Apple vs. Samsung: Who's Winning Now?

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Guide community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Status
Not open for further replies.

ericburnby

Distinguished
Mar 4, 2010
363
0
18,930
You left out several biggies. Apple totally dominates Android in Enterprise/corporate use. IBM decided to partner with Apple, not Samsung (or Google) for their Enterprise services. MS brought Office to iOS, not Android. iOS is FIPS certified. KNOX also is, but it's been a complete failure with almost nobody using it. Android itself is not FIPS certified, BTW. iOS devices have had on-device hardware encryption since the 3GS. Most Android devices sold DO NOT have this.

On the App side (your device is useless without software) iOS also wins. Not only do they have better Apps, but developers STILL favor iOS over Android (despite Eric Schmidt predicting in Dec 2011 that Android would overtake iOS in terms of developers). And Apple made huge strides at WWDC this summer that are geared strictly for developers to further help them create better Apps. Like creating a brand-new language (Swift) while Google still has that cloud hanging over their head (Oracle) from using a stolen language without permission.

Samsung has been trying forever (and mostly failing) to get developers to code specifically for Samsung devices instead of Android. Even going so far as to have fake "developers" pretend to ask questions about coding for Galaxy S phones on sites like Stackoverflow.

And now the Note 4 looks like it will come in a 32bit and 64bit version. Developers are going to love having to write code for two different processors (that is, the REAL developers who don't use Java and actually write for Android using the NDK). And even the 64bit processor version is going to be a poor performer. The ARM A57 isn't even as fast as Apple's A7, let alone the A8. Apple is so far ahead in ARM processor design that they decided to take a break this year and only give the A8 a small performance increase. They never bothered playing the "more cores game" or the "more GHz game" that everyone else is doing to get better performance - they did it the right way, by designing better cores.

Sales wise? The iPhone outsells the Galaxy S series by more than 2:1 (apples to apples). Sure Samsung sells more phones overall, but you can't compare a low-end phone to a GS5 or iPhone. In fact, the iPhone sells more than Samsung, HTC, LG and Motorola flagships combined.'

Apple is in a different league from Samsung.
 

esco_sid

Honorable
May 11, 2012
98
0
10,610
Not sure why everyone here on toms always hates on Apple they make great products that sell and that's what matters in the end for a business i guess some people try to feel better by bashing another companies product to make themselves feel better about their own toy.
 

airborne11b

Distinguished
Jul 6, 2008
78
0
18,590
Wow, what a biased article. I mean that, author.

How do you figure the smartphone category to be a draw? To get single-handed mode: On the Note 3, all you have to do is slide your finger from the edge of the screen in, and back out again. Just a swipe. That's not a setting.

The hardware on all EXISTING Samsung phones trump the yet-to-be-released iPhone 6:

-Apple has introduced nothing new, and 1080p isn't "Retina HD" -- it's just HD. Not to mention already surpassed, by both pixel density, size, and pixel count. I'm not going to even talk about the paltry 750p.

-NFC? Been there, done that. Water resistance? How is this not super important. Pen input? Nope. IR Blaster? Nope. Expandable storage? Nope. Removable battery? Nope.

The list goes on and on, ffs. How is this a draw?


Oh, and this: "Although the Galaxy S5 and Note series sport a heart-rate monitor on the back, Apple's devices promise to keep better tabs on your activity via better designed apps, a more accurate M7 motion co-processor and a barometer that can track your stair climbs."
-- Are you serious? You're tooting unavailable apps, and 'promises', as better than the built-in the Samsung heart-rate monitor, and library full of amazing health apps [already available] on the Google Play Store. Wow.

1080p on a 4.7 - 6 inch phone display is retina at normal hand-held distance.

Any resolution can be retina given a small enough size of screen or the distance at which you're viewing the screen.

A 27" 1080p monitor is retina at 3 and a half feet away. However most people view a computer monitor at a desk at about 12 - 24 inches away at most, so you see a nice difference when you move up to 1440p.

However, 1080p vs 1440p on a 5 inch phone? Ya you got to hold it 2 inches from your eye to tell the difference lol.
 

ingtar33

Honorable
Dec 17, 2012
249
0
10,910
Maybe I am being a Samsung fanbio, but it seems the author either uses an actual Apple product to show superiority to Samsung or the fact an Apple product is coming to prove superiority to a Samsung product. It seems it should be more of an Oranges-to-Oranges kind of comparison (pun deliberately avoided).

