I'm surprised no one mentioned the ability to use custom ROMs and kernels on android devices with optimized CPU governers and overclocking on demand and how that affects the phone's performance.

Android stock branded phones are packed with bloatware from the carriers. This is something apple actually has a grip on due to how closed their platform is.

I'm running c-rom with lean kernel on my Galaxy Note 3 and running just one of those benchmarking programs, I get results that are a lot better than what anandtech shows. Still not better than apple, but pretty close to them for a last generation phone.

I'll try to run all of the benchmarks sometimes this weekeend and do a post.