In the field of digital products, for a long time, consumers have taken it as a given "theorem" that the higher the price of a product, the better its performance tends to be. However, Apple recently demonstrated through actual data a different reality: the most expensive devices do not necessarily have the strongest performance.

Recently, AnTuTu released the February iOS device performance rankings, which provided us with a vivid example. In the list, the 2024 iPad Pro series was particularly eye-catching. Among them, the 13-inch iPad Pro 2024, despite having a starting price as high as 11,499 yuan, ranked second in terms of performance, falling short of the 11-inch version, which has a starting price of only 8,999 yuan. There is a clear 2,500 yuan difference in price between these two products, but their performance did not fully follow the price hierarchy.

A similar situation also appeared in the iPhone series. The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, as Apple's flagship products, are almost identical in core hardware configuration, both equipped with Apple's self-developed A18 Pro chip, featuring a 6-core CPU, 6-core GPU, and 16-core neural engine. However, in terms of average benchmark scores, the iPhone 16 Pro outperformed the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Although the latter differs from the former in screen size, overall weight, and battery capacity, these factors did not directly contribute to a performance gap between the two.

Surprisingly, in AnTuTu's performance ranking, the score of the iPhone 16 Pro Max even failed to make it into the top ten. This result undoubtedly shattered our traditional perception of "the most expensive is the best," prompting us to reconsider the relationship between the price and performance of digital products.