It may be true that 2020 has been the year where it almost seems like every weird and wrong thing in the world is revealing itself without any restraint. Up is down, down is up, order is chaos and chaos is order. However, it has not gone so awry enough for certain things to have changed – like the simple fact that we are still in a modern age where everything is still digitalized and so the weirdness has not yet returned us to the analogue age or even the stone age. That said, hardly anybody is still left these days without a digital device – a phone. Almost everybody – if not everybody – has a phone these days, it is really just a question of what type of phone they are using.
Today, Android and iPhones have dominated over 90% of the phone market. As you can imagine, the market has been largely polarized by these two. It’s mostly either android or iPhone. However, there is a twist. With the incredible advancement of Samsung far above and beyond their peers in the android business, there is another polarity between the android used by Samsung users and the android used by other phone makers. Also, the incredible genius behind iOS technology is far greater than most androids and quite fairly, only Samsung android can reasonably compete with it.
As you might already know, with great technology, comes great cost. The advancement of the phones makes them a very high budget. As such, they already have a market of their own and that is where they compete. Therefore, if anything is also really polarized at the moment, it is the market for high budget smartphones. Basically, there is a north pole for iPhone and Samsung users and then the south pole for “others”. It is just about where you belong.
However, for those in the upper echelon of the phone community, there has been an age-long debate between Samsung users and android users: Which is better? iPhone or Samsung. A strong argument exists for both sides which truly does make this one a tough call if you have to decide which one you want to buy in 2020.
Perhaps, we could shed light on both parties and you could decide depending on your preference.
To begin with, what is the difference between iPhone and Samsung?
I mean, apart from the fact that one is Apple/iOS and the other one is Android, there’s got to be some other differences, right? There are!
- Usage: When it comes to the ease of use for both devices, it cannot be denied that both iOS and Android interface are easy to use and you can be rest assured that you won’t have any problems using any of them. However, if we consider how the home-screen is set up and the general appearance of the home screen, perhaps, the balance tilts toward android. Generally, android phones (Samsung in this case) gives you a lot of control over your device and the apps that come with it. You can set up your device exactly the way you want it and be flexible with it.
- Aesthetics: When it comes to phone selection, you might want to consider the kind of design and beauty the phone has because quite frankly, everybody loves good aesthetics. In all cases, iPhones have great designs. This is because Apple manufacturers produce luxury phones. As a result, you can expect that the next iPhone will be much more beautiful in comparison to the previous one. As far as Samsung phones go, many of them also come with awesome designs. For example, Samsung S7 is very much as aesthetically pleasing as iPhone 7 plus. However, this is not always the case because as much as these android producers also want aesthetics, it’s not their primary goal as it is with apple. So in making your decision, if you care about aesthetics, you might want to have it at the back of your mind that you may not see a Samsung phone better designed than a particular iPhone.
- Price: The reason I said earlier that these two have a market of their own is because their prices are high. Much higher than your average smartphone. To choose between the two, well, for iPhones, one thing you can always be sure about is that they come in high prices. It is certain. To get an iPhone, you will have to pay top dollar. For example, when iPhone X first got to the market, its starting price was $1,000. The iPhone 11 Pro Max had a starting price of $1,100 and iPhone 11 had a starting price of $700. Even iPhone SE that was meant to be iPhone “budget” phone was $400. However, Samsung phones have prices that vary from mildly expensive to very expensive depending on what you are getting. Very good Samsung phones can go for $200 – $300. However, for the ones that can actually compete with iPhones, you would have to dig really deep into your pocket. For example, Samsung’s latest Z lineup costs $1,400. More expensive than the iPhone prices listed up. Just look at that!
- Closed and open systems: One major difference between androids and iPhones is the fact that android is open source while iPhone is closed source. What this means is that for android, different developers could improve the system and any developer can create an app on android, unlike highly proprietary iPhone. Whatever you are going to get can only be gotten through apple otherwise you won’t get it. This is a safety measure to ensure that not just anything gets on apple devices.
- Security: There is not much of a debate here if we are keeping things real. iPhone is more secure. It has a better touch ID and a much better face ID. Also, there is a lesser risk of downloading apps with malware on iPhones than with android phones. However, Samsung phones are also very secure so it’s a difference that may not necessarily de a deal-breaker.
- Battery life: Samsung holds the advantage here. iPhones aren’t exactly known for their large battery capacity. As such, Samsung phones last longer and may not need to be charged as often as that of an iPhone.
- Camera: Here, one thing is for sure, both devices offer great camera quality. The camera quality is so good, it could replace a dedicated camera. Samsung camera has some top functions like wide-angle mode, low light-HDR, and a scene optimizer which adjusts camera settings to get the ideal shot depending on the subject. However, iPhone has slightly better camera features, for example, live photos. iPhone camera also seems more ideal for third-party app capturing. Overall, you cannot go wrong in this section. Whichever one you choose will still give you a great result.
- Storage: iPhones have always had a storage issue largely down to the fact that they don’t come with support for SD cards. However, this was improved with iPhone 11 Pro which has a space of 512GB internal storage. This is still not comparable to Samsung S10 which has up to 512GB internal storage and also supports up to 512GB micro SD card.
- Peripherals: This may not seem so important but it probably is. People generally tend to connect their phones to other devices, for example, laptops. All android devices use standard USB ports so you can always connect your phones to external gears. However, iPhones don’t use USB. As such, another external device that will connect with the phone’s proprietary lightning port is needed. This is an extra cost as USB cables are generally cheaper than lightning port cousins.
All these said, one thing we can ascertain is that whether you choose to go with a Samsung or an iPhone, you cannot go wrong because they are both high-quality phones. They have advantages in different aspects but they are generally very close. In the end, let your taste and your pocket decide!
