because there's just something that's not right with the state of flagship phones in 2022. When you look at the specs sheets and compare two two scores, it's hard not to feel like we're stuck in a rut. We need innovation, we need better performance, and we need reliability.

The Pricing Problem

The pricing of both phones is creeping up again, which is where I think these companies are going wrong. They're copying Apple's strategy of releasing incremental updates at a premium price. The fans will buy them because it's the latest and greatest, but in reality, there's not much to get excited about.

The Sales

I'm worried that sales are going to take a hit this year due to these disappointing flagship phones. Users are going to feel like they're not getting value for their money, and they'll start looking elsewhere for better options. This is where Qualcomm and their manufacturers need to wake up and realize that they can't just continue to churn out mediocre products.

The Future

We need innovation, we need excitement, and we need reliability from our flagship phones. Instead of incremental updates and subpar performance, we should be seeing groundbreaking technology and exceptional user experiences. The future of mobile technology depends on it.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enOneplus 10 pro and the Xiaomi 12 pro these are two very similar flagship phones both running  android 12 both have the new snapdragon 8 gen 1 chipset the rest of the spec sheet is very  very similar i'm not going to read it out here so let's just dive in and get to the bottom of  which one of these phones here is the best at what and why firstly i'm going to go over the design  and our build quality of both of these now they do have very very similar specs and the screens on  them so we've got a 6.7 inch screen here with the xiaomi and then we have a 6.7 okay so that's just  .03 of an inch difference so when you look at them they really are very very similar here now depends  on your personal preference here with the cut out the whole punch here either in the middle which i  do prefer slightly smaller than what we've got on the oneplus 10 pro that one is 32 megapixels this  one's 32 megapixels as well and the screens i'll get onto them in detail soon but they're both lt  po but we've got ltpo2 with the oneplus which is here on the right so always keep the oneplus on  the right make things easy and just to point out both of these have eight gigabytes of ram and both  have 128 gigabytes of ufs 3.1 storage both of them have android 12 on them and they both have 1440p  or quad hd plus screen so fingerprint readers in screen ones optical let's test them both out  all right so which was quicker there i think probably the oneplus 10 pro i do that again  so one two three yeah uh animation's definitely better and when i get onto the ui i'll talk about  that too but things do seem a little bit quicker there in that regard on the oneplus 10 pro now  they have gorilla glass victus on them curved screens on both curved on the back two with them  and i'll get on to that shortly but down here type c ports a big difference with the oneplus 10 pro  we get usb 3.1 and it does have clone display so display out support not only that the transfer  speeds absolutely slaughter the xiaomi 12 pro they're so much quicker so we've got microphones  and our sim trays both of them do hold two nano sims now with the import version of the 12  pro here it does not have lte band 20 the oneplus 10 5g does the oneplus 10 pro sorry does there  and the loudspeaker is down here so harmon card on tuned loudspeaker on the xiaomi versus just  well speakers i don't think there are any fancy branding behind them that's doing the tuning it's  uh oppo or should i say oneplus that are doing it there and up the top here secondary microphones  antenna lines a bit of a squared off top on the oneplus 10 pro where it's rounded and middle  frames on both of them in hand they feel really good and then the rear of them here i do like the  look of both of them especially the finish here with the gorilla glass victus as mentioned before  it's curved you can see that now they both have a bit of a shimmer to them like a silky look more on  the oneplus 10 pro this black matte that i really do like the look of it but the camera module i'm  going to have to say looks better on the xiaomi 12 pro of course this is all subjective personal  preference here which one do you think looks the better the back of them i like the more subdued  more subtle look of the xiaomi 12 pro but i think the finish here the black does look a little bit  nicer and the way it just shimmers and certain angles a little bit more on the oneplus 10 pro i  do like that as well so i'd almost give them a tie here for build quality and just the looks and the  aesthetics of the back of them i think it's good on both so there is wireless charging support on  both of these and they both are 50 watts now it will take about 42 minutes with the xiaomi  to wirelessly charge at the 50 watts and it's around about 50 or so with the oneplus 10 pro  because it has a slightly larger battery which is 5 000 milliamp hours versus 4600  and then cameras so without just reading spec sheets here all day we do have 48 megapixel main  camera 50 and then 50 and 50. so the xiaomi has an ultrawide that's 50 a two times it's 50 then the  oneplus 10 pro it's zoom camera which is a eight megapixel one that one is three times or three  point three times optical versus two times optical on the xiaomi but the