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Samsung is absolutely terrified of the iPhone X

Published Jul 18th, 2018 7:40AM EDT
Galaxy S9 vs. iPhone X
Image: Zach Epstein, BGR

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Samsung’s love/hate relationship with the iPhone continues with a brand new cringe-worthy commercial that attempts to mock Apple and the iPhone X for the silliest possible reason.

Mocking the iPhone isn’t a new tactic for Samsung, as the company used the strategy many times before, with some of the ads going viral on YouTube in previous years. But this new push just shows how terrifying the iPhone X is for Samsung, a phone that’s been selling a lot better than the Galaxy S and Note phones in spite of being a lot more expensive.

The ad was released a few weeks ahead of the Galaxy Note 9 launch, set to take place on August 9th in New York. Samsung is launching it about a month earlier than expected so it can have it in stores well before the 2018 iPhone series arrives. That’s also a sign that Samsung is afraid of the new iPhone X in a year when its flagship, the Galaxy S9, hasn’t been able to meet internal goals.

The iPhone X is the best iPhone you could ever ask for. Similarly, the Galaxy S9 is the best Galaxy S version ever. But there are hardly any reasons to criticize the iPhone X, and Samsung’s new ads prove that.

Recently, a different Samsung anti-iPhone ad made fun of slow iPhones, suggesting users should upgrade to a Galaxy. That ad wasn’t targeting the iPhone X, because no Galaxy can even achieve the kind of speeds available on the latest iPhones. And it’ll be a long while until Android devices get as fast.

The new ad, meanwhile, proposes us an incredibly silly situation. An iPhone buyer comes to an Apple store to ask an “Ingenius” about download speeds. First of all, I’ve never, in my life, been asked that question about any phone, nor did I ever consider asking it about the iPhone.

Secondly, she seems to be pretty well informed about download speeds, so what’s the point of coming to an Apple retail store to have all that confirmed? If you do need a device that can deliver the best download speeds, then you’re much better finding out that information online. Presumably, you’re a good googler if download speeds matter that much to you. And if you know about LTE download differences, you probably know the iPhone X does a lot better in benchmarks and that Galaxy phones fail more than iPhone.

Samsung also misses the more significant point/issue here. The theoretical maximum 4G speeds of any device are irrelevant in real-life situations. That’s because those speeds are hardly available in real-life scenarios.

No matter how fast the Galaxy S can download stuff, it’s likely that you’ll never miss that feature if you’re on a new iPhone. First of all, because you don’t know how fast the Galaxy S9. But most importantly, because the iPhone is pretty fast at downloading and streaming things.

Samsung’s attempt to mock the iPhone over the sort of complaint you’re not likely to hear in an Apple retail store unless the iPhone is defective is clear proof that the iPhone X is pretty scary for the Korean giant.

Chris Smith Senior Writer

Chris Smith has been covering consumer electronics ever since the iPhone revolutionized the industry in 2008. When he’s not writing about the most recent tech news for BGR, he brings his entertainment expertise to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and other blockbuster franchises.

Outside of work, you’ll catch him streaming almost every new movie and TV show release as soon as it's available.