Speed test: iPhone 8 Plus vs Galaxy Note8

With the release of the latest iPhone models from Apple, the guys at Phonebuff have pitted the iPhone 8 Plus against the Galaxy Note8 in a real-world speed test. Both features top of the line specs but they come with different internals and operating system. Although the iPhone X is Apple’s top of the line product, the iPhone 8 Plus also uses the same hexa-core A11 Bionic chip.

So, the best of iOS vs the best of Android, who will win? Head after the break to find out.

Before that, let’s run through the specs for both devices. The iPhone 8 Plus has a 5.5″ Full HD display while the Galaxy Note8 gets a 6.3″ screen that can do Quad HD resolution. However, in the default setting, the Galaxy Note8 runs on FullHD+ which is about the same as the iPhone 8 Plus.

Both the iPhone 8 Plus and Galaxy Note8 have 10nm based chipsets but the iPhone 8 Plus gets 6 cores instead of 8 cores on the Galaxy Note8. It is worth pointing out that the Galaxy Note8 in the US is using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 processor while in other markets including Malaysia, it runs on Samsung’s own Exynos 8895 processor.

When it comes to raw processing, Apple historically has always topped the benchmarks despite having fewer cores and RAM. However, the Galaxy Note8 comes with 6GB of RAM (iPhone 8 Plus: 3GB RAM) which should give it an edge when it comes to multitasking. Another difference is storage where Samsung uses UFS while Apple uses NVMe. You can check out the benchmark scores for both devices below:

iPhone 8 Plus

Samsung Galaxy Note8

So enough of benchmark numbers. Watch the video below to see how both devices perform in real life:

As you can see from the video, the Note8 is superior in launching native and social apps such as camera, calendar, gallery, Facebook, Snapchat and settings. However, when it comes to more complex apps such as Photoshop Mix and games, Apple’s A11 Bionic chip starts to shine and eventually it overtakes the Note8 with a 3-second lead overall.

Things start to get interesting in the second round as Phonebuff goes back to the apps that have already been loaded. The Galaxy Note8 is clearly faster this time and that could be due to its 6GB of RAM. Eventually, the Note8 is faster by 6 seconds than the iPhone 8 Plus. Below is a recap of its individual app loading performance:

So which do you think is better? Let us know in the comments below.