resolution really means it's  not actually that much better when you crop in and then the ultra wide so we've got 50 megapixel  versus 50 megapixel ultrawide now i've done a camera comparison on both of these so do recommend  you check out that video if you're interested to see which one has the more potent or better  cameras i gave the xiaomi the win for the rare stills and for the video performance however its  audio was not that good the oneplus had better audio front-facing cameras on both of them  uh they were terrible when it came to vlog footage and selfies over exposing on the xiaomi both of  them really do have a lot of work when it comes to the camera performance i found optimization just  isn't there on both of these yet which is a true disappointment i think last gen flagships from  both of these brands were better now our displays so we do have that variable refresh rate on them  that they can save a bit of battery because it can chop it right down so 120 hertz 120 hertz  qhd plus resolution on both of them both of them curved they are both fantastic top tier screens  but i do have a bit of a complaint with both of them they both do not seem to freely have dc  dimming available it's hidden away in developer settings on the xiaomi and with the oneplus  i don't think it's there it's not there in the normal display settings anyway  but you'll see right now there's a bit of banding coming through on both but you can see a little  bit more on the xiaomi now for some reason the leaves here should i say the petals look a little  bit brighter than what we're seeing with the oneplus 10 prone i don't know why that is that's  just the optimization of both of them which have kept them both on standard it's just the way it's  doing it i both calibrated these screens to be the same exact brightness and it's just the way it's  pulling through so there are really good screens you can't go wrong with them it's just that  banding that flicker that i'm noticing a little more but really only on camera i just wish the dc  dimming option was there for both so they touch response on both of them is excellent i would  really call them about a draw there now what about maximum brightness the xiaomi does pull a head i  have found and is a slightly brighter screen but if you're going to base your decision on  these displays you really cannot go wrong with either of these they're good displays it's just  if you're someone that's very sensitive to pulse width modulation flicker on oled or amoled screens  i think you're going to have maybe a little bit more of a problem with the xiaomi 12 pro's banding  as you're seeing coming through you can see again a little bit of banding there too with the oneplus  10 pro really the last gen screens we had were just as good and you can't tell the difference  between this screen and then the last gen ones i don't think you can not to the naked eye ui  performance so this is something to me that is way more important than your synthetic benchmarks now  synthetic benchmarks are great just to look at them compare things side by side and i'll get  on to that soon but in general rom performance so we've got android 12 on both as mentioned then we  have color os 12 so buy by oxygen os there's no point crying about oxygen os all right it's gone  for good however some of the good things a lot of them have pulled through into color os 12. now i'm  not working for oppo anything like that it's just effect all right we still get very good animation  speeds now both of them set to stock no developer options no tweaks nothing like that out of the box  settings all right when it comes to all of this stuff so it's fair here the xiaomi has just slower  animations i've noticed some real stability problems with the xiaomi 12 pro it's crashed  on me many times the launch is frozen up i've seen some amazing lag in the launcher at times  cameras crashed now color os 12 on the oneplus 10 pro so far is the most stable android 12 rom that  i've tested and it's still i wouldn't call it bug free either okay but they've both got their little  issues but by far miui 13 has a lot more bugs and things going on it seems a heavier os in general  performance just doesn't quite feel as good if i jump into uh the settings here on both of them  you might be able to notice that okay they didn't come up at the same time but it doesn't matter  it just feels the scrolling here too that it's a little bit better and just launching and getting  into the different settings i feel on definitely color os 12. so when it comes to software fluidity  ui performance i've got to give the oneplus 10 pro a clear and definite win there and still on that  topic really off the ui performance google apps on the oneplus 10 just scroll a hell of a lot better  see that terrible judder and the lag that we're seeing here on the xiaomi let's do that again look  how smooth things are on the oneplus 10 pro the software so far especially the google apps is just  terrible on that xiaomi i was talking about just before but there you can clearly see it i don't  need to use slow-mo anything fancy like that you can clearly see look at that scrolling performance  on the oneplus tm pro looks great and it's just a choppy terrible mess so why am i in youtube  here well i should be getting into it right now that's because i want to just show you a clip with  some audio and we'll listen to the dual lounge speakers on both of these which one's the bestso that was interesting the oneplus 10 pro is the loudest there but it distorts a little the