Apple’s iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus quickly became the fastest-selling smartphones of all time following their launch this past September. The new Apple flagships were the company’s most powerful smartphones ever, and they included a number of firsts. Apple introduced multiple new colors to its iPhone lineup for the first time, and it doubled the available storage in each of its iPhone tiers for the first time. But there was also a first that Apple fans weren’t so happy about: the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus marked the first time Apple reused the same iPhone design for the third consecutive year.
The iPhone has always felt like it was ahead of the curve, but that changed in 2017 as the LG G6 and Samsung Galaxy S8 were introduced. These sleek new smartphones feature next-generation designs that leave Apple’s iPhone design from 2014 in the dust. Of course, the differences extend beyond design, and in this post we’ll cover five features in particular from the LG G6 and Galaxy S8 that will make iPhone users jealous.
Bye bye bezels
Companies like Samsung completely reinvented their smartphone business by doing everything they could to copy Apple’s iPhone designs, and it worked for Samsung in particular even better than the company could have imagined. In 2017, however, the iPhone is starting to feel quite dated.
The new LG G6 and Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ feature displays that do away with any lingering home buttons and logos. The new phones also rework internal components in order to make the bezels surrounding the screens as narrow as possible with today’s technical limitations. The result is a user experience that’s more immersive than ever before.
Fat guy in a little coat
Speaking of those narrow bezels, the LG G6 and Galaxy S8 also manage to stuff very large screens into remarkably compact designs. Chris Farley would’ve loved these phones.
With screen-to-body ratios that exceed 80% for the LG G6 and Galaxy S8 duo alike, there have never been widely available phones that pack larger displays into phones this size. In fact, the G6 and the smaller Galaxy S8 both include displays that are bigger than the one in the iPhone 7 Plus phablet, yet the phones themselves are closer in size to the smaller iPhone 7.
An assistant that really assists
Siri has gotten so much better in recent years, but users still complain constantly about all of Siri’s shortcomings. Meanwhile, on smartphones running Android 7.0 Nougat and later, users absolutely adore Google Assistant for the most part. Google Assistant might be terrible on the Google Home, but on a phone like the LG G6 or Galaxy S8 it’s pretty terrific.
One less wire to worry about
Plugging a Lightning cable into the bottom of an iPhone isn’t exactly a taxing chore, so I’ve been surprised to see how excited iPhone users have been to see rumors that the upcoming iPhone 8, iPhone 7s Plus and iPhone 7s will include wireless charging. It is a pretty handy technology, especially now that there are fast wireless charging standards. You know which three phones already include support for fast wireless charging? That’s right, the LG G6, Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+.
So many selfies
Last but certainly not least, we have a complaint that iPhone users have had since practically the dawn of time. And the bad news that there is a 0% chance Apple will ever address it, because doing so would mean destroying Apple’s iPhone ASPs.
When it comes to Apple’s latest iPhones, you can buy a 32GB model, a 128GB model or a 256GB model. Want more storage? You’ll need an external device like Lightning to microSD card adapter or a Lightning flash drive. Want more storage in your LG G6, Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8+? Pop in a microSD card.
