As we already mentioned, the HTC Desire 500 uses the Snapdragon 200 chipset, which is Qualcomm's entry-level chipset for 2013. It's a quad-core CPU chipset and while four cores may sound impressive on paper, the real-life chipset performance is far from that. The four cores are of the Cortex-A5 variety and they all run at 1.2GHz each. The Snapdragon 200 also includes an Adreno 203 GPU alongside 1GB of RAM.
HTC has obviously kept things on a tight budget when constructing the Desire 500, so they've picked the Snapdragon 200 as the cheapest current-gen chipset. Placing a Snapdragon 400 chipset inside it, would've put it directly against the HTC One mini and that's not what HTC is after here.
So, let's see how the four Cortex-A5 cores perform under heavy load. Naturally, single-core performance is underwhelming, but multi-core performance isn't great either. In Linpack, the Desire 500 barely managed to float above the rock bottom of our list.
Benchmark Pi
Lower is better
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 166
Sony Xperia Z 264
HTC Butterfly 266
Oppo Find 5 267
HTC One X+ 280
LG Optimus G 285
HTC One mini 293
Sony Xperia V 279
Samsung Galaxy Express 346
Samsung Galaxy S II Plus 409
Sony Xperia L 435
Samsung Galaxy S III mini 499
Sony Xperia go 543
Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2 552
HTC Desire 500 542
HTC Desire X 639
Sony Xperia E dual 800
Samsung Galaxy Young 831
Linpack
Higher is better
Samsung Galaxy S4 788
LG Optimus G Pro 743
HTC One 646
Sony Xperia ZL 631
Sony Xperia Z 630
HTC Butterfly 624
LG Optimus G 608
Oppo Find 5 593
Sony Xperia SP 348
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 413
HTC One mini 320
Samsung Galaxy Note II 214.3
Nexus 4 213.5
Sony Xperia L 191
Meizu MX 4-core 189
HTC One X+ 177
Samsung Galaxy S III 175
HTC One X 160
LG Optimus 4X HD 141
HTC Desire 500 115.2
Geekbench 2 tests just about everything you can think off. Unfortunately for the HTC Desire 500, that didn't help it bounce up from the bottom of the chart.
Geekbench 2
Higher is better
Samsung Galaxy S4 3227
LG Optimus G Pro 3040
HTC One 2708
Sony Xperia Z 2173
HTC Butterfly 2143
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 1937
Sony Xperia SP 2105
Sony Xperia ZL 1995
Samsung Galaxy S III 1845
LG Optimus G 1723
LG Optimus 4X HD 1661
iPhone 5 1601
HTC One mini 1417
Sony Xperia L 1073
HTC Desire 500 850
Overall performance is in a similar situation - Quadrant considers it to be above last year's midrangers, but it's still near the bottom bracket as far as the current generation of mid-range phones is concerned.
AnTuTu
Higher is better
HTC One 22678
Sony Xperia Z 20794
Samsung Galaxy S III 15547
Oppo Find 5 15167
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 14518
HTC Butterfly 12631
HTC One mini 11434
HTC Desire 500 11203
Sony Xperia L 9746
Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2 6650
Quadrant
Higher is better
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 7153
HTC One mini 6048
Sony Xperia V 5816
HTC Desire 500 5385
Samsung Galaxy Express 4998
Sony Xperia L 4279
Samsung Galaxy S II Plus 3542
Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2 3045
Samsung Galaxy Nexus 2316
Because of the low-end Adreno 203 GPU that's running the graphics department in the Snapdragon 200 chipset, we had to reside back to the NenaMark 2 benchmark. Unlike mid- and high-end devices, the Desire 500 GPU didn't max out this test, but it leads the selected 2012 mid-rangers by as much as 11 frames.
NenaMark 2
Higher is better
HTC Desire 500 38.5
Sony Xperia E dual 27.7
Samsung Galaxy Fame 26.9
HTC Sensation XE 23.0
Sony Xperia J 19.6
LG Optimus L7 19.3
Sony Xperia miro 15.9
Samsung Galaxy mini 2 15.4
HTC Explorer 15.1
Samsung Galaxy Y Duos 13.2
Samsung Galaxy Pocket 12.9
Samsung Galaxy Ace 12.0
Now it's time to move onto web performance testing. We start with the JavaScript benchmark SunSpider. Here, the HTC Desire 500 browser is close enough to that of the faster smartphones, but you have got to remember that JS doesn't care for multi-core CPU architecture much. However, BrowserMark 2 and Vellamo show scores that can't really compete with the current batch of midrangers.
SunSpider
Lower is better
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 1185
Samsung Galaxy S4 Active 1196
Samsung Galaxy S III 1192
HTC One mini 1237
Sony Xperia V 1189
Samsung Galaxy S II Plus 1460
Samsung Galaxy Express 1654
Samsung Galaxy Nexus 1863
Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2 1901
HTC Desire 500 2060
HTC Desire X 2259
Sony Xperia L 2539
Sony Xperia E dual 2824
Sony Xperia J 2853
Samsung Galaxy Young 3578
BrowserMark 2
Higher is better
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 2314
HTC One 2262
Sony Xperia Tablet Z 2170
HTC One mini 2164
Sony Xperia V 1957
Sony Xperia L 1809
HTC Desire 500 1794
Samsung Galaxy Express 1154
Samsung Galaxy S II Plus 1079
Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2 1036
Sony Xperia E 992
Sony Xperia E dual 975
Samsung Galaxy S III mini 714
Samsung Galaxy Young 908
Vellamo
Higher is better
HTC One mini 2252
Sony Xperia Z 2189
Sony Xperia SP 2497
Samsung Galaxy Note II 2418
HTC One 2382
Sony Xperia Z 2189
Sony Xperia ZL 2186
HTC One X (Tegra 3) 2078
Samsung Galaxy S4 2060
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini 2019
HTC Butterfly 1866
Oppo Find 5 1658
HTC Desire 500 1652
Samsung Galaxy S III 1641
Sony Xperia L 1640
LG Optimus 4X HD 1568
LG Optimus G 1522
Meizu MX 4-core 1468
Nexus 4 1310
Samsung Galaxy Fame 1234
Samsung Galaxy Young 1072
Sony Xperia E dual 1065
While synthetic benchmarks are good for making comparison tables and all, the stuff that matters is real-life performance. In this respect the Desire 500 performed quite satisfactory most of the time - it's not as snappy as Galaxy S4 mini, for example, but it does all the daily tasks done without annoying lags or long waiting times.
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