s8 or iphone 7

what is a good buy? iPhone 7 or Samsung s8? please help me decide. thanks

 

They're both very good phones. Which is better for you depends on your wants and needs.

Do you value a highly-customizable user experience? The S8 is the obvious winner. You can swap out launchers, icon packs, default software, etc etc etc. You can really make the phone "yours" in terms of software experience, whereas Apple really still feels like "there's one way to do things, and it's the Apple way."

Do you value timely security patches over several years? The iPhone is the obvious winner. Buy a new iPhone and you'll get security updates as soon as they roll out for 3-4 years, no problem. With the S8, either Samsung or your carrier may result in delays in Android security patches reaching you, and don't be surprised if those updates dry up entirely within two years of the S8's launch.

 

That's like comparing Apples to Oranges, because you think of which phone, you need to decide if you like iOS or Android more then choose the phone you want

 

Which ecosystem are you already invested into? Between all my amazon free apps and now my paid google apps on sale I get left and right, I am heavily invested in android. What phone do you have now? If you already have an s7 to me an s8 is a side grade.

 

I vote iPhone if it's your only phone. I own phones from all sides of the coin, and I like the iPhone the best. yep the os is boring, but its easy to use and rock solid. Android is awesome for playing with all the time, but there are just little issues that keep you having to reset the phone. Plus, the s8 is a Samsung. I would never own another. I have had a bunch now, and They always feel slow and sluggish after awhile...where as other android phones are always "snappy".

 

Neither is a "good buy". They are both top end flagship phones and you will pay a price for that. For a good buy, you want something that balances price, features and performance. eg; the Motorola Moto G4 Plus is at a good price point.

Or are you just trying to decide between the S8 / i7?

 

If it's between these two then choose based on OS IMO.

 

Here's a little diddy for you that I find most interesting......

 

S8.

 

want a slower phone? buy the S8. want a phone that you can mess around with, and make slower still, buy the S8, want a phone that runs fast and smoothly, but you cannot mess around with, and make slower...buy the iPhone 7. Want the iPhone 7 with a 3.5mm jack...get the 6s. It's really just as good and cheaper! I don't care that my phones OS is "boring".....it works, it's fast, and gets updates for years...unlike anything android that your likely to only get one OS update on if your lucky. I'm getting my third major OS update this fall with IOS 11. When I bought my phone, it was on 9, got 10 last year, and getting 11 this fall. Futureproof is iPhone as well. There are more reasons as well.

 

So the phone with 1/4 of the pixels moves a teeny bit faster, and the Android ports of some games are sometimes slightly less smooth than their iOS counterparts? Got it

I'd like to meet these people where a 0.25 second difference in loading a particular game is their defining criteria for smartphone selection...game loading time is one of those things that you never ever ever notice in real-life usage and can only detect in a back-to-back test.

 

When will you use the "extra pixels on a 4-5 inch screen other than to burn battery faster. and the speed comes from the fact that android does not manage ram very good...nothing to do with porting games. It's the ram management. Specs racing means nothing....I don't understand 4k in a phone screen. All you do is eat battery. Again, every android I owned slowed down after a little while using it.....and this video proves it. Plus...that's the 2 year old 6S not even the iPhone 7 which is even faster.

IPhone just manages everything better.

 

Samsung even provides an option to switch between max performance( max CPU freq and 1440p) and balanced/power save mode in a click of a button. iPhone simply a closed ecosystem.

 

Everything? That's fanboy talk.

As for smoothness, I have seen just as many microstutters on the iPhone Plus (a 1440p screen displaying at 1080p) as I have on my S7 Edge. The non-Plus iPhone is smoother than its bigger brother, but the bigger brother is the direct competitor to mine. And if you don't care about super-sharp 1440p text, the S7 can be switched from 1440p to 1080p or even 720p in settings. My wife has her S7 set to 720p, my S7 Edge is set to 1440p. Options!

Other things the Galaxy does better than an iPhone:

* Better integration of third party keyboards
* More customizable UI
* Better use of widgets
* Better drag-and-drop file management when hooked up to a PC
* MicroSD expansion! I have a 256gb card in mine.

The iPhone has some advantages too (shorter learning curve, software updates, third party developer focus), and for some people (not all) that makes it the better total package. But to say it's better at everything is pure nonsense.

 

can't get better than this!

 

No fanboy here my friend. I have devices with android, IOS, Windows mobile, Blackberry, windows, OSX and Linux. I use them all! and My experiences are that iphones are smoother, more stable (because of the more tied down system), and get updates much longer than android devices. Again, on android your LUCKY to get one major OS update, most most only get like from 4.0 - 4.4 etc. Where as on iPhone, I have already gotten 2 MAJOR updates (IOS 9 and IOS 10), and I am getting IOS 11 this fall. That's 3 major upgrades. I have 128GB iPhone, plus 1 TB of space on 1 drive...no SD card needed.

Ok, here are the list of things that iPhone does better than galaxy.

iPhone is Faster because apple has much better use and control over ram than resource hungry android
More tied down UI makes the phone smoother and less prone to user screw ups and slow downs
Widgets are on one page on my iPhone instead of messed all about on my android phones.
Agree with the drag and drop but I never do that nor does MOST users so that's moot
Mico SD is not an issue anymore...128gb in my phone (which apple makes much better use of than android), plus 1tb of onedrive space. Easy to move things back and forth as well.
ITunes and apple music are MUCH better than play.
Apps are better on iPhone. I use the same apps on both systems and IOS apps are just more polished and smooth (goes back to optimization).

