Android vendors used to be obsessed with specs, largely because every smartphone out there was so similar that it was the only way to try to set their handsets apart from the rest. While companies like Samsung, LG and HTC don’t focus on specs quite as much anymore in their advertising and marketing, flagship phones obviously still see big spec bumps each and every year. In recent years, however, an interesting trend has emerged: Apple’s “underpowered” iPhones, which always pack fewer processor cores and less RAM than their Android rivals, regularly obliterate Android phones in real world speed tests. In fact, even year-old iPhones tend to beat brand new flagship Android phones, as we’ve also seen time and time again.
Something interesting appears to be happening in 2017, however. We already saw that Samsung’s new Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ completely crush the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus in multi-core benchmark tests, but it remains to be seen how that translates to real world performance in day-to-day usage. Now, the first speed test video has been posted to YouTube.
We have good news and bad news when it comes to this early real world speed test comparison. The good news is that it’s clear from the video that Samsung’s new smartphones are lightning-fast when it comes to things we do constantly on our phones, such as opening and switching apps. The bad news, however, is that this first speed test was conducted very poorly.
As we’ve explain time and time again, these real world speed tests that YouTube vloggers post are very unscientific. This new test conducted by YouTube user “TECH VOICE 2 POHEN Amer” is even less controlled than most, however. While other vloggers set up a “lap” scenario where each phone races through opening and then reopening the same set of apps, the video below merely shows the narrator attempting to tap on one app after the other and then call one phone a winner each time.
Long story short, this test does a very bad job of actually comparing the speeds of these two phones in real-world scenarios. What it does do, however, is show that Samsung’s new flagship phones are actually faster than the iPhone when opening some apps, which is something we really haven’t seen before.
The full speed test video is embedded below, and we definitely recommend checking it out to see just how impressive the new Galaxy S8 is. As far as actually comparing Galaxy S8 and iPhone 7 Plus performance, we’ll have to wait for some of the more experienced vloggers to get their hands on Samsung’s new flagships before we draw any conclusions.