bass  and doesn't sound really the clearest i think the overall quality sound is definitely coming  from those hardened color on tune speakers in the xiaomi 12 pro and that's really no surprise to me  now it's time for the test that probably qualcomm doesn't want people to run on their phones or the  brands either they're probably like don't do it it's not realistic wildlife stress tests for 20  minutes how's that realistic well it kind of is and it isn't all right so if you were gaming for  20 minutes and a very demanding game like gen chen impact then this is going to be simulating  basically that gpu workload on it so what i will do is run this test now we'll see hopefully that  both of these phones can complete it without overheating first off and then once it's done  we'll see the throttling results and then i'll check on the thermals but both of these just  to point out now before i run the test both of them disappointing this new chipset is a bit of a  throttling mess it's a hot chip it's very much like the snapdragon 810 days all over again  so here we go start on both at the same time and it's going to let it run now for  20 minutes and then we'll check on the results 17 minutes into the test now and the xiaomi has  well there we go it has just closed and opted not to finish the test at all it is at currently 46  degrees where the oneplus 10 pro continues on with the benchmark and doesn't seem to have any  problems yet it's only about 35 degrees at least this screen and that xiaomi getting very hot there  is still about 47 degrees but starting to cool down so it's booted me out now if that was a  game like pub g or jen shin impact you get that message right now that we are looking at  overheating and you lose the game of course so that's completely unacceptable to me we'll check  now and see the end result of what the oneplus 10 pro is going to get and how much it throttled  and there we go the test is finishing up on the oneplus 10 pro we'll take a look at the result  so we'll see how much it has throttled and i'll check on those temperatures it does feel quite  hot the top of it so it did end up stability wise getting down to 62 percent wow so that means it  has throttled quite a lot that's a huge amount when you look at the lowest score here so really  disappointing results here from that snapdragon 8 gen 1 it should be so much better than this this  really is truly like last gen results especially the lowest score there wow okay let's have a look  at the thermals now using my thermal imaging camera we'll take a look at the back of it  so how warm is it okay it's getting up to 40 degrees so in order to keep those thermals in  check with the latest patch they have certainly throttled the hell out of that new chip as you've  just seen from that and i'll flip it over again and we will take a look at the front of it so the  front of the screen there up to okay we're near the top about 39 degrees those are acceptable  temperatures on the oneplus 10 pro what is not acceptable is of course the xiaomi 12 pro  dnf did not finish died crashed and burned after just 17 minutes of the stress test  and our benchmark so charging time we've got 120 watts 21 minutes to go from 11 to 100 7  to 100 here on the oneplus 10 pro 80 watts took 32 minutes so it's good on both of them okay just  ignore this it glitched out for some reason i don't know why it does that sometimes and  here our antutu score so both of them fantastic a little bit faster on the oneplus 10 pro but really  it means absolutely no difference when we get on to real-world kind of use look at the temperature  difference though from the test so we lost eight percent battery here we only lost six and the  temperature went up a whopping almost 14 degrees versus nine degrees which is still quite a bit the  snapdragon 8 gen 1 is a disappointing chip for me cpu wise we've gained basically nothing the gpu is  yes a lot faster for short bursts but long term it gets really hot it's a hot chip and qualcomm  i think they are just pretty much like well like intel aren't they i'm waiting for that dimension  9000 from mediatek so here we have wildlife scores and you can see very close again not  really that much in it two frames per second more on average just over on the oneplus 10 pro  i mean that's nothing okay and storage internal storage ufs 3.1 versus 3.1 versus the same  capacity too okay on both of them similar kind of speeds and really i wouldn't worry about any  of these benchmarks at all for these kind of things it's it's really pointless because they  are both very fast and none of these are going to cause any bottlenecks or issues  so there's a big difference here for some reason with geekbench i'm not too sure why that was i did  let both of these phones cool down before i ran the test okay so i don't know what happened there  who knows it's random sometimes it's a bit higher sometimes it's a bit lower gps on both  both running the same chipset so as expected pretty similar there they see about the same  amount of satellites and there's a difference of six on there but again really minimal differences  so battery life uh the fixed benchmark that i run is 200 nits on both of the displays  and it goes so it gets to 20 battery what happened is and it kept happening over and over again for  some reason the oneplus 10 pro didn't want to run pc mark okay so it just keeps stopping however  i at least got this result here when it got down to 20 battery 22 10 hours and 21 minutes  on screen time versus eight hours now they're both set to