What games will run on a $100 quad-core smartphone?

A single crystal

Let's start with the fact that modern mobile processors are complex single—chip systems (from the English SoC or system-on-chip), which, in addition to the processor cores themselves, include many additional components. Firstly, a graphics accelerator (or, more simply, a graphics card), which is responsible for drawing three-dimensional images in games. Secondly, a media processor for smooth playback and recording of high-resolution video. Thirdly, 4G-LTE wireless communication modules, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and FM radio. And fourth, all kinds of small sensors, such as a compass.

Modern quad-core mobile protectors are represented by Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 (MSM8917), Samsung Exynos 7570 and MediaTek MT6739. It is the latter that is the most widespread at the moment and is used in several dozen smartphone models from well-known and not-so-famous brands.

Small, yes, he was good

MediaTek MT6739 is the junior representative of the Taiwanese chipmaker's processor line. It includes four computing cores of the ARM Cortex-A53 architecture with a frequency from 1.3 to 1.5 GHz (at the choice of the smartphone manufacturer). The theoretical performance of the Cortex-A53 in the synthetic benchmark Dhrystone is 2.24 DMIPS/MHz. Simply put, the emphasis is not so much on performance as on economical battery consumption.

The graphics accelerator is used by Imagination Technologies — also a junior PowerVR GE8100 (codename Rogue) with only a quarter of the unlocked microkernels and, as a result, a relatively low theoretical performance — 10 GFLOPS. But again, it saves battery. In addition to the popular graphics technology, OpenGL ES 3.2 also supports the newfangled Vulkan.

The MT6739's ARM NEON coprocessor is responsible for video playback and recording. It hardware accelerates the H.264 AVC video codecs (720p and 1080p movies) and VP9 WebM (YouTube videos), but does not support the latest H.265 HEVC format. However, this codec is mainly used for 4K video, which is not particularly relevant in the case of smartphones.

MediaTek MT6739 is used, among other things, in the Tecno POP 1S Pro smartphone. It is him we will use as a "test subject". The Tecno Mobile brand, by the way, is the official sponsor of the popular English football club Manchester City, which includes such stars as Sergio Aguero, Kevin de Bruyne and Leroy Sane.

Tecno Pop 1S Pro 16 GB / 2 GB

+10 photo

+3 video

Dual LED flash near the front camera, the latest version of Android 8.1, separate slots for two SIM and microSD, protective film on the screen, case and stereo headset included, 13 months official warranty.

16 GB of internal flash memory may not be enough for an avid gamer.

Tecno POP 1S Pro is a good representative of the class of 100-dollar Android smartphones. While more advertised brands for this price offer only 1 GB of RAM and a reduced functionality of the Android Go operating system, smartphone manufacturer Tecno Mobile, just recently officially appeared in our area, already gives 2 GB of RAM and a full version of Android 8.1.

And taking into account the beautiful and at the same time lightweight HiOS graphical shell, a little more than a gigabyte of RAM remains free for programs and games. Many small but useful innovations have been implemented in HiOS compared to the pure version of Android. For example, the Freezer allows you to temporarily "freeze" the heaviest applications, like the "fattening" Facebook, so that they do not load the processor, RAM and do not waste battery power. And T-Point allows you to pin shortcuts to the most frequently used applications in the quick access menu.

The processor of the Tecno POP 1S Pro is MediaTek MT6739 with four Cortex—A53 cores and a PowerVR GE8100 graphics accelerator. This seemingly quite basic percentage is enough even for most three-dimensional games, like World of Tanks Blitz, Asphalt 8, FIFA Mobile, Mortal Kombat X, etc. Unless 16 GB of internal memory does not fit a lot of games at the same time. And unfortunately, it is impossible to transfer them to a memory card, by analogy with photos and music. But with fast Wi-Fi, games can be deleted without regret and then re-downloaded if necessary.

There is one camera on the back and front panel of the Tecno POP 1S Pro: 13 and 5 MP, respectively. I was especially pleased with the additional flash near the front camera. It, like the rear one, consists of two LEDs (white and yellow), which makes the complexion on selfie shots in the dark more natural. The video is recorded in FullHD resolution, which is another pleasant surprise in the case of such an inexpensive smartphone.

In general, the Tecno POP 1S Pro is a solidly assembled 5.5—inch smartphone with a good price-performance ratio. There are three colours available to choose from: black, gold and blue. Fans of using two SIM cards and a microSD memory card at the same time will also be satisfied — the smartphone has three separate slots. The most pleasant bonus awaits the buyer after opening the box: a protective film on the screen, a transparent silicone case and a stereo headset included (if you had to buy separately, then all this good would pull another 20 dollars). And the official local warranty for your smartphones Tecno Mobile gives not 12, but 13 months. As they say, it's a trifle, but it's nice. Finally, let's say that Tecno POP 1S Pro has a younger brother — a third cheaper Tecno Pop 1S 16 GB / 1 GB .

Other popular Tecno smartphones

Test results

We will measure the gaming performance of the Tecno POP 1S Pro smartphone with a MediaTek MT6739 processor with both synthetic benchmarks and real games. The former, thanks to the results measured in exact numbers, will help to compare the theoretical performance of the smartphone with other models, and the latter will already demonstrate its capabilities in fact — completely playable, playable with periodic friezes or not at all playable.

And so, the set of test programs and games includes:

Geekbench is a test of the performance of processor cores in single and multithreading. It is convenient primarily for its cross-platform nature, which allows you to compare the performance of an Android smartphone, for example, with a Windows laptop;
AnTuTu is a comprehensive benchmark that measures the processor, graphics accelerator, RAM and flash memory, after which it gives a total performance rating;
3DMark is one of the oldest graphic benchmarks on PCs and at the same time relatively new on smartphones. Measurements were carried out in the Ice Storm Unlimited subtest;

World of Tanks Blitz is a graphically light and gameplay—simplified mobile version of the popular tank simulator;
FIFA is another lite—simplified mobile version of the popular computer game, this time on the theme of football;
Asphalt 8 is the newest mobile car race from Gameloft studio at the moment;
Mortal Kombat X is a fighting game from Warner Bros. studio. There is a newer game in the same genre and from the same developer — Injustice 2, but MKX is still more popular in our area;
Arena of Valor is, in our opinion, the best mobile MOBA (an analogue of Dota 2) from Tenscend studio;
PUBG is a mobile version of one of the most popular shooters at the moment. Unlike the desktop version, it was developed by the same company Transcend.

Conclusions

As our testing has shown, even a $100 smartphone with a simple quad-core processor and only 2 gigs of RAM can be called partly gaming. At least at low graphics settings, almost all modern games, including even the most resource-intensive ones, run on it. Yes, some games sometimes have unpleasant micro-crises, for example in PUBG. Therefore, the most avid mobile gamers who appreciate high graphics settings and stable FPS, of course, should look towards more powerful smartphones — eight cores and with 3-4 GB of RAM, for example Tecno Camon X Pro 64 GB / 4 GB . But even with a low-cost smart, you definitely won't stay without games at all, which is good news.