【【【Foreword:The new wave of opportunities in 2022 is actually not gentle to old users】】
In recent times, the entire mobile phone market can be said to be quite lively. On the one hand, various market forecasts indicate that smartphone sales are expected to usher in a significant recovery in 2022, which obviously gives all brands a reason to be "excited".
On the other hand, whether it is from the upstream chip, sensor technology, or from the currently released and upcoming new machines, the new products in 2022 are likely to show a significant innovation in performance, technology, and experience.
Is this a good thing? Honestly, it probably isn't necessarily true. After all, if you're ready to switch phones, the current market situation does mean you'll be able to buy better products. But if you are still using the old mobile phone of a few years ago, then the general and substantial improvement in the performance of the new machine may not be necessarily gratifying.
Of course, it will be very cool to chase mobile games, but the old models are destined to be abandoned
Why is that? The reason is actually very simple, because from the perspective of developers, they must consider adapting to the more "mainstream" users on the market. Once a large number of new machines with excellent cost performance but greatly improved performance compared to the old model, it is obvious that it will have a certain impact on the performance adjustment and optimization of many mainstream applications, especially popular mobile games.
To use a slightly exaggerated analogy, if the RTX3090 suddenly announces a price reduction to 3,000 yuan and completely and enough to buy. Then old graphics cards like the GTX1060 may be completely obsolete by mainstream games in a short period of time (laughs).
It is precisely because we see the "impact" that this year's new machine wave may cause, we Sanyi Life decided to turn over a mid-range model from a few years ago from the evaluation room, and retest it with the latest evaluation software, network environment, and popular mobile games. Look at how much "power" this model can play in today's application environment, and whether it can still meet the needs of users.
【【This thousand-yuan machine two and a half years ago has become the object of this "second test"】】】
This time, the test model we chose is the Redmi Note 8 Pro. Why choose it? There are three main reasons.
One is that it was released in the fall of 2019, two and a half years ago, which is "old" enough.
Second, from the official data, the sales of the Redmi Note 8 Pro are quite considerable, which means that it may still have a lot of use so far, and it is more practical as a test object for "old mobile phones".
Third, the Redmi Note 8 Pro uses mediatek Helio G90T master control, as the last "performance-oriented product" launched by MediaTek before the birth of the Tianji series, and now it seems to have a different flavor (laughs).
Having said all that, let's go straight to the testing session.
First of all, we are pleased that as a product released two and a half years ago, the Redmi Note 8 Pro still enjoys the official continuous system update service.
The latest system we upgraded to (left) and the miUI forum exposure of the private beta system (right)
Taking the model we have in hand, for example, its latest official version of the system is MIUI 12.5.4, which was updated at the end of last year. Not only that, in the content of the official forum, this old model is even expected to upgrade MIUI 13, and it has to be said that the "vitality" is still very tenacious.
【【Theoretical running score: The old platform has not kept up with the times, but the level of optimization is not necessarily bad】】】
So, how does this two-and-a-half-year-old Redmi Note 8 Pro perform in the latest test environment?
First, we use the latest version of Geekbench and 3DMARK to examine the CPU and GPU performance levels of the Redmi Note 8 Pro. Not surprisingly, two and a half years ago, mid-tier platforms have lagged significantly behind the current mainstream level in absolute performance. Whether it is cpu single-core, multi-core performance, or GPU heavy load performance, under the latest evaluation software, the performance is not too good.
The only comfort is that after comparing it with the benchmark score built into the software, we found that after upgrading to MIUI 12.5.4, the Redmi Note 8 Pro's running score has increased slightly. To some extent, this also proves that manufacturers are still trying to optimize.
So, what if it is in a comprehensive test scenario that tests "optimization"? I have to say that even with the blessing of the new version of the system, the comprehensive performance of the Helio G90T has been somewhat out of step with the times. In the latest Antutu review V9, the results of the early 300,000 basically mean the bottom level.
