How? That’s the easy part. Apple does well because they’re Apple, because they offer iOS, and well, because the cultivate their cults. Certainly, we have:
1. Sale Numbers
The S20 hasn’t been a huge success this year, but curiously, smartphone sales seem to be on target for the usual 1.5-something billion per yet. Samsung may be dealing with the combination of high prices and a lack of clear interest in 5G this year.
2.Profit margins
Apple has some of the lowest cost of manufacture and highest profit margins in the business. They pretty much only sell premium and super premium phones. Samsung sells more, but not more high-end units.
3.The Apple lock-in
Most iPhone users are happy with their iPhone. Apple scored an 82% rating on the American Customer Satisfaction Index for 2020, one point up from last year, and thus, one point up from Samsung’s 81% rating. The barrier to switching from Samsung to another Android phone is about zero, while the barrier to switching from iOS to Android is much higher for the average consumer.
4.Apple’s trade-in program
iPhone 11 users still paying off their iPhones 11 can trade-in for an iPhone 12. Older iPhone users can get some credit. And in fact, other companies have followed this, because it’s successful. It drives new hardware sales. Apple’s particularly sneaky about it, in that, while there’s no direct cost to the trade-in, you have to be on the AppleCare+ program to do it. So they’re getting another $250 or so on top of the price of the iPhone.
On technology? Let’s see. And much of it’s up to you and what you want in a new device. For me, personally, they’re both overly expensive toys… I have other toys I’d rather buy.
Apple may have an edge on 5G-NR, mostly because they built their own system, while Samsung’s at the mercy of a few weird decisions made by Qualcomm in the Snapdragon 865 SOC. Or perhaps not, since both are using an external 5G modem, and Apple’s added some smarts to keep the phone on 4G unless it needs 5G performance. That makes sense because eventually, 5G will always be faster than 4G and use less power per bit transferred. But today, neither of those things are guaranteed.
On technology? Let’s see. And much of it’s up to you and what you want in a new device. For me, personally, they’re both overly expensive toys… I have other toys I’d rather buy.
Apple may have an edge on 5G-NR, mostly because they built their own system, while Samsung’s at the mercy of a few weird decisions made by Qualcomm in the Snapdragon 865 SOC. Or perhaps not, since both are using an external 5G modem, and Apple’s added some smarts to keep the phone on 4G unless it needs 5G performance. That makes sense because eventually, 5G will always be faster than 4G and use less power per bit transferred. But today, neither of those things are guaranteed.
As for a comparison, there isn’t a 1:1 correspondence between iPhone and Galaxy S this year, despite their being four models of each one. The Galaxy S20 Ultra is an ultra premium model that starts at $1399, a good $300 over the iPhone 12 Pro Max. If you want to draw lines, the S20 FE is priced at $699, the S20 at $999, and the S20+ at $1199. So price wise, the S20 FE is a match to the iPhone 12 Mini, the S20 to the iPhone 12 Pro, and the S20+ a bit above the iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Also Read : iPhone 12 Vs iPhone 12 Pro - Don't Make a Mistake !
On displays… well, Samsung makes the OLED displays for both. Apple has been working with BOE as a second source, but apparently, the BOE panels didn’t meet Apple’s quality specs. BOE is a huge LCD manufacturer in China, and one of many suppliers of OLED microdisplays to other phone manufacturers. But of course, if Apple’s going to multi-source their displays, the result has to be virtually identical or they’ll get a bad rap, just as Samsung did that year you could get your Galaxy S with either a Samsung or Sony camera, and they were not identical. The S20 displays can run at 120Hz if that’s interesting to you, the iPhone 12’s are 60Hz. I don’t find the higher refresh worth the battery drain, but this is a kind of “everyone has it” thing for 2020.
Also Read : iPhone 12 Vs iPhone 12 Pro - Don't Make a Mistake !
