How do Android users feel about high-end Android phones losing performance battles against iPhones?

[poofyhairguy]

Oh come on. The Lumia 950/950XL has iris scanner for almost a year now. It is all tiny iterations in smartphones these days.

The key word there is "working." Everyone said the 950 iris scanner was a pain in the ass.

 

[Rifter]

Haha, what a joke. Basically any review site worth mentioning (even pro-Apple ones) say the Note7 is better than the 6s. Except for this one.

But as others have said, in daily use you're not going to notice much difference in any top phone from the last couple years. (Unless you're an Apple user and want more storage).

Review is biased for sure, as you mentioned even pro apple sites are admitting note 7 is better than 6s.

Id also like to see a review with the samsung chip not the snapdragon, since thats the chip that will be most widely used with the note 7 on a whole world level. I think only US and maybe china is getting the snapdragon.

 

[quikah]

The key word there is "working." Everyone said the 950 iris scanner was a pain in the ass.

Every review I have read says it works great, but is inconvenient because of the awkward way you need to hold the phone to allow it to scan your eyes. Something which is identical on the Note.

Anyway, you also said pushing the boundaries of what a smartphone can do. A novel way to unlock a phone doesn't push any boundaries. It is a nearly useless gimmick IMO.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Every review I have read says it works great, but is inconvenient because of the awkward way you need to hold the phone to allow it to scan your eyes. Something which is identical on the Note.

Every major review site who has talked about the Note 7 Iris scanner in relation to the Lumia one mentions how it is much better than the Lumia one. Apparently the Lumia required a VERY exact way to hold the phone while the Note 7 is more forgiving.

To me it's like fingerprint scanners on phone. Technically the Atrix had the first one of those, but it was a laptop scanner shoved it a phone that didn't work well. It took Apple's TouchID to have a decent implementation. The Note 7 is the first phone with a TouchID quality experience for its Iris scanning.

Anyway, you also said pushing the boundaries of what a smartphone can do. A novel way to unlock a phone doesn't push any boundaries. It is a nearly useless gimmick IMO.

I think the Secure Folder tied to the iris scanner is a big deal. We can now lock up our most secret information in the same way that a 1990's movie villain would- behind an eye scanner. Pretty cool.

I mean sure the iris scanner isn't like the first time we got a camera flash on a phone, but it's a bigger deal than many gimmick smartphone features that we get because it works well. Plus Samsung is already far ahead of anyone else on innovation- VR, a workable stylus, the best screens, etc.- and the Iris scanner is just part of the package.

The last innovation Apple rolled out was 3D Touch, which was such a big deal it didn't come in the newest iPhone release AND it basically won't get full use until iOS 10. Relative to Apple the Samsung devices have been innovation factories.

We won't see something truly groundbreaking in the smartphone space until foldable screens (which again Samsung and LG are on the forefront) become a "thing." Even the iPhone 2017 that has everyone excited just sounds like they are finally catching up to what Samsung ships today in form factor.

 

[simas]

It may matter who pays for it and how long you want to keep it

If I get buy one for myself - price matters a lot which cuts out iPhone from get go seeing what say $200 now buys in new phones in android land. After price comes stability (Apple was better with android now catching up) and ecosystem

If work issues one, it is whatever provided. If there is a choice I would go with familiar which would not be Apple

In terms of longevity - I want swappable battery , SD slot, ability to throw an XDA mod on it if I am bored. Non existing in Apple land..

My extended family is switching to cheap phones now ( motto Gs primarily) as they looked at costs of new devices.

And ultimately who cares? It is a f$cking phone, to make phone calls and check occasional email. Let wonna bees worry about status jewelry...

 

[master_shake_]

i am comforted that i can open es file explorer and see every single piece of data stored on my galaxy note 2 instead of having to jump through rings of fire to get stuff off an iphone.

oh yeah and i can explorer my media servers content and stream it to my phone.

 

[ericlp]

How do Android users currently feel about iPhone vs Android raw performance nowadays?

I'm curious how apple uses are limited to the closed software apple poses on them?

Try putting that favorite MP3 you have on your apple, good luck! Try filming that concert of the neighborhood band on your iphone? Good Luck!

I believe... unless we get a new radical hardware chip, we are pretty much at the limitations of today's mobile passive cooling CPU's/GPU's. Unless you can get a fan running in your cell phone or some other type of cooling we are going to be stuck with the current clock speeds +/- 10%. If there are great speed gains to be had (limitations of a stable CPU), qualcomm or samsung would be exploiting it.