the highest resolution okay and 120 hertz  so there's a huge difference there in battery life now that is to do with rom optimization now i can  tell you realistically this is a benchmark that of course is just a looping benchmark but realistic  real-world use around seven hours of on-screen time this is about eight eight and a half maybe  i mean that's even pushing it you're probably looking about seven and a half six and a half okay  they're pretty poor both of them and you will have to charge these at the end of the day both have  wide volume level one cert so netflix and full hd that's great amazon prime video no both of them  not supported at all so the final verb tag which one of these should you buy i'm going to have  to say neither they really are in uh for a better word in a bit of a hell of a state really i think  for new 2020 releases if this is what we're gonna have this year when it comes to new flagships wow  it's gonna be a very disappointing year and hard for everyone so i don't see any genuine  reason to upgrade to these models so far okay so far things can change software can update  they can fix the bugs i'm talking about their current state here okay don't get me wrong  both of these models feel very unpolished and then don't get me started on that snapdragon 8gen1  i know some of the big boys out there will post these massive hype videos and tell you how amazing  it is go and get it you want to get the latest and greatest the new snapdragon the new qualcomm  chip well of course they are they got flow into hawaii and then with some of these brand products  they are probably also going to come out and say the same thing that it's a huge upgrade  you want to get it even if you've got the last gen model go and get it because it's great because  they got the phones from the brands for free and that didn't happen here with what i've got um  it's turning into a bit of a rant here but i just got to get it out that why would you upgrade here  take a look at these phones come on compared to the previous gen we are not gaining really  anything on the spec sheets yes you look at it and go they're comparing and two two scores to and  two two scores wow one slightly higher but real world performance once these get hot or overheat  and beat you out of a game and beat you out of a benchmark really that i mean that's even worse  that you you can't play like a demanding game like jen shen impact for more than about 20 minutes 25  minutes on the highest possible settings before that happens so a completely unacceptable really  from qualcomm what is going on here they're like the new intel and it seems to me these brands have  decided to become complacent they've gone hey it's working for apple it's working maybe for samsung  while or was working just incremental releases our fan base is that big that we can just you  know tweak it a little bit new chipset slightly better screen maybe slightly better camera they're  gonna buy it everyone's gonna rush out and buy it because it's the latest and greatest  wrong wrong wrong wrong big mistake there i think that the sales are going to take a bit  of a hit i think this year is definitely going to be a wake-up call for these brands that they  can't just continue they can't change their direction both of these brands were well known  in the past that's how they built themselves for being flagship killers even though i really  hate that term for being value champs for offering so much more than the other brands  for less for innovation for bringing us new things but it seems that they just became so complacent  now with these new models and went incremental updates that'll do rush it out we're the first  to have the new gen chip set even though the both of the phones are in a hell of a state camera wise  a mess i mean we still have with the xiaomi it doesn't have any video out at least the  oneplus does uh then the front-facing camera still doesn't have 4k this one doesn't have 4k  no electronic image stabilization just stability issues with the software with  me ui 13 don't get me started on that either this crashes once a day on me it's not good  this is where some things are good okay we lost oxygen os and that's that's a terrible  loss i really did like it was my favorite android operating system skin ui uh it's gone now so it's  color os 12. but color os where i can give it some praise where ju is definitely a lot more  stable than miui 13. it's faster the performance just generally better there so that's good but  they've lost their path now of course they're way one plus both of them have uh true disappointment  i would stick with your previous gen keep your oneplus 9 pro keep your xiaomi 11 pro keep your  xiaomi 11 keep the xiaomi 11 ultra you're really not gaining anything if you buy these phones  trust me if you're really into your tech you're going to feel bit of buyers remorse and then  the pricing of both of them is creeping right up again this is where i feel they're copying  the plans of apple they're going okay incremental updates our fan base is there they'll buy them  we can price it high it's not working i don't think it's working anyway this comparison turned  into a rant and i do apologize for that but i had to get it out that there's a lot of things that  just aren't going the way they should in 2022 when it comes to these new flagship models it's  just not happening i'm i'm not liking it or what i'm seeing here thank you so much for watching  hope you did like this comparison rant video and i'll see you in the next one\n"