On displays… well, Samsung makes the OLED displays for both. Apple has been working with BOE as a second source, but apparently, the BOE panels didn’t meet Apple’s quality specs. BOE is a huge LCD manufacturer in China, and one of many suppliers of OLED microdisplays to other phone manufacturers. But of course, if Apple’s going to multi-source their displays, the result has to be virtually identical or they’ll get a bad rap, just as Samsung did that year you could get your Galaxy S with either a Samsung or Sony camera, and they were not identical. The S20 displays can run at 120Hz if that’s interesting to you, the iPhone 12’s are 60Hz. I don’t find the higher refresh worth the battery drain, but this is a kind of “everyone has it” thing for 2020.
Apple did one very un-Apple-like thing this year: they doubled the display resolution on all of their phones. The Mini has a 2340x1080 screen, the 12 and 12 Pro sport a 2532x1170 screen, and the Pro Max a 2778x1284 screen. That makes them finally competitive with Samsung and a number of Android devices on the market, all with QuadHD or greater screen resolution. The S20 FE has a 2400x1800 screen, while the other S20s have a 3200x1440 screen.
However, this might cut you, too. The lower end iPhones still have 4GiB
DRAM, which means that in practice, thanks to screen size, a bit less available than on the iPhone 12. The rumors suggest that the Pro Max and maybe the Pro get 6GiB, but Apple really, really doesn’t like to tell you about their memory.
However, this might cut you, too. The lower end iPhones still have 4GiB
DRAM, which means that in practice, thanks to screen size, a bit less available than on the iPhone 12. The rumors suggest that the Pro Max and maybe the Pro get 6GiB, but Apple really, really doesn’t like to tell you about their memory.
Apple’s selling their new glass, called Ceramic Shield, as being 4x less smashy than last year’s glass. They need that… something like one third of smartphone users these days break their screens in the first two years of use. This is up from about 25% in 2014, thanks mostly to the all-screen, no protection design of the latest phones. Not to mention glass on the back as well as the front. So, we’ll see if Apple’s glass is any better. I’ll wager they don’t actually want to make it better, or they’d just stop using glass.
The Ceramic Shield glass is supposedly a private project between Apple and Corning, but the S20 uses Corning’s Gorilla Glass 6, but the recently introduced Galaxy Note 20 uses the new Gorilla Glass Victus, which sounds very, very similar to what Apple’s using. Corning stated that Victus is the first glass that’s both less scratchable and less smashy… in all past formulations, the smashability and scratchability were trade-offs.
The Ceramic Shield glass is supposedly a private project between Apple and Corning, but the S20 uses Corning’s Gorilla Glass 6, but the recently introduced Galaxy Note 20 uses the new Gorilla Glass Victus, which sounds very, very similar to what Apple’s using. Corning stated that Victus is the first glass that’s both less scratchable and less smashy… in all past formulations, the smashability and scratchability were trade-offs.
And this is the other issue with this sort of comparison: the S20s were released in February, over 7 months prior to the iPhone 12. The Note 20 is newer, but it’s still of the same basic generation as the S20. The next Galaxy S, probably called the S30 series, to be released in winter of 2021 in all likelihood, will be just as valid a comparison as the S20. Apple seems to have had a few thoughts about the constantly increasing prices of smartphones. They didn’t increase prices in 2020, and they actually dropped just a bit in 2019. While Samsung has all sorts product lines (the Note and Z high-end lines, the midrange A and low-end M series), the market does occasionally speak, and when they do, you ought to listen.
Moving on to cameras, the thing everyone wants to sell you, Samung has much better camera hardware then Apple, with one exception. The iPhone 12 Mini and iPhone 12 lack any portrait or telephoto camera, and use the same 1/2.55″ sensor as in the iPhone 11 for the main camera. The S20 FE, S20, and S20+ each have three cameras: ultrawide, wide, and 3x telephoto for portraits, which, being 3x that of the standard wide camera is just about right for portraits. Each of these phones has a 1/1.72″ main image sensor, much larger than Apple’s, and actually even larger than the slightly upgraded 1/1.85″ sensor in the iPhone 12 Pro Max. All of the Apple sensors are 12 megapixels, but the sensors in the S20 and S20+ are 48 megapixels “Tetracell”, meaning that they can shoot as conventional 12 megapixel camera, a 12 megapixel one-shot HDR camera, or a somewhat lower-than-expected quality 48 megapixel camera. The 3x camera on the FE is 8 megapixel, but the telephoto on the S20 and S20+ is a larger 64 megapixel chip, allowing for better software “zoom” even before using advanced software.
