Super optimized! Series of performance tests touts the Google Pixel 4 as the fastest Android phone in the world

While benchmarks give us a simplified testing bed for performance, few would argue with the fact that real-world numbers are most important at the end of the day. It would seem that the new Google Pixel 4 handles real-world tasks a lot better than benchmarks would indicate, going by a series of tests carried out by YouTube tech personality, Juan Carlos Bagnell.

The tests in question involve video rendering and transcoding, with devices being tasked with transcoding a one-minute-long 4K video from a bitrate of 100Mbit/s to 50 Mbit/s. The Pixel 4 XL was pitted against the OnePlus 7T, and managed to complete the task in 31 seconds, way ahead of the 7T's 53-second time.

In the second test, both devices were tasked with rendering a series of clips with overlays and soundtracks—all designed to better test the phones' processing abilities. While the 7T finished preparing the file faster than the Pixel 4 XL (and was already at 16% of the rendering process by the Pixel started rendering), the Pixel 4 still managed to catch up to, and significantly outpace, the 7T. The Pixel 4 XL finished the test in 1m35s, while the 7T came in much later at 1m55s.

The relatively bad "Video Preparing" time by the Pixel 4 XL is likely due to the fact that the phone uses UFS 2.1 storage, while the OnePlus 7T has the much faster UFS 3.0.

In the Google Photos stabilization test, the Pixel also finished ahead of the 7T, posting a time of 1m01s, with the 7T finishing an embarrassing 19 seconds later.

These test results are rather incredible, especially when one considers the fact that the Pixel 4 XL has 2 GB less RAM than the OnePlus 7T, and is powered by the Snapdragon 855, a weaker SoC than the Snapdragon 855+ on 7T. OnePlus phones are very well optimized too, and are usually the best-tuned in the market, routinely topping benchmark charts.

According to the source, this result puts the Pixel 4 XL at the very top of the leaderboards, ahead of the surprisingly impressive LG V50.

The fact that results are consistent across two different apps makes it obvious that it's not an app-related issue either. Google's Pixel phones are widely recognized as offering the smoothest user experience of all Android devices and, if this video is any indication, that isn't set to change anytime soon.

Of course, it should be pointed out that video rendering and editing are specific use cases. The 7T may very well outperform the Pixel 4 XL at other tasks. We wouldn't bet on it, though.