I own an iphone... and have andriod devices. My next phone will be a galaxy note 4. Why? for only one reason. battery life. Until apply smartphones last longer then 4hours on a charge i'm not going to buy another one. I'm sick of the terrible battery life. Everyone i know with a high end samsung can go over a day of business use. Even with all the settings set to extend the life of my iphone battery i can't make it through a work day of light use without a charger.

simply unaceptable.

that i see nothing with this launch speaking about the atrocious battery life of apple devices i'm going to assume apple simply doesn't care. So yes... i think i'll go for a galaxy note net time around.
 

fuzzion

Distinguished
Feb 4, 2012
84
0
18,580
It is not surprising that toms hardware promotes Apple. Sigh, the good old days when this site was the best hardware site on the web.
 

iKon007

Estimable
May 21, 2014
3
0
4,510
Wow, what a biased article. I mean that, author.

How do you figure the smartphone category to be a draw? To get single-handed mode: On the Note 3, all you have to do is slide your finger from the edge of the screen in, and back out again. Just a swipe. That's not a setting.

The hardware on all EXISTING Samsung phones trump the yet-to-be-released iPhone 6:

-Apple has introduced nothing new, and 1080p isn't "Retina HD" -- it's just HD. Not to mention already surpassed, by both pixel density, size, and pixel count. I'm not going to even talk about the paltry 750p.

-NFC? Been there, done that. Water resistance? How is this not super important. Pen input? Nope. IR Blaster? Nope. Expandable storage? Nope. Removable battery? Nope.

The list goes on and on, ffs. How is this a draw?


Oh, and this: "Although the Galaxy S5 and Note series sport a heart-rate monitor on the back, Apple's devices promise to keep better tabs on your activity via better designed apps, a more accurate M7 motion co-processor and a barometer that can track your stair climbs."
-- Are you serious? You're tooting unavailable apps, and 'promises', as better than the built-in the Samsung heart-rate monitor, and library full of amazing health apps [already available] on the Google Play Store. Wow.

1080p on a 4.7 - 6 inch phone display is retina at normal hand-held distance.

Any resolution can be retina given a small enough size of screen or the distance at which you're viewing the screen.

A 27" 1080p monitor is retina at 3 and a half feet away. However most people view a computer monitor at a desk at about 12 - 24 inches away at most, so you see a nice difference when you move up to 1440p.

However, 1080p vs 1440p on a 5 inch phone? Ya you got to hold it 2 inches from your eye to tell the difference lol.

No true at all. I'm moved from HTC Velocity (Raider??) @ 540 x 960 to a HTC Butterfly @ 1080x1920 and at any distance could tell the difference. I've now moved from 1080 to an Oppo Find 7 @ 1440 x 2560 and can still tell the difference at any distance my arm can produce.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I just thought 'Retina' was an apple marketing term for 'buy this product sheep'.
 

chicofehr

Distinguished
Jan 29, 2012
57
0
18,580
They are both going under. In 10 years other companies will take over and rule the world. I'll just enjoy the show while it happens.
 

Simon Anderson

Honorable
Sep 22, 2013
9
0
10,510
I dunno, I just got an HTC One m8 and it makes me wonder why the hell I ever owned a Samsung (previous Galaxy S and S3 owner). The sense interface makes Samsung's look like 2d vomit. Having said that, I haven't seen many OTHER android devices so not sure how much of the Samsung is standard kitkat interface or what... I do know the m8 is an extremely polished experience and is the first time I've actually felt an Android phone has approached the usability and slick design of iOS: in fact I think it's surpassed it. I guess the huge global Samsung has a far larger marketing budget than HTC though!
 

r3dl1n3

Distinguished
Nov 25, 2010
3
0
18,510
I dunno, I just got an HTC One m8 and it makes me wonder why the hell I ever owned a Samsung (previous Galaxy S and S3 owner). The sense interface makes Samsung's look like 2d vomit. Having said that, I haven't seen many OTHER android devices so not sure how much of the Samsung is standard kitkat interface or what... I do know the m8 is an extremely polished experience and is the first time I've actually felt an Android phone has approached the usability and slick design of iOS: in fact I think it's surpassed it. I guess the huge global Samsung has a far larger marketing budget than HTC though!