That advanced software is called Space Zoom, which delivers an enhanced, computational zoom from the telephoto camera of up to 30x on these. That 30x software zoom is completely worthless, but going up to 6x-8x from 3x, the image still looks quite good. It was expected that Apple would employ something similar, based on variable-pixel linear reconstruction (which Google used for Super Res Zoom back in 2018), but no word on that yet. It is, after all, a simple matter of software.
That advanced software is called Space Zoom, which delivers an enhanced, computational zoom from the telephoto camera of up to 30x on these. That 30x software zoom is completely worthless, but going up to 6x-8x from 3x, the image still looks quite good. It was expected that Apple would employ something similar, based on variable-pixel linear reconstruction (which Google used for Super Res Zoom back in 2018), but no word on that yet. It is, after all, a simple matter of software.
The Galaxy S20 Ultra has a different setup, with a much larger 1/1.33″, 108 megapixel main camera using a Nonacell (3x3 cells) color filter array. That lets them deliver high quality 12 megapixel photos using the whole 108 megapixels, single shot HDR, full 108 megapixel images (with horrible dynamic range), or various software zoom modes. This one also has a folded “periscope” telephoto at 4x with a larger 48 megapixel sensor. So the cameras on this bad boy are pretty much its reason for being.
Samsung has also traditionally had very good software for photography, AI and computational, but they’re generally third behind Google and Apple, relying on better hardware to make up for it. But you’d have to get a real comparison between the phones to know just who’s ahead in the final result.
Also Read : OnePlus 8T vs Google Pixel 5 - The Brutal Truth !
And finally, on the S20+ and Ultra, you get Samsung’s “DepthVision” camera, which is a time-of-flight camera usable for rangefinding and depth mapping. For the “fake bokeh” effect, for augmented reality, a time-of-flight camera is nearly the best means of delivering a 3D sense to a phone. Apple, on the other hand, one-upped that with their scanning LiDAR sensor on the Pro models. Both of these send out a blast of infrared light and time the reflection, per pixel, on a special sensor. However, Apple’s using some kind of scanning laser. So they can probably send more intense light at any given time, and since they’re only scanning part of the image, they don’t detect reflections that can fool ToF sensors some times. This is one of those examples of Apple looking at what everyone else has offered for a year or two and coming up with an improved version.
Also Read : OnePlus 8T vs Google Pixel 5 - The Brutal Truth !
And finally, on the S20+ and Ultra, you get Samsung’s “DepthVision” camera, which is a time-of-flight camera usable for rangefinding and depth mapping. For the “fake bokeh” effect, for augmented reality, a time-of-flight camera is nearly the best means of delivering a 3D sense to a phone. Apple, on the other hand, one-upped that with their scanning LiDAR sensor on the Pro models. Both of these send out a blast of infrared light and time the reflection, per pixel, on a special sensor. However, Apple’s using some kind of scanning laser. So they can probably send more intense light at any given time, and since they’re only scanning part of the image, they don’t detect reflections that can fool ToF sensors some times. This is one of those examples of Apple looking at what everyone else has offered for a year or two and coming up with an improved version.
How? Apple uses an array of vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) for scanning, so there’s no need to actually move anything. They got experience with VCSELs in the iPhone X — they were used to create the dot pattern used for their FaceID technology.
Memory-wise, the lower-end iPhones have the same 4GiB, as mentioned, and maybe the higher end phones offer 6GiB. This is probably DDR5 memory, but again, Apple doesn’t like to talk about DRAM. The S20 FE offers 6GiB or 8GiB DRAM, depending on version. The standard S20 has , while the S20 Ultra offers 12GiB or 16GiB. And Samsung is using DDR5... they make it themselves, of course.
