Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8 review: Medium extra large

Synthetic benchmarks

The Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8 uses a dual-core Broadcom SoC clocked in at 1.4 GHz alongside a VideoCore IV GPU. While we have seen the Broadcom chipset before in a Samsung device (most notably in the Samsung Galaxy S II Plus), we haven't seen it clocked at 1.4 GHz. It's curious why Samsung chose the generally low-end Broadcom chipset for the Galaxy Mega 5.8 while sticking to a far more capable Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC for the Galaxy Mega 6.3, but we assume price is a factor.

With the notable exception of web browsing, it's been our experience that the Broadcom SoC generally performs worse than its Qualcomm equivalents - even those with lower clock speeds - so we're not expecting anything spectacular in terms of performance.

BenchmarkPi tests single-core CPU performance, and the 1.4 GHz processor scores towards the bottom of the pack in this benchmark, right around the previous generation Samsung flagship, the Galaxy S III.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  132
• LG Optimus G Pro
  147
• HTC One
  151
• Sony Xperia SP
  184
• Sony Xperia ZL
  264
• Sony Xperia Z
  264
• HTC Butterfly
  266
• Oppo Find 5
  267
• HTC One X+
  280
• LG Optimus G
  285
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  305
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  330
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  350
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  359
• Meizu MX 4-core
  362
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8
  364
• Nexus 4
  431

The AnTuTu CPU benchmark is where the Mega 5.8 really struggles. Granted, it's pitted against mostly quad-core competition, but the device is far behind the pack by a large margin.

AnTuTu

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  24716
• HTC One
  22678
• Sony Xperia Z
  20794
• Sony Xperia ZL
  20743
• LG Optimus G Pro
  20056
• HTC Butterfly
  19513
• Sony Xperia SP
  15874
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  15547
• Oppo Find 5
  15167
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8
  7338

We ran GLBenchmark off-screen, which means we're testing at a fixed resolution, which lets us test the raw GPU power. The VideoCore IV is one of the less popular mobile GPU's around, and the one found in the Galaxy Mega 5.8 did not impress.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  41
• HTC One
  37
• Oppo Find 5
  32
• Google Nexus 4
  32
• Sony Xperia Z
  31
• Sony Xperia ZL
  31
• Sony Xperia SP
  31
• Apple iPhone 5
  30
• LG Optimus G Pro
  30
• LG Optimus G
  21
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  17
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8
  12
• HTC One X
  11

But most games are rendered at native resolution, so we're including Epic Citadel, which uses Unreal Engine 3 - a popular game engine for mobile developers. Here, the Galaxy Mega 5.8 matched the performance of the other devices and just as them often ran into the 60fps limitation of its screen, so you can count on pretty great gaming performance.

Epic Citadel

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia SP
  58.0
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  57.1
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8
  56.8
• HTC One
  56.4
• Sony Xperia Z
  55.6
• Sony Xperia ZL
  55.4
• LG Optimus G Pro
  54.2
• Nexus 4
  53.9
• Asus Padfone 2
  53.4
• LG Optimus G
  52.6
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  41.3
• Oppo Find 5
  38.6

Broadcom chips usually punch above their weight when it comes to web browsing performance, and the one inside the Galaxy Mega 5.8 is no exception. In both the Sunspider and Browsermark 2 web benchmarks, the phablet scored towards the top of the charts - a notable improvement over the previous benchmarks.

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  810
• Samsung Ativ S
  891
• Apple iPhone 5
  915
• Nokia Lumia 920
  910
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  972
• HTC One X+
  1001
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1011
• Motorola RAZR i XT890
  1059
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8
  1062
• Sony Xperia SP
  1116
• HTC One
  1124
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1192
• Sony Xperia ZL
  1290
• Meizu MX 4-core
  1312
• Sony Xperia Z
  1336
• LG Optimus G
  1353
• HTC Butterfly
  1433
• Nexus 4
  1971
• Oppo Find 5
  2045

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

• LG Optimus G
  2555
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  2438
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8
  2285
• Sony Xperia SP
  2263
• HTC One
  2262
• Sony Xperia ZL
  2107
• Sony Xperia Z
  2093
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1801
• Oppo Find 5
  1797
• Nexus 4
  1794
• Nokia Lumia 920
  1774
• Nokia Lumia 820
  1760
• Samsung Omnia W
  1632
• HTC Butterfly
  1475
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1247

With the exception of web browsing, we were generally the Galaxy Mega 5.8 chipset is hardly anything worth writing home about. Whether it's due to getting better dual-SIM performance or simply cutting down on costs, the Broadcom chipset used by Samsung in the Galaxy Mega 5.8 is not up to par when compared to the Qualcomm Snapdragon mobile SoC's we find in most recent Samsung smartphones.

However, the difference isn't huge when talking real-life scenarios as Jelly Bean's Project Butter delivers smooth UI navigation even here. App loading times, on the other hand, could be much better.