 

[Commodus]

I look at benchmarks this way:

Raw performance isn't everything, and I agree that you have to pick based on platform, not just benchmarks. However, it does show that the Bigger Numbers Are Always Better strategy (Samsung's favourite) doesn't always work in practice. A 2.15GHz quad-core processor can struggle to compete with a months older, 1.85GHz dual-core chip simply because the dual-core chip is both better optimized and has the luxury of lighter, less burdensome software.

To quote Top Gear's review of the Ariel Atom: you don't need a rocket motor to power a soufflé.

 

[Commodus]

I'm curious how apple uses are limited to the closed software apple poses on them?

Try putting that favorite MP3 you have on your apple, good luck! Try filming that concert of the neighborhood band on your iphone? Good Luck!

I believe... unless we get a new radical hardware chip, we are pretty much at the limitations of today's mobile passive cooling CPU's/GPU's. Unless you can get a fan running in your cell phone or some other type of cooling we are going to be stuck with the current clock speeds +/- 10%. If there are great speed gains to be had (limitations of a stable CPU), qualcomm or samsung would be exploiting it.

I can sync that favourite MP3 through iTunes (or iTunes Match/Apple Music) or open it through a cloud service. I can easily record that neighborhood concert on my iPhone, edit it in iMovie (or another app) and upload it to YouTube (or Vimeo, or...). Yeah, you can drag-and-drop music on many Android phones, but it's not as if it's hard on iOS.

As much as I like Android and agree that it's generally more open, this is one of my big beefs: some Android fans act as if iOS users are groaning under the terrible, terrible weight of oppression and can't do anything at all. Well, no. There are certain things they can't do, but the gap in abilities is much narrower than you think it is.

 

[Zaap]

I'm curious how apple uses are limited to the closed software apple poses on them?

Try putting that favorite MP3 you have on your apple, good luck! Try filming that concert of the neighborhood band on your iphone? Good Luck!

There's a lot I'm not crazy about with iPhones to be sure, but I don't really understand your example challenges. Either thing isn't difficult on an iPhone or probably any phone from the last 5 years or so.

That said, here's how I feel about any comparison to my N7 vs. any iPhone. The only bench that matters is exactly how much money you'd have to give me to swap it for even the best iPhone 6s+. Hint: a hellavalot!

 

[DesiPower]

People trying to argue about apple being better than Google's ecosystem us like a Frenchman walking up to you and saying France is better than US. At that point what do you do? Try to have a conversation with him? Or just agree with him so that he goes away.

 

[Chaotic42]

My Galaxy S5 seems to get slower with every update. Turning off the animations in Developer Mode helps, but I'd still the the phone to be faster than I am.

 

[shortylickens]

This is how we feel:

Any questions?

 

[sweenish]

People trying to argue about apple being better than Google's ecosystem us like a Frenchman walking up to you and saying France is better than US. At that point what do you do? Try to have a conversation with him? Or just agree with him so that he goes away.

How is France not better than the US? What is the US the best at? I can name one thing the US is tops at, letting infants die. Go Texas.

What a terrible example.

 

[Zaap]

How is France not better than the US? What is the US the best at? I can name one thing the US is tops at, letting infants die. Go Texas.

What a terrible example.

Could you please leave crap like this dumped in the political forum?

(And please. People still repeat the idiocy of the infant mortality rate myth? Educate thyself.)

 

[DesiPower]

How is France not better than the US? What is the US the best at? I can name one thing the US is tops at, letting infants die. Go Texas.

What a terrible example.

Well, that's the thing, there are good and bad in both, people make their choices, anyone who tries to have an argument over it should be ignored. I chose France because there is almost like a popular culture rivalry between the two countries, even the recent Samsung commercial plays on that.

 

[sweenish]

Could you please leave crap like this dumped in the political forum?

(And please. People still repeat the idiocy of the infant mortality rate myth? Educate thyself.)

Am I leaving it, or at we doing this? Make up your mind.

 

[mikeymikec]

For me the "openness" of android is far, far more important than benchmark scores.

This. The only only hypothetical exception I can think of would be if the only Android phones out there had the kind of laggy UI that I've seen some Android interfaces have. But then I might even put up with that to avoid having to use iTunes to get music on my phone, or the "thou shalt use Apple" Bluetooth file transfer limitation, or the lack of file system accessibility on iPhones.

