Apple iPad Air vs. Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014: Center of gravity

Synthetic benchmarks

Even low-end phones are getting to the point of "good enough" performance, but we're not looking for that here - we want leading processing power from the Apple iPad Air and Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 as they're going to have to runs some complicated apps, not to mention the latest 3D games.

The two run on completely different platforms. The iPad Air has Apple's custom A7 chipset based on the new ARMv8 architecture. The specs sound misleadingly modest - a dual-core CPU at 1.3GHz. The GPU is from the latest PowerVR series from Imagination, Apple's usual GPU partner. The tablet makes do with just 1GB RAM, but limited RAM has never proven to be an issue for iOS.

Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 comes in two versions. One uses the Snapdragon 800 chipset that's ubiquitous on the Android high-end. It has four Krait 400 cores clocked at 2.3GHz an Adreno 330 GPU designed by Qualcomm itself. The other option is Samsung's Exynos chipset with four Cortex-A15 cores (and four power-saving Cortex-A7s) plus a Mali-T628MP6 GPU, all designed by ARM. Both tablet versions have roomy 3GB of RAM.

Note that we're testing the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 with the Exynos chipset.

So, what do all those model numbers mean? It turns out that the processors of both tablets are virtually equal, despite the big core count and clock speed advantage of the Note 10.1. The Samsung tablet comes out ahead in Geekbench 3, while the Apple tablet wins in Linpack, so there might be small variations depending on the exact workload but devs generally have the same amount of horsepower to work with.

Since these tablets will be running full blown Office suites and other complicated apps (like, CAD apps), all that oomph is there to ensure smooth operation.

Geekbench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  2937
• Galaxy Note Note 10.1 2014 Edition
  2743
• Apple iPad Air
  2688
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2670
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2638
• Apple iPhone 5s
  2561
• Apple iPad mini 2
  2512
• LG G2
  2243
• HTC One
  1972
• HTC One Max
  1899
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  1869

Linpack

Higher is better

• Apple iPad Air
  1008
• Apple iPhone 5s
  970
• Galaxy Note Note 10.1 2014 Edition
  969
• Apple iPad mini 2
  940
• Apple iPhone 5
  546
• Apple iPhone 5c
  532

Even serious business people will have to admit that gaming makes up a big part of a tablet's usage. We ran off-screen test with GLBenchmark and found out the iPad has slightly more 3D rendering power than the Note 10.1 This is bad news for the Galaxy tablet as it has a higher resolution screen. Apple have always been ahead in terms of GPU and things aren't changing here.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  68
• Apple iPad Air
  63
• Apple iPad mini 2
  63
• Galaxy Note Note 10.1 2014 Edition
  60
• Sony Xperia Z1
  60
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  60
• Apple iPhone 5s
  56
• LG G2
  54
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  43
• HTC Butterfly S
  42
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  41
• HTC One Max
  41
• HTC One
  37
• Apple iPhone 5
  30
• LG Optimus G Pro
  30
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3
  17
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  17

GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPad mini 2
  27
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  26
• Apple iPad Air
  25
• Sony Xperia Z1
  23
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  23
• Apple iPhone 5s
  23
• Galaxy Note Note 10.1 2014 Edition
  22
• LG G2
  22
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  17.1
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  17.1
• Apple iPad 4
  16.8
• HTC Butterfly S
  16
• HTC One Max
  14
• Google Nexus 10
  13.9
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  13
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3
  6.3
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  4.9

Basemark X (off-screen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPad Air
  15.727
• Apple iPad mini 2
  15.456
• Galaxy Note Note 10.1 2014 Edition
  11.446

3DMark - Ice Storm Unlimited

Higher is better

• Apple iPad Air
  14991
• Apple iPad mini 2
  14221
• Galaxy Note Note 10.1 2014 Edition
  13415

Anyway, it's the on-screen tests that matter - 1080p is no longer an impressive resolution for a tablet and most games will run at native resolution (though some have an option to upscale from a lower internal resolution). Both tablets run GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt at playable framerate, but struggle with the newer 2.7 T-Rex. Benchmarks are always ahead of the curve, but it still shows iPad game devs have more room for graphics eye candy than Android game devs.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (on-screen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 5s
  53
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  53
• Apple iPad Air
  49
• Apple iPad mini 2
  49
• LG G2
  48
• Galaxy Note Note 10.1 2014 Edition
  43

GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex (on-screen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 5s
  37
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  26
• LG G2
  22
• Apple iPad Air
  21
• Apple iPad mini 2
  21
• Galaxy Note Note 10.1 2014 Edition
  14

Basemark X (on-screen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPad Air
  13.651
• Apple iPad mini 2
  13.77
• Galaxy Note Note 10.1 2014 Edition
  7.769

The web also plays a huge role in our modern day lives and it's one of the primary reasons to get a tablet. Both fast JavaScript and good HTML5 rendering performance is needed for complicated web apps to run satisfactory.

Apple has a highly tuned JavaScript engine that outperforms Samsung's by some margin, despite the similar CPU performance. The lead only extends when the browser has to handle rendering complex web pages.

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Apple iPhone 5s
  403
• Apple iPad Air
  421
• Apple iPad mini 2
  421
• Galaxy Note Note 10.1 2014 Edition
  569
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  587
• Apple iPhone 5
  694
• Apple iPhone 5c
  704
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  750
• Sony Xperia Z1
  845
• LG G2
  908
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  1046
• HTC One
  1174
• HTC One Max
  1295

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

• Apple iPad Air
  3659
• Apple iPhone 5s
  3549
• Apple iPad mini 2
  3500
• Galaxy Note Note 10.1 2014 Edition
  3138
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  3041
• Apple iPhone 5
  2825
• Apple iPhone 5c
  2799
• LG G2
  2718
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  2438
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2419
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2398
• HTC Butterfly S
  2378
• HTC One
  2262
• HTC One Max
  2243
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  2170
• Google Nexus 10
  1773

Winner: Apple iPad Air. It looked close for a moment, but the iPad Air leads in 3D and web performance.

That's not to say that there are tasks the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 can't handle. Still, if cutting edge performance is what you are after, the iPad is a nose ahead.