Exactly the Samsung fanboi's are even more annoying then the isheep. but get them together in the comments section of a flame bait article and watch the sparks fly.. Dammit I'm out of popcorn.. BRB
 

iKon007

Estimable
May 21, 2014
3
0
4,510
You left out several biggies. Apple totally dominates Android in Enterprise/corporate use. IBM decided to partner with Apple, not Samsung (or Google) for their Enterprise services. MS brought Office to iOS, not Android. iOS is FIPS certified. KNOX also is, but it's been a complete failure with almost nobody using it. Android itself is not FIPS certified, BTW. iOS devices have had on-device hardware encryption since the 3GS. Most Android devices sold DO NOT have this.

On the App side (your device is useless without software) iOS also wins. Not only do they have better Apps, but developers STILL favor iOS over Android (despite Eric Schmidt predicting in Dec 2011 that Android would overtake iOS in terms of developers). And Apple made huge strides at WWDC this summer that are geared strictly for developers to further help them create better Apps. Like creating a brand-new language (Swift) while Google still has that cloud hanging over their head (Oracle) from using a stolen language without permission.

Samsung has been trying forever (and mostly failing) to get developers to code specifically for Samsung devices instead of Android. Even going so far as to have fake "developers" pretend to ask questions about coding for Galaxy S phones on sites like Stackoverflow.

And now the Note 4 looks like it will come in a 32bit and 64bit version. Developers are going to love having to write code for two different processors (that is, the REAL developers who don't use Java and actually write for Android using the NDK). And even the 64bit processor version is going to be a poor performer. The ARM A57 isn't even as fast as Apple's A7, let alone the A8. Apple is so far ahead in ARM processor design that they decided to take a break this year and only give the A8 a small performance increase. They never bothered playing the "more cores game" or the "more GHz game" that everyone else is doing to get better performance - they did it the right way, by designing better cores.

Sales wise? The iPhone outsells the Galaxy S series by more than 2:1 (apples to apples). Sure Samsung sells more phones overall, but you can't compare a low-end phone to a GS5 or iPhone. In fact, the iPhone sells more than Samsung, HTC, LG and Motorola flagships combined.'

Apple is in a different league from Samsung.

#iloveitwhenpeoplemakeupstats

Any proof icrap out sells real products made by virtually every other manufactuer in the world?

I cant comment on the enterprise stuff, ive really no idea abut it!

Yes hardware is certainly pointless without software. Similar to idevices with ios really ;)

But seriously, for what I use my phone for, there is an awful lot of good apps in the play store.... Suits me just fine.
 

ohim

Distinguished
Feb 10, 2009
121
0
18,640
Am i the only one that thinks Samsung should now sue Apple because they made a phone that`s similar in size to the Galaxy line ? :)) At least they can get back the money that Apple took in the past for this kind of crap.
 

namelessonez

Distinguished
Jun 30, 2009
3
0
18,510
I am a Note loyalist, but I love the design and the way the new iPhone 6 plus "looks"....se*y-bad*ss! I have no quarms about appreciating this....credit must be given where it is due.

But reading this article leaves me no option but to say that it's seriously biased! Everything has already been done by Samsung. The NFC pay option: Samsung had that first when....with the SG3 and the Note 1? Heck, even my 4 year old cute li'l blackberry has it! The option to pay via NFC is an 'NFC' based function.....not a 'proprietory' element!

All the other features have already been covered by the good folks above. Hate to see such biased article's, especially here at Tom's, on which I so seriously rely!

Perhaps, the cake "IS" a lie??
 

razor512

Distinguished
Jun 16, 2007
501
0
18,940
Pretty biased in many ways by taking marketing promises over what is available. (how many companies have advertised products that will revolutionize the world?), but ended up being just a gimmick? Overall, marketing promises are worth less than used toilet paper.

While chances are good for the apple smart watch being better than the samsung ones as those watches were just plain horrible and the only way to make it worst, will be to intentionally look at what they did and instruct the team to do the same thing but far worst.

On a hardware standpoint, apple is simply unable to compete, they are using largely outdated and crippled hardware, with intentional design limitations which allows them to implement planned obsolescence, e.g., the non user replaceable battery which will make it so that the majority of users will be unable to replace their batteries.

