COMPARATIVE: UNISOC Tiger T618 Vs all current SoCs

Today we bring you a new comparison of the UNISOC Tiger T618 SoC manufactured by UNISOC for the tablet sector, a popular chip that every day we see in more products made by major Chinese brands.

The UNISOC T618 SoC is an Octa Core with two ARM Cortex-A75 processors and four Cortex-A55 processors up to 2GHz, also integrates a Mali-G52 3EE GPU and allows native decoding video codecs H.265 and VP9 up to 1080p, supports screens up to 2400×1800. It also has integrated 4G Cat7 modem, GPS, Wifi ac and BT 5.0. A chip intended for mid-range tablets that is up against options from other manufacturers such as Qualcomm, Hisilicon or Samsung.

SPECIFICATIONS UNISOC T618

Test hardware

The new Teclast T40 Plus tablet mounts the UNISOC T618 and includes 8 GB of LPDDR4 RAM and for storage we have 128 GB of high-speed memory eMMc 5.1. Its 10.4-inch IPS In-Cell (display in one layer) touch screen with a 2K resolution of 2000×1200 pixels and reduced frames, mounts a 5 MP camera with two front microphones and an 8 MP rear camera with flash. It integrates a 4G-LTE Multiband modem with Dual SIM tray, Wifi aC, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, a 6600 mAh battery and four speakers. It has 3.5 mm audio jack and USB Type-C port for data and battery charging. The operating system is Android 11.

• Teclast T40 Plus can be purchased on AliExpress or Banggood.com for a price starting at $189.99 (€169) with shipping and taxes included.

General specifications

The new SoC UNISOC Tiger T618 is manufactured in 12nm, it is an Octa Core SoC with two ARM Cortex-A75 processors and four other Cortex-A55 processors up to 2 GHz, in the graphics section we have a Mali-G52 3EE GPU with two cores.

CPU

The new UNISOC Tiger T618 Octa Core SoC features two ARM Cortex-A75 processors up to 1.8 GHz and four Cortex-A55 processors up to 1.8 GHz, a 64 bit processor that also has a system that allows 64 bit apps.

• Architecture: ARM v8-A / ABI arm64-v8a instructions enable 64 bit applications.
• Identification: Revision r3p1.

GPU

In the graphics area we have a Mali-G52 EE3 GPU Dual core with a maximum speed of 850Mhz and performance up to 6.8Gpix/s. It has hardware support for OpenGL ES 3.2 and also Vulkan 1.0. We also have OpenCL 2.0 FP support, Render Script, L2 Cache support up to 512KB and AMBA 4 ACE-LITE bus. With this GPU we can play powerful titles like PUBG at medium/high settings.

VPU, SCREEN AND CAMERAS

In this SoC integrates a VPU with decoding support for h.265, VP9 codecs up to FHD 1080@60fps resolutions. It has support for screens up to 2400×1800 resolution. It has support for camera sensors up to 32 MP with 24fps capture speed. LPDDR3/4 memory support and eMMC 5.1 compatibility for the internal storage.

Android system

The system we found Android 11 (API 30), the kernel that controls the system is kernel 4.14, we have a fairly recent security patch plus we seem to sing with active updates. As we have seen, we can run 64 bit applications thanks to the arm64-v8a instruction support.

PERFORMANCE TEST

We performed several performance tests with the UNISOC Tiger T618 SoCs, VS against Qualcomm Snapdragon SoCs, Hisilicon Kirin, Mediatek in its most current Helio range and the previous generations of Unisoc.

Geekbench

A test that gives us some very interesting values of the raw power testing of the CPU in mono core and multi core in addition to GPU computing. As we can see in the overall results, they are at a level well above the previous SoC Unisoc SC9863A, but close to the T610, on par with the performance of the Helio P70 and the Snapdragon 660/670.

3DMark

The graphical performance test par excellence with a fairly solid continuity in terms of results which helps us when comparing GPU performance historically. As we can see the Mali-G52 3EE Dual core GPU performs quite well, and we can run demanding games quite normally and far outperforms its rival Mediatek Helio P70.

PCMark

This test gives us an idea of the performance level for desktop applications of this hardware performing tasks such as video editing, managing text or audio files, something that is increasingly used in Android. The result is a sum of all these aspects and is influenced by the overall hardware components. The results of the new UNISOC T618 as we can see are quite good and in line with other ranges in the same price range.

VPU and Sound

We performed a series of performance tests with video playback function on the UNISOC Tiger T618 to check the formats supported by the integrated VPU. As we can see the results are very good with h.265 and VP9 P1 codecs with resolutions up to 1080p, the new AV1 codec is not supported. It is not possible to play smoothly 10 bit color formats or with HDR, it is better to limit to 1080p resolutions, in streaming services we do not notice jumps or poor performance.

• Image quality: Correct colors and acceptable processing / No image quality adjustments.
• HDR support: Not supported.

• SW = does not have hardware acceleration and may have some frameskip in very heavy files.

CONCLUSIONS

Once our comparison of the UNISOC Tiger T618 SoC is done, as we can see it is a pretty good alternative in the budget tablet sector. The raw single-core and multicore performance thanks to the combination of Cortex-A55 + A75 is quite good, similar to the previous T610. In terms of graphics power, the Mali-G53 EE3 GPU copes quite well and is left with good figures to allow gaming even in titles like PUBG at medium level without many problems.

The UNISOC Tiger T618 SoC as we have seen allows us to watch content in h.265 or VP9 from streaming services with good compression, but only up to 1080p, in 4K it has certain limitations, being a SoC intended for tablets with small screen this is not critical. As a basis for this new SoC we have Android 11 as a novelty and has a fully stable firmware that also allows installing 64-bit applications without problems.

Undoubtedly the new SoC UNISOC Tiger T618 is a good choice as a processor in economic tablets. In terms of power, it is on a par with considerably more expensive processors in its sector and represents a solid alternative to its competitors.

OTHER COMPARATIVES

• UNISOC T618
• UNISOC SC9863A
• NVidia Tegra+
• Mediatek Helio P70
• Mediatek Helio X20/23/27
• Mediatek MT8695
• All Reviews with more information of latest models