Samsung Galaxy Alpha vs. HTC One mini 2: Metal mania

Performance

The HTC One mini 2 is powered by a Snapdragon 400 chipset - four Cortex-A7 cores clocked at 1.2GHz, 1GB of RAM and an Adreno 305 GPU. A mid-range chipset through and through, fast enough for not too heavy usage but not flagship stuff.

The Samsung Galaxy Alpha comes in two versions: Snapdragon 801-powered and another with Exynos 5430 Octa (the one we're testing). The Exynos chipset is built on a 20nm process compared to Snapdragon's 28nm, which makes it more power-efficient or lets it work at higher clockspeeds.

For the Galaxy Alpha, Samsung went with 1.8GHz for the four Cortex-A15 cores and 1.3GHz for the four Cortex-A7 cores. As an SMP-enabled chipset, the Exynos 5430 can run all eight cores simultaneously and they have 2GB of RAM to work with. The GPU is also beefier, a hexa-core Mali-T628 MP6.

Just to detail the Snapdragon 801 version before we go on, it has four Krait 400 cores at 2.5GHz, 2GB of RAM and an Adreno 330 GPU. We haven't ran benchmarks on this one but you can expect it to be at roughly the same level as the other Alpha.

We ran the two Basemark tests to confirm there's no cheating going on and both CPU and GPU scores showed no shenanigans.

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  1167
• HTC One (M8)
  1126
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  1082
• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  915
• HTC One mini 2
  517
• Samsung Galaxy S5 mini
  419

Basemark OS II (single-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  2579
• HTC One (M8)
  2428
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  2415
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  2282
• Samsung Galaxy S5 mini
  1353
• HTC One mini 2
  1304

Basemark OS II (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  15096
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  10063
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  10063
• HTC One (M8)
  9860
• Samsung Galaxy S5 mini
  5283
• HTC One mini 2
  5182

No surprise here as the Samsung Galaxy Alpha has a definite advantage in CPU performance. The single-core test shows a 2x advantage of Cortex-A15 over the A7. For multi-core performance the difference jumps to nearly threefold.

We go to GeekBench 3, which only shows a double advantage in multi-core performance in favor of the Galaxy Alpha.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  3214
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  3011
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  2968
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  2856
• HTC One (M8)
  2367
• HTC One mini 2
  1526
• Samsung Galaxy S5 mini
  1123

Going to AnTuTu for a more comprehensive look at performance, the Samsung outpaces the HTC by quite a margin.

AnTuTu 4

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  38119
• HTC One (M8)
  37009
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  36018
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  34527
• HTC One mini 2
  17883
• Samsung Galaxy S5 mini
  17753

Both phones have 720p screens (a bit less for the One mini 2 once you account for the on-screen buttons). Here the performance gap between Adreno 305 and Mali-T628 MP6 is massive - in the newer GFX 3.0 Manhattan benchmark the Galaxy Alpha's score is nearly eight times higher!

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  31.3
• HTC One (M8)
  28.4
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  27.8
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  27.4
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  22
• Samsung Galaxy S5 mini
  6.7
• HTC One mini 2
  5.8

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  13.4
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  11.8
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  11.8
• HTC One (M8)
  11.1
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  9
• HTC One mini 2
  1.7

When we go back to on-screen resolution, the Galaxy Alpha almost manages a playable framerate in GFX 3.0, while the One mini 2 is far off the mark even in the older benchmark. The Basemark X 3D scores confirms the massive advantage for the Samsung.

Keep in mind that benchmarks are designed to be heavier than contemporary games but the HTC One mini 2 will likely have issues with high-end games.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  48.4
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  41.3
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  34
• HTC One (M8)
  30.1
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  28.1
• HTC One mini 2
  11
• Samsung Galaxy S5 mini
  9.3

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  25.4
• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  25.3
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  17
• HTC One (M8)
  11.9
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  11.7
• HTC One mini 2
  3.8

Basemark X

Higher is better

• HTC One (M8)
  12396
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  12080
• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  11065
• Samsung Galaxy S5 mini
  2665
• HTC One mini 2
  1650
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  1066

The high CPU performance carries over to JavaScript speed as well, the Kraken 1.1 benchmark running on the Galaxy Alpha completes in a third of the time it takes the One mini 2 to finish.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  4911
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  6043
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  6480
• HTC One (M8)
  10296
• HTC One mini 2
  15684
• Samsung Galaxy S5 mini
  15885

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  1500
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  1398
• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  1364
• HTC One (M8)
  1069
• HTC One mini 2
  945
• Samsung Galaxy S5 mini
  861

The Browsermark 2.1 test shows a much narrower gap, it tests web page rendering speed as well as JavaScript performance.

Note that we used the TouchWiz and Sense-customized web browsers for these tests rather than Chrome (which comes preinstalled on both).

Winner: Samsung Galaxy Alpha. The unequivocal winner here is the Samsung, winning the CPU and GPU tests by wide margins and easily outperforming the HTC One mini 2 in web tests.

The HTC One mini 2 is good for daily usage and casual gaming but big-budget 3D games are out of its league.