I never see "microstutters" in my 6s, my galaxy was riddled with major stops when even scrolling screens....most of these happened after about 1 hr of use. Restart and it was fine again for about an hr, chalking it up to poor ram management.

 

I love how you dismiss drag-and-drop file management and microSD expansion as things you think "most people" don't need without even asking if the original poster is one of those people.

My Galaxy S7 Edge runs just fine. I find most Galaxy S performance issues are fixed by replacing the TouchWiz Home launcher with Nova Launcher. Like I said, in my experience the day-to say fluidity is comparable to the iPhone 6S Plus.

You say it's harder to mess up iOS, but if you routinely post on tech forums, is that actually a deciding factor for you?

With Android, you can put all your widgets in one screen if you want to just like in iOS, but that's not the only option available to you. I personally prefer instead to have the top half of each homescreen be widgets and the bottom half be icons, and Android allows me to make that choice. Also, Android widgets are more varied and versatile than iOS widgets.

Buying a maximum storage iPhone may be more convenient to you than a microSD card, but it's also hundreds of dollars more and must be re-spent every time you get a new phone, whereas a nice-quality microSD care can follow you from phone to phone.

The Apple Music versus Google Play Music debate is irrelevant because both apps can be had on both OSes. I use Apple Music on my S7 Edge.

I love how you claim "apps are better on iPhone" after pooh-poohing the idea that the back-to-back speed test video really just showed a difference in loading speed of certain specific games as opposed to anything else. You can't have it both ways.

All in all, I don't care what devices you've said you've owned, when two flagship smartphones dominate the US market, it is ridiculous fanboyism to say that one is better than the other in every single way. They both have some advantages over the other.

 

say wah? you can get iTunes and apple music on android?

Your last statement is what I am getting at......BUT, you seem to be fanboy/geeking out in the opposite direction there buddy! So, Just bringing in counter points to your opinion. And yes, besides true hardcore users, NOT many people care about drag and drop files etc. Most people just buy the phone with enough storage needed these days.

If that guy did the apps selection in reverse, the games would load faster, and then the other apps would be slower to load. it's all due to ram management. I own android phones as well, I know whats going on.

 

Android has Apple Music but not the iTunes Store. But if you have an Apple Music subscription, I'm not sure why you'd use the iTunes Store.

The only reason my posts seem one-sided if because I'm responding to someone who says A is better than every way so I'm pointing out how B is better. I agree that the iPhone is far better as to software updates, and my iPad 5's fingerprint scanner is faster and more reliable than my S7 Edge, and iOS gets more developer attention. The reason I was focusing on the S7's advantages was strictly because you said the iPhone has the advantage in EVERY way.

 

cool did not know that android had that....good to know.....I meant apple/iPhone manages everything in memory better.....After using everything known to man from the time I had to key into an operator and speak my numbers to her in order to dial, to what is available on the market today....I feel apple has the most complete package for ease of use, speed and apps. Android is better if you want to tweak crap etc. but if you want a phone to do what you need it to do without any problems....Apple is better, it's also faster once you have a few hrs use on it because of the way it uses ram. that's what I was getting at. Like I said, I own all platforms right now...They are all on my desk.

 

They're both competent enough that there's no reason to regret either one hardware-wise. If you already like one side of it, the other isn't going to make you switch because the advantages aren't enormous either way.

 

That was what I was sort of getting at with my initial post. But having both in my stable now, I can say the iPhone is the smoother, faster of the two OS's BUT....you are tied to what apple wants. Somethings like as soon as I plug my iPhone into my car, the music starts....DRIVES ME NUTS! But, that's how apple wants it. I put up with that. But having the smoothest OS is important to me as well, so apple has that. I stopped tinkering with OS stuff and loading roms etc. So I leave my android devices home now. I just take my iPhone all the time. I am going to sell off my other android devices, get the new LG stylo 3 plus for work (I want a pen equipped device for signatures etc), and my iPhone as my daily driver. In the end, you cannot go wrong with any device these days!

 

Same from the other side, I know the iOS is technically "better" but I feel like I have more control over Android so that's where I'm staying. But it's not hardware that's keeping me there.

 

I agree that iOS is objectively technically better security-wise but I'm not so sure in other respects.

As for hardware, there are a few areas where Samsung's hardware is a big advantage for me (albeit these are all subjective issues where reasonable people may disagree).

First, AMOLED and the always-on display. Love it.

Second, a dedicated back button. I prefer this approach to on-screen back buttons in inconsistent locations.

Third, the wide-angle front facing camera. The iPhone has a slight edge in single-person selfies, but the Galaxy is far better for group selfies. And since my wife never takes pictures, group selfies are the #1 way I actually appear in our family photos.

 

Subjective but important depending on how you use it. And now that you mention it I do love the display.

 

I dig the new HTC U11. That is NICE! There are so many nice android based phones it's hard to choose at this point. The KeyOne is awesome. I do like my iPhone. My last iPhone was the 4. I moved to windows mobile based devices with a few androids mixed in. But was mainly windows based. I got fed up with it when the lack of apps got to me. My wife's work had a deal on where we got the iPhone 6s 128gb for no money up front on a two year contract. So we said, screw it. (she was using a 1020 as well). We have been happy with our decision. I was SUPER ANTI APPLE before this phone. Still cannot stand MacOS. But the iPhone has grown on me and I really like it. But I, like many wear out sim cards swapping devices!