The S20 FE is offered with either 128GB or 256GB flash, while the low end iPhones can match that, but also have a 64GiB option. The S20 is only offered with 128GB, while the S20+ and Ultra come in 256GB and 512GB versions. The all support a microSD card expansion up to 1TB, but sadly, no UFS memory upgrade option (a memory card that’s similar in speed to internal flash memory). Samsung also makes the flash memory.
Memory-wise, the lower-end iPhones have the same 4GiB, as mentioned, and maybe the higher end phones offer 6GiB. This is probably DDR5 memory, but again, Apple doesn’t like to talk about DRAM. The S20 FE offers 6GiB or 8GiB DRAM, depending on version. The standard S20 has , while the S20 Ultra offers 12GiB or 16GiB. And Samsung is using DDR5... they make it themselves, of course.
The S20 FE is offered with either 128GB or 256GB flash, while the low end iPhones can match that, but also have a 64GiB option. The S20 is only offered with 128GB, while the S20+ and Ultra come in 256GB and 512GB versions. The all support a microSD card expansion up to 1TB, but sadly, no UFS memory upgrade option (a memory card that’s similar in speed to internal flash memory). Samsung also makes the flash memory.
On batteries, Apple as usual doesn’t like to talk about those specs either. A leak widely published online, claiming 2,227 mAh for the Mini, 2,775 mAh for the iPhone 12, 2,815 mAh for the Pro, and 3,687 mAh for the Pro Max. The best performance of an iPhone 11 was nearly twelve hours for the iPhone 11 Max, as tested by Tom’s Guide. Now of course, Apple published much longer numbers for iPhone 12 battery life, but it’s all on how you test it, and these are not larger batteries than in the iPhone 11 series, which didn’t have to deal with 5G-NR radio. I’m using Tom’s numbers because they’re independent and available for both platforms.
The S20 FE has a 4500mAh battery, which is particularly interesting given that this model, added later in the year, offers a bit more battery than the 4000mAh of the regular S20. The S20+ has a 4500mAh battery, and the Ultra has a 5000mAh battery. So the Samsungs all have an edge… maybe. Apple has been very good with their power management software. All phones have a big chunk of hardware and software for power management, but Apple might be a bit ahead on this. Tom’s Guide found the Galaxy S20 to run 12 hours on their benchmarks, with only 9.5 hours on the S20.
Performance-wise, the iPhones are the winners. The all have the same Apple A14 system-on-chip. Apple has made the fastest ARM cores in mobile from anyone. The A14 chip has two high performance cores, six low power cores, which is a bit unusual. Like most recent Qualcomm driven chips, the Galaxy S20s have one super high performance core, three high performance cores, and four low power cores — Qualcomm claims a 25% boost in the Snapdragon 865 over the Snapdragon 855. Both systems have GPUs, and curiously, while the Samsung GPU is a bit of an upgrade for 2020 — about 20% — the Apple GPU seems to be a downgrade. That’s not so much the A14 chip per se, but recent benchmarks show the latest iPad with A14 turning in higher performance numbers than the iPhone 12. That could be new code issues, but it suggests that Apple’s downclocking the iPhone — perhaps out of the dual concerns of a smaller battery and the extra power needed by a 5G-NR radio.
I originally found some benchmarks based on the iPad Air 2020, which has the A14 chip, but also suspected that the iPhone version was a bit downclocked, to help make up for the small batteries in the iPhone 12. So I found some new Geekbench results for the iPhone 12 A14 versus the iPad A14 and the A12Z of the iPad Pro (2020), which has more high speed cores, though of an older design. The iPhone 12 and iPad Air are tied at 1585 on single-core Geekbench. On multi-core, the A12Z and then A12X both outperform the A14 in the iPod Air, 4645 to 4124. Curiously, though, while the single core performance is a match, the multicore on the iPhone 12 drops to 3818. On the GPU compute benchmark using the Metal API, the iPad Air and A14 is the fastest Apple, at 12488, while the best A12Z result is 11711, and the iPhone 12 comes in at 9237. Still faster than the iPhone Pro’s 7325… so yes, they’re throttling the A14, but it’s still faster than the A13 in the iPhone 11.