The lack of expandable storage is another huge issue. With the vast majority of ARM based SOC's offering native support for SD cards, not including one it not just a way to save a few cents on production cost, but also a way to price gouge for increased native storage. (a few months ago, I purchased a 64GB microsd card for about $29 (mainly for use with the dash cam in the car,but decided that the old 32GB was enough and got it to work in an older smartphone by formatting the card in FAT32 with an allocation unit size or 32768 (causes lower write speeds, but allows some older smartphones to use higher capacity cards)


The main design flaw chared by many phone makers is the lack of buffer zones for impact. With the rush to make everything thinner, they got rid of the traditional empty space areas designed specifically to flex on impact so the screen and other parts of the device does not break (e.g., throw an original gameboy at a wall, and I bet the drywall will end up with a large hole and the gameboy will still work like new)

Overall, phones are not really designed to handle drops. Another issue is the use of strong glue around the screens. no matter how well made a device is, things can still break and as time goes by, both apple and samsung have been making it harder to replace components like the screen.

Most new smartphone features from the past few years, have been gimmicks and not much has been done in the way of real functionality that people will regularly use.

On the android side, while smartphones have been steadily getting faster, with the flagship phones having CPU's that are 5-10 times faster than the ones in the budget and lower mid phones, the fragmentation of the platform has causes applications be developed for the lowest common denominator, and thus, you may have the fastest smartphone on the market, but very few applications are taking advantage of it.

 

razor512

Distinguished
Jun 16, 2007
501
0
18,940
Wanted to also add, it seems that apple has simply stopped focusing on innovative hardware improvements and instead, focused on developing hardware that will maximize their profit margin, and simply offer the bare minimum specifications for how they feel their OS should be used.

Android devices on the other hand, have gone onto the horsepower and bloat race. Constant improvements to the processing power, occasional improvements to the RAM, and lots of bloat. (kinda like in car ads where they use every opportunity to tell you how their vehicle has 300 horsepower, and show visuals of the vehicle outrunning a line of gas being set on fire or other crap to try to convey the message that the powerful engine makes the car fast so that you will be excited to buy it and drive at 55MPH on the highway right next to the the old beat up 1970's station wagon.

If you look at the most common tests done on many smartphone reviews, outside of synthetic benchmarks, they will test things like how fast the and smooth the home screen scrolls, and how smooth and quickly the application list can be pulled up. (ignoring the fact that if you use a CPU monitoring application, those tasks do not even use 5% CPU usage, and often fail to even make the CPU clock up from its low power clock state. (they will then do test relating to web browsing, but those tend to have less to do with the CPU and RAM, and more to do with the NAND as well as the wireless radios. which is why the phone with the fastest CPU is not always the one to load web pages fastest. Many mobile browsers by default will cache data to the NAND, and load some content directly to it as they are coded with the expectation of there being limited memory on a device that allows for multitasking, because of this, the storage performance can impact a program such as chrome for android heavily.
 

Mark Spoonauer

Editor-in-Chief
Jan 21, 2014
785
3
18,945
Hi Bonezy, thanks for your thoughtful comment. You raise some good points. Here's my response.

[[One hand mode]]
* Actually, you do need to first enable a setting on the Galaxies before you swipe. So you're wrong about that.

[[Screens]]
* I agree with you about S5 screen beating the iPhone 6 on pixel count. Same with Note 4 vs iPhone 6 Plus. I say that in the article that they have sharper resolutions. But that's only one measure of screen performance. We'll have to see on brightness, color saturation and accuracy.

The sharper 2560 x 1440 resolution on the Note 4 isn't necessarily an advantage though. For one, there are zero apps that can take advantage of it. And, based on our tests of the LG G3, we believe the higher pixel count contributed to shorter battery life. I hope that's not the case with the new Notes.

[[-NFC? Been there, done that.]]
Yes, but I bet 90 percent of Android phone owners don't know that its there and don't use it. Apple Pay gives NFC a purpose, but Apple will need more partners.

[[Water resistance? How is this not super important.]]
It is, and I say that it's an advantage. Apple missed an opportunity here.

[[Pen input? Nope.]]
The new Notes do more with the pen, and I say that's an advantage.

