We previously covered how many AnTuTu points your smartphone should score. But several years have passed since then, and requirements keep growing. Now AnTuTu has published a ranking of powerful smartphones for March 2026, and it turned out to be both predictable and surprising at the same time. Predictable because the top is once again dominated by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Surprising because the winner wasn’t a gaming monster with a fan the size of an airplane turbine, but… okay, it does have a turbine after all. But second place went to a compact smartphone, which is a rarity in itself.
The latest ranking of the most powerful Android smartphones has been released. Image: Technotin
New AnTuTu Ranking for 2026
The winner is the iQOO 15 Ultra smartphone. This is the brand’s first truly gaming flagship, where the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is cooled by a built-in turbine. It sounds like engineering madness — and that’s exactly how it works: 4.17 million AnTuTu points, first place, no questions asked.
The surprise of the ranking is second place. It went to the OnePlus 15T smartphone: a compact flagship running on the same Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 as the leader. The difference in scores is less than 10,000 points. Meanwhile, the regular OnePlus 15, which is larger and seemingly should have better cooling, closes out the top 10 with 3.8 million points. This shows that case size isn’t what matters most. What matters is how engineers implemented the chipset.
Top 10 Most Powerful Smartphones of 2026
The only MediaTek smartphone on this list is the vivo X300 Pro running the Dimensity 9500. All the rest feature the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. The most powerful Android smartphones with the top-tier Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor are covered separately, but here are just the facts:
- iQOO 15 Ultra (Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, 16/1024 GB): 4,174,911 points;
- OnePlus 15T (Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, 16/1024 GB): 4,164,561 points;
- vivo X300 Pro (MediaTek Dimensity 9500, 16/1024 GB): 4,081,260 points;
- realme GT 8 Pro (Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, 16/1024 GB): 4,041,008 points;
- Red Magic 11 Pro+ (Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, 16/512 GB): 4,028,118 points;
- iQOO 15 (Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, 16/1024 GB): 3,929,410 points;
- Honor Magic 8 Pro (Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, 16/1024 GB): 3,847,437 points;
- Honor Magic 8 (Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, 16/512 GB): 3,820,462 points;
- Honor WIN (Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, 16/1024 GB): 3,802,483 points;
- OnePlus 15 (Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, 16/1024 GB): 3,801,551 points.
Note: the vivo X300 Ultra is not in the ranking. The smartphone was released at the end of March and simply didn’t accumulate enough results for the statistics. It will definitely appear in the April ranking. And judging by its specs, it’s a contender for at least the top 3.
What the AnTuTu Ranking Means
AnTuTu scores indicate overall performance. Image: TechNick
The 2026 AnTuTu ranking once again confirms that the difference in scores between smartphones with the same chipset is determined by the quality of implementation, not the processor itself. The iQOO 15 Ultra and OnePlus 15 both run on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, but the gap between them is nearly 400,000 points. This isn’t a margin of error — it’s an engineering decision.
If you need a powerful gaming smartphone with maximum performance and no compromises — the iQOO 15 Ultra is it. If you want a high-performance device in a compact form factor — the OnePlus 15T is a solid choice. All the other participants in the top 10 are also excellent devices, but their scores reflect how each manufacturer prioritizes the balance between power, thermal management, and battery life.