The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra turned in a single core CPU benchmark of 844, and a multi-core benchmark of 3106. So the single core result is 88% faster, and the multi-core is 23% faster. However, there’s a caveat here! US version Galaxy S20s use the Snapdragon 865, but some foreign models use Samsung’s own Exynos 990. The Exynos 990 scored 800 single core, 2688 multi-core… so that models a bit slower. Geekbench didn’t have Vulkan benchmarks up for these phones, but under OpenCL, the Qualcomm based S20 Ultra did 3181, while the Exynos based S20 Ultra did 5025! I’m not sure how important general purpose GPU computing is for phones, but the iPhone 12 is 190% faster than the Snapdragon S20 Ultra, 84% faster than the Exynos version. This isn’t a measure of 3D performance, but it’s at least suggestive.
I didn’t find the A14 benchmarked on the 3D Mark gaming benchmarks yet, but there’s a pretty good chance it’ll clobber the Samsung on the Wild Life benchmark… the iPhone 11 was 3x faster than my Snapdragon-855 based ZTE Axon 12 Pro. It was apparent, it struggled through Wild Life. However, in the Wild Life stress test, you see the iPhone throttle down very quickly over successive runs, which is not the case on Android. My phone scored 7597 on the Sling Shot test, versus 7113 for the iPhone 11 and 7666 for the iPhone 11 Pro, and 9160 for the Galaxy S20… a tad faster than the iPad Pro’s 9152 result. Sling Shot and Slingshot Extreme ran nicely on my phone.
Also very interesting is the AI processor. Apple refined their “neural engine” and also doubled the number of cores. Apple leans very heavily on AI processing for their clever photography software, so even right out of the box, additional AI computation both produces faster results and can actually save battery power over handing off those AI tasks to CPU+GPU. Qualcomm also has an AI processor on their recent Snapdragon chips, and the AI processor in the Snapdragon 865 represents their 5th generation architecture, with a claim of twice the previous performance. I haven’t seen any specific benchmarks yet for AI processing on phone… would be interesting.
Also very interesting is the AI processor. Apple refined their “neural engine” and also doubled the number of cores. Apple leans very heavily on AI processing for their clever photography software, so even right out of the box, additional AI computation both produces faster results and can actually save battery power over handing off those AI tasks to CPU+GPU. Qualcomm also has an AI processor on their recent Snapdragon chips, and the AI processor in the Snapdragon 865 represents their 5th generation architecture, with a claim of twice the previous performance. I haven’t seen any specific benchmarks yet for AI processing on phone… would be interesting.
Of course, that’s all specs. Most buyers know if they prefer Apple or Android, and take it from there. So I’m not sure there’s much of a “beating” here to worry about, other than for fanbois to post brags about the product they just bought. If they must… it’s a rather silly way to spend one’s time. My only smartphone brag is that I got a flagship 2019 Snapdragon 855 phone, in 2019, for $450 (the ZTE Axon 10 Pro)… take that, Samsung!
Pretty much any Android phone can replace another, but Apple is Apple, love ’em or hate ‘em. As my wife likes to say, “you get what you get and you don’t get upset”. Apple could offer free beer with the iPhone and I’d still have a hard time jumping into that ecosystem… the Apple way of doing things hasn’t fit me going all the way back to the 8-bit days of the Apple.
Pretty much any Android phone can replace another, but Apple is Apple, love ’em or hate ‘em. As my wife likes to say, “you get what you get and you don’t get upset”. Apple could offer free beer with the iPhone and I’d still have a hard time jumping into that ecosystem… the Apple way of doing things hasn’t fit me going all the way back to the 8-bit days of the Apple.
Let me know your thought on the comment section below and I'll catch you in the next one....
Peace Out !!!
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