Samsung Galaxy Core Prime review: Core values

Performance

The Samsung Galaxy Core Prime continues Samsung's foray into the 64-bit field. With it the company has a lineup that spans from the entry-level to the flagship. The phone is based on a Snapdragon 410 chipset, which has four Cortex-A53 cores and Adreno 306.

A53 is the 64-bit replacement of the Cortex-A7 and ARM claims it offers a tangible performance improvement. As we found with the Galaxy Grand Prime though, clock speed is more important (for now) and 1.2GHz won't get you that far.

The Adreno 306 GPU on the other side is a more power-efficient version of the Adreno 305, but it still caters to casual gaming needs at most. The Galaxy Core Prime packs 1GB of RAM, which is better than some phones in its price range but still, nothing to write home about.

Note that in some regions the phone has a Spreadtrum SC8830A chipset instead. It uses a 32-bit quad Cortex-A7 processor and Mali-400MP2 GPU, both of which are slower than their counterparts in the Snapdragon 410 chipset.

Our performance tests start off with Geekbench 3 where the Core Prime matches the bigger Grand Prime (both use the same chipsets).

This is a good demo of the fact that a Cortex-A7 at a higher clockspeed (like in the original Moto X) works better than A53. Android 5.0 Lollipop should offer performance enhancements specific to 64-bit processors, so tables might turn if the Galaxy Core Prime gets updated to this latest Android version further down the road.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  1492
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  1492
• HTC Desire 510
  1471
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  1469
• LG G2 mini
  1123
• Motorola Moto G
  1120
• Sony Xperia E3
  1118

Note that the Sony Xperia E3 has a quad Cortex-A7 processor at 1.2GHz, so we can compare performance per clock. The HTC Desire 510 uses the same chipset as the Core Prime and Grand Prime.

With that in mind, AnTuTu 5 gives the newer chipset a small lead, but it's hardly a groundbreaking difference.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  21533
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  21002
• HTC Desire 510
  20756
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  19912
• Sony Xperia E3
  18336

Basemark OS II has a high opinion of the Galaxy Core Prime. In general it makes it easier to see the single-core advantage of Cortex-A53 and how that translates to four cores.

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  564
• Motorola Moto G
  559
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  504
• HTC Desire 510
  491
• Nokia Lumia 635
  451
• Sony Xperia E3
  417
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  394

Basemark OS II (single-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  1435
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  1420
• HTC Desire 510
  1332
• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  1313
• Sony Xperia E3
  1171

Basemark OS II (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia E3
  5697
• HTC Desire 510
  5484
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  5481
• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  5283
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  4875

The low screen resolution - 800 x 480px - helps the relatively weak GPU, but even then there just isn't enough processing power to run complicated 3D games at a playable framerate. The Galaxy Core Prime is confined to casual games, which was to be expected in the entry-level segment.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 510
  1906
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  1904
• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  1895
• Sony Xperia E3
  1577

The Kraken 1.1 measures JavaScript performance and we found it to be the same as on the Grand Prime - slow. Samsung have skipped performance tuning the Internet app on this cut down TouchWiz version.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  12470
• HTC Desire 510
  14171
• Sony Xperia E3
  16059
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
  18343
• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  18353

We tried running BrowserMark 2.1 as usual, but the benchmark kept hanging so we don't have a score.

The Grand Prime was held to a higher standard, but the Samsung Galaxy Core Prime is a good performer for its class. The Moto G (both old and new one) is powered by the older version of Qualcomm's chipset and is considered a mid-ranger. The Snapdragon 410 advantage won't be fully realized until (and unless), these phones get their Android 5.0 Lollipop fix.