[[IR Blaster?]]
Nice to have but its not important. I prefer to change channels without looking.

[[Expandable storage? Nope. Removable battery? Nope.]]
Agree on both counts with you here, although we've found that expandable storage isn't as great an advantage as we hoped. It's great for media, but not for apps, as you can't store all of them on the card.

As for the draw in this category overall, I don't think you can discount the design of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. They're on another level. And although Samsung has seemed to improve the camera on the Note 4, the iPhone 5s soundly beat the Galaxy S5 in our camera showdown, and I expect the 6 Plus to beat the Note 4 in a similar fashion.

It really comes down to what you deem important in a smartphone. We'll be sure to bring you a round by round face-off with in-depth testing to declare a true winner.




Oh, and this: "Although the Galaxy S5 and Note series sport a heart-rate monitor on the back, Apple's devices promise to keep better tabs on your activity via better designed apps, a more accurate M7 motion co-processor and a barometer that can track your stair climbs."
-- Are you serious? You're tooting unavailable apps, and 'promises', as better than the built-in the Samsung heart-rate monitor, and library full of amazing health apps [already available] on the Google Play Store. Wow.
 

wemakeourfuture

Distinguished
Dec 20, 2011
95
0
18,580
Every bonehead Android response forgers Apple produces a holistic, end-to-end products with proper support and service.

1. Apple has stores across the world to assist new and existing customers learn about the phone, receive free help and here's the KICKER with a damaged phone out of warranty they still try to help their customers. Good luck with any of this with an Android manufacturer. Apple is heads and shoulders ahead of every Android manufacturer.

2. Update support and compatibility. Apple provides zero day updates for its devices. No B.S. with carriers, delays, added bloatware, etc. So customers receive new features, fixes and security updates constantly for their devices. Even old iPads and iPhone 4S and later. Apple has consistently supported devices for 3 years and on zero day.

Do not tell me that rooting a Android phone and manually updating is your solution. 99% of Android users in the world don't do this, so it's not a solution. Simple statistics show when a new Android version comes out there is such a small adoption rate its embarrassing. Apple has an incredible adoption rate, the envy of the mobile market.

3. More, better and first apps. App makers always make for iOS first than Android. This has been borne out for the past 7 years and won't stop. There is no need to elaborate this is common sense in the software and business world.

4. Android likes to be "first to market" on some features. For example NFC. Who cares if you have the technology in the device when corporations are not using it for commerce? Apple will make partnerships, produce enough critical mass and infrastructure for a feature to be useful for their customer. The hard work is not sticking the technology into a device. The difficult part if getting businesses to provide the service to use the technology. It's a holistic circle to provide the customer with usefulness not its there and pretty much useless but we get to brag we put it there. Lets be real, if mobile payment takes off its going to be due to Apple Pay. They even considered people would want to pay with their Apple Watch and facilitate this. Apple did not go into iTunes without the proper level of partnerships. We've seen every John and Jane company try like Sony and even music publishers to offer online songs. They fail since they never try to provide the product customers are actually seeking for a service. Android has failed with NFC and Apple will be the most likely to succeed.

5. Build quality and material. Apple products use much better materials than Android phones. There is no question about this. From crappy plastic all around, Android phones cheapen out on the product's materials to drive cost down and cost for their devices aren't significantly cheaper than Apple's.

6. Philosophical difference. Apple will try to improve a technology for how people are trying to use it not just add more to market that it has a bigger number. Android manufacturers will just add 16MB camera up from 8MB and this will be their improvement. Apple will understand people want faster focus, sharper images, better low light pics and add the necessary changes to their products to facilitate this even while leaving the pixel count the same. Even with side to side comparisons Apple picture quality has consistently been better than Galaxy line's picture quality.

There are many other places differentiating Apple products from the Samsung Galaxy line. There are too many to list. Most customers aren't egg/gear heads who are so deep into their technology, they want something that works and meets their utility. That being said, it is no wonder Apple phones have been the number one selling phones in human history. And why its the number one product line in consumer electronics history. They produce what the world wants and there's no better device delivering what people really want.

QED
 

Steveymoo

Distinguished
Jan 17, 2011
69
0
18,580
Holy sh**, could you be any more blatantly biased? This article should just be called "Why I think Apple is better than Samsung."
 
Status
Not open for further replies.