Samsung has huffed, puffed and coughed
out. But in this eternal, yearly battle of smartphone Top Trumps, which device
is worth your money: the iPhone 7 or Galaxy S8?
Here’s my breakdown of the five features
that give the Samsung Galaxy S8 an edge over Apple’s flagship handset. Stay
tuned for my top reasons why the iPhone 7 is a better choice.
Bixby
Bixby can’t compete with Siri in
knowledge, but can with in-phone assistance.
Samsung’s second foray into an
artificially intelligent personal assistant has some promise.
No, it’s not as accomplished as Apple’s
Siri – or any other mobile AI from a major rival – but its goals are slightly
different, which should pique your interest.
Unlike Siri, Bixby doesn’t act as a
knowledge base for all of your questions (although this is something it tries
to do, but not very well), but rather offers a helping hand for in-phone
actions. For example, you could ask Bixby to send a picture you’re looking at
to a friend without leaving the Gallery app. The assistant contextually
understands what you’re doing on the phone and the app you have open – offering
assistance within that app to both help you navigate but also speed up tasks
and by spotting trends in your behavior.
This is exemplified by Bixby’s camera
feature. Taking photos of landmarks and, as Samsung explained, a bottle wine
will bring up additional information about it. So if you want to know where to
buy the wine you’ve just ordered, or even what it’s called, a snap will tell
you that.
This approach to a personal assistant
solves the issue of ‘feature overload’ that most smartphones suffer from, particularly
Samsung phones. New features and ever-shifting UI design concepts means lots of
good software ideas go completely unused. An assistant that helps you discover
and use them is what we need for 2017 smartphones.
More than a phone
© Provided by Forbes Media LLC The S8 as a desktop PC.
The S8 as a desktop PC.
These PC capabilities of the S8 aren’t to
be sniffed at. In essence, once Samsung’s flagship is connected to the – and an
accompanying mouse and keyboard – it becomes a souped up Chromebook. The
partnership with VMware means it supports a Windows virtual machine, giving you
some additional Windows-related functionality.
In fairness, how useful this is to the
everyday customer is questionable. But having remote access to your PC, or even
the dexterity of typing a full document powered by your phone is useful for
on-the-go business users.
The only thing Apple might be working on is a similar
docking station that doubles up as a laptop shell, as detailed in it. But, you
know, it’s a patent so it’s entirely likely this may never happen. Samsung
actually missed a trick here, a laptop shell with a built in screen and dock
for your phone would’ve made the S8’s PC capabilities much more consumer
friendly.
Similar frame, more display
The Galaxy S8′s long, (almost) bezel free
display.
Samsung has clearly been ‘inspired’ by
the iPhone 7’s design, so much so that a quick glance at the S8 and you might
mistake it for an Apple product.
But one thing the S8 has over the iPhone
7 design is that ‘infinity’ display, as Samsung calls it. The thinned out
bezels and maximized screen size is 2017’s design trend, which the Korean
company seems to have nailed.
In the iPhone 7’s 65.6% screen-to-body
ratio pales in comparison to the S8’s 83.6%. The dimensions, too, aren’t
dissimilar considering how much more display you’re getting:
iPhone 7 dimensions: 138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm
iPhone 7 dimensions: 138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm
Galaxy S8
dimensions: 148.9 x 68.1 x 8 mm
MicroSD
The S8 supports up to 25GB of expandable
storage.
Samsung found a between the discrepancy
of read and write speeds between external and internal memory in the S7, so
expandable storage shouldn’t harm performance.
With that in mind, The S8’s additional
256GB – on top of the 64GB that comes as standard – of storage dwarfs the
maximum option available on the iPhone 7 (256GB).
It also means that you’re more likely to
get huge increase in storage capacity for free…
Promotions
Many carriers are offering some good
initial deals on the Galaxy S8, including free 256GB micro SD cards and a free
Gear VR. Other carriers are offering a free bluetooth speaker and a to selected
music streaming services.
Samsung’s pre-order site, too, is
currently offering; ‘hand delivered replacements’ *cough*, a one-to-one set up
service, training sessions and 24 month financing with 0% APR.
Apple, on the other hand, is offering a
similar 24 month financing deal. But you’ll end up paying an extra £106 (£805
in total) for the iPhone 7 128GB rather than £699 if you pay upfront. Apple
doesn’t tend to give away freebies when you purchase an iPhone, and carriers
aren’t in the habit either. Mainly because Apple doesn’t need to.
Strong sales numbers following a major
launch for Samsung means exorcising last year’s demons and finally putting the Note
7 story to bed. So I’d wager that we’ll see increasingly dramatic promotions a
few months down the line to boost next quarter’s results.
If you’re still unsure about the Galaxy
S8, should quench your knowledge thirst.
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