Linus&#x27;s comments make a lot of sense but the fact of the matter is this: a number is a number is a number. If I run the same &quot;flawed&quot; benchmark suite on last year&#x27;s iPhone 5, it will tell  me that, yes, its CPU is indeed slower than that of a 6S. The tests might not holistically represent real-world usage but they output just enough data to tell me quantitatively how much better one phone performs over another in a vacuum.<p>The &quot;real&quot; benchmark; actually running automation on a cross section of phones against a few popular apps, would probably be a more useful test. But Anandtrch and their cohorts don&#x27;t seem to agree.