 

[beginner99]

I actually dismiss the premise. i would say pretty much all anandtech reader would agree that Apple SOCs since they make their own CPU cores have been superior (Amout of RAM is another question + price for additional storage). WelshBloke said it best. It's open vs closed platform and the fact that Apple costs about double to comparable Android phones (at least where I live, not US). So it's really a no brainer. And Apple doesn't offer anything in my price bracket anyway as I have no interest in spending $700+ on a phone. Plus general Apple-dislike coming from Computer-side.

 

[JeffMD]

What's funny is cpu speeds have been unoticable for a couple years now. The 601 in my last phone was so fast, and there is like no perceivable difference in my current 605. And the games front has been so bad, there is no high end gaming showcase to benefit from the faster gpus. So it comes down to features, screen, resolution, battery, and storage options, and currently my g4 still owns everything Apple has out.

 

[Commodus]

I actually dismiss the premise. i would say pretty much all anandtech reader would agree that Apple SOCs since they make their own CPU cores have been superior (Amout of RAM is another question + price for additional storage). WelshBloke said it best. It's open vs closed platform and the fact that Apple costs about double to comparable Android phones (at least where I live, not US). So it's really a no brainer. And Apple doesn't offer anything in my price bracket anyway as I have no interest in spending $700+ on a phone. Plus general Apple-dislike coming from Computer-side.

I'm a bit curious... why don't you like Macs? I just find it an unusual statement given that Macs are generally considered the gold standard for laptop (and all-in-one desktop) design. That and Apple is one of the few computer vendors to have resisted the race-to-the-bottom pressure that hurt quality across the board.

 

[DesiPower]

My issue with Apple is their sticker price. Back in the 2 year contract days, I could get decent Android phones for free, apples were generally $200 or more. Then after a year I could upgrade again for free, that was never available for Apple. Now Android phones have their own problems, they are overloaded with bloatware and after a year they are pretty much unusable, Apple lasts longer than that, so value for the money is same. Same issue with MacBook, expensive as shit but last longer and you can always sell for a good price, but sticker price is high. There is nothing a $1000 MacBook does that a $200 Chromebook cannot do.

 

[Roland00Address]

Actually 2×A73 = 4x53 more or less in die space not A72. And indeed we will see more hexacores big.LITTLE next year because A73 is smaller than A72 ( which is smaller than A57 ) so it will be cheaper to manufacture than current 72 and there is alredy some phones with the SD650 for good prices from Xiaomi... but I hope 8×LITTLE SOCs go to extinct.

Thanks for the correction.

 

[Commodus]

My issue with Apple is their sticker price. Back in the 2 year contract days, I could get decent Android phones for free, apples were generally $200 or more. Then after a year I could upgrade again for free, that was never available for Apple. Now Android phones have their own problems, they are overloaded with bloatware and after a year they are pretty much unusable, Apple lasts longer than that, so value for the money is same. Same issue with MacBook, expensive as shit but last longer and you can always sell for a good price, but sticker price is high. There is nothing a $1000 MacBook does that a $200 Chromebook cannot do.

Sophisticated native apps? Much greater performance? You may be a bit hyperbolic.

With that said, Apple's main challenge has been the "good enough" factor. You can get a $400 Android phone or Windows laptop that will do enough that many people will be happy with it. With that said, there are a few things that keep me with Apple: it's the generally better build quality, the typically higher performance, and the after-sale support. I never understand why people are willing to fight with their carrier to get a phone replaced, or spend two hours on a PC tech support call with someone who knows nothing beyond their script. There's a certain beauty to knowing that I can take a device into the Apple store and get a quick replacement, or call AppleCare and get someone who can pinpoint a problem within minutes.

 

[DesiPower]

Sophisticated native apps? Much greater performance? You may be a bit hyperbolic.

With that said, Apple's main challenge has been the "good enough" factor. You can get a $400 Android phone or Windows laptop that will do enough that many people will be happy with it. With that said, there are a few things that keep me with Apple: it's the generally better build quality, the typically higher performance, and the after-sale support. I never understand why people are willing to fight with their carrier to get a phone replaced, or spend two hours on a PC tech support call with someone who knows nothing beyond their script. There's a certain beauty to knowing that I can take a device into the Apple store and get a quick replacement, or call AppleCare and get someone who can pinpoint a problem within minutes.

True, if you can afford it, or willing to pay the high sticker price. I agree it's a hassle but I cannot justify the cost. I bought a nexus for $300 last year in Sept, planning to do the same this year around the time when the next model is announced. I refuse to spend $600.