But what's more interesting is that in the v2.x version of AIMARK (the latest v3 version will be flashback and can't complete the test), the measured AI performance of the Redmi Note 8 Pro is much better than we thought. In fact, it even overwhelms many 5G models with hardware that are a whole generation newer than their own.
【【Game Test: Mainstream high-quality mobile games can be played, the actual performance is beyond imagination】】】
In the actual game scene, the performance of the Redmi Note 8 Pro surprised us even more.
For example, in Peace Elite, although this model did not get the highest quality of the game, when the highest quality and fluency options can be opened, you can see that the Redmi Note 8 Pro can run the game stably at 30FPS without pressure.
In "Devil May Cry Battle", if you force the game's screen effects level to be pulled to the "highest", then redmi Note8 Pro can not support the full frame rate experience of 60FPS, and will automatically reduce the frame rate to 30FPS operation. But as long as the special effects level is reduced to the "high" of the second level, at this time, the thousand-yuan machine of two and a half years ago can immediately be "full of blood resurrection" and play this action mobile game at a frame rate of nearly 60FPS.
Of course, we know what people want to see. Yes, according to the evaluation conventions of our three easy lives, the "Original God" test under the full manual highest quality setting is naturally arranged.
I have to say that "Original God" is indeed the hardware killer of today's smartphones. Old models like the Redmi Note 8 Pro can only barely maintain a frame rate of 20FPS at a little more than 20FPS in the case of full picture quality, and the sense of caton is still relatively obvious.
After lowering the image quality setting to "Medium", the Redmi Note 8 Pro can actually play "Original God" smoothly
But then again, such a performance is actually not much different from some of today's entry-level 5G models (such as models based on the Tianji 700), after all, the GPU computing power of the Helio G90T (Mali-G76MC4, 218GFlops) is not much worse than the ENTRY-level 5G SoC GPUs (Mali-G57MC2, 243.2GFlops), and the heavy load real game performance of the two can almost be said to be on a horizontal line. And as long as the picture quality setting is slightly reduced, the Redmi Note 8 Pro can also run to 30 or even 40 or more FPS in "Original God", and the experience at this time can be significantly improved.
【【【Summary: Technology is advancing rapidly, and cost performance is the eternal truth】】】
Overall, the "secondary evaluation" of the Redmi Note 8 Pro has given us a lot of information.
At the same price, today's Redmi Note10 Pro is several times stronger in performance
On the one hand, it must be admitted that the technological progress of smartphones in the past one or two years has been quite rapid. Only in terms of products in the same price segment (not counting the factors of purchasing power change), it is now possible to buy a "quasi-flagship" model based on Tianji 1100 for about 1500 yuan, and even in 2022, it is expected to usher in the landing of the new architecture of the Tianji and Snapdragon platforms in this price segment.
Compared with the Redmi Note8 Pro, the performance of this price point today has at least two or three times or even more substantially increased. Not to mention the screen display effect, image experience, fast charging speed, etc., the experience that the new machine can bring is unimaginable in the past.
But on the other hand, whether from the system adaptation, the fluency of daily use, or from the test results of high-quality games, the old thousand yuan machine more than two years ago is actually not completely "left behind" today. In fact, some of its experiences (such as taking pictures) may even be better than some of today's entry-level 5G phones, and the game performance is actually still acceptable.
Of course, we must see that this phenomenon may not be so representative. After all, although the Redmi Note 8 Pro may still be used a lot, it is a very cost-effective product when it is launched, if you change to a model of other brands and the same price point in the same period, the result may not be so ideal.
So what does this mean? In simple terms, this test once again reveals the importance of "cost performance". Although the progress of technology is rapid and comprehensive, when the budget is already very limited, it is more practical to simply bet on "high performance" than to spend money on peripheral configurations such as appearance and charging. After all, there is no most basic performance bottom, and everything can be said to be a castle in the sky.