5 Ways the iPhone 7 Still Beats Samsung’s Galaxy S8

Samsung’s newest flagship phone, the Galaxy S8, is certainly a high-end and top-notch device. It’s fast, powerful and has a ton of new features. But while the Galaxy S8 is Samsung’s latest and greatest, is it better than Apple’s older iPhone 7 Plus? We’d be inclined to say no — for a variety of reasons. But here are five of the top reasons that the iPhone 7 Plus is an all-around better device than Samsung’s latest flagship.

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5. Red-Tinted Displays

While Samsung managed to make the Galaxy S8 non-explosive, there have been reports of another issue plaguing the release of its newest flagship.

Apparently, Galaxy S8 devices in Korea have been shipping out to users with red-tinted displays. While certainly not as dramatic or dangerous of an issue as exploding batteries, the red-tinted displays were enough to cause controversy among S8 owners and the larger tech community.

Samsung has since announced that the red-tint isn’t a defect or a cause for a recall. Some industry experts have said that the issue could be caused by a more serious problem — namely faulty chips causing problems with the GPU, according to The Investor. Most experts agree that it’s not a safety issue, but Samsung certainly didn’t need any negative press surrounding its first flagship since the ill-fated Note 7.

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4. Camera & Portrait Mode

While the Galaxy S8’s camera is no slouch, it can’t compare with the iPhone 7 Plus’ dual-lens camera setup. Hands down, the iPhone’s dual-camera system gives it an extremely competitive edge over any other smartphone on the market. It’s such an impressive camera, in fact, that professional magazine photographers have been shooting with the iPhone 7 Plus in place of their high-end DSLR cameras.

Case in point, publisher Condé Nast just recently unveiled two of its magazine front covers that were shot using the iPhone 7 Plus, and its exclusive Portrait Mode — another feature that Samsung’s phones currently lack. Previously, Billboard used the iPhone 7 Plus and Portrait Mode to shoot one of its magazine covers, and Bon Appetit actually used the Apple flagship to shoot every single photo in their May issue.

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3. Customer Support & Warranty

Apple’s customer support and warranties are second to none — giving iPhone 7 Plus owners a bit more peace of mind when it comes to the care of their devices.

Cupertino’s limited warranty beats out Samsung’s due to one simple fact: Apple offers immediate replacement phones for faulty devices. That means, if your device can’t be fixed, you won’t be left without a smartphone for any period of time.

On a similar note, while AppleCare+ and Samsung’s extended Galaxy warranty cost about the same amount, Apple has another key advantage: Apple Stores. With the plethora of Apple’s brick-and-mortar locations across the world, it’s easy for an Apple user to bring their devices in for in-store service. Really, no other smartphone company offers anything similar. One customer who went into an Apple Store was able to get his iPhone 5s replaced with a refurbished device in just 15 minutes.

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2. Real-World Performance

The Galaxy S8 is fast. There’s no doubt about that — its Snapdragon 835 packs eight Kryo cores and powerful Adreno 540 graphics. The Galaxy S8 looks like an absolute beast of a device on paper.

Which makes it all the more embarrassing when YouTube channel EverythingApplePro conducted a real-world speed test pitting the Galaxy S8 against the aging iPhone 7 Plus — and Apple’s older smartphone won. In one particularly revealing challenge, the iPhone 7 Plus managed to render and process a 4K video in about half the time as the brand new Galaxy S8.

There’s a variety of reasons for that, but the result is that Apple’s older device — which only has four cores to the Galaxy’s eight— is still powerful enough to keep up with the S8. It’s even more impressive when you take into account the fact that Samsung’s newest flagship ranked higher than any other currently available smartphone in benchmark testing.

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1. iOS

Let’s face it: the main reason iPhones are better than Android devices is iOS (and it’s been that way for a long time). You could argue either way about the aesthetics and ease-of-use — so we won’t. Even if those qualities are debatable, iOS still has a number of serious advantages over Android.

Apple’s operating system boasts the App Store with higher-quality applications and more dedicated app developers creating innovative and practical new ways of wielding the iPhone’s true potential.

Perhaps most importantly, iOS is guaranteed to have much more consistent updates over a device’s lifespan. That gives the iPhone 7 Plus a serious edge over Android phones, and specifically Samsung phones which come pre-packed with manufacturer and carrier bloatware and are notoriously bad at receiving timely operating system updates. Without timely software updates, Android devices become inherently more susceptible to malware and security breaches, an issue iPhone owners are very rarely affected by.

Learn More: 10 Reasons to Download iOS 10.3