- When you're comparing smart phones as significant
and expensive as the iPhone 10 and the Galaxy S9,
it helps to have a little help.
- Hi.
- I'm Mr. Mobile. This is Jon Rettinger.
And we're here to finish the comparison we already started
at TechnoBuffalo.
- We have a winner.
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- Wow. Fun, new format.
- Look it. I'm on a new channel.
- Talking to you directly, I'm not a disembodied voice,
and I have a friend. Listen one more time folks,
if you missed part one of this comparison,
pretty crucial components of the phone experience covered.
Build, software, camera. Not in that order.
In reverse order. It's over at TechnoBuffalo.
Go see it in the proper order at the
TechnoBuffalo YouTube channel.
And also be sure to subscribe to TechnoBuffalo on YouTube
so you don't miss the killer videos Jon
and his team are putting out.
So, now that we've established that, and now that
we have people coming here for part two,
we're covering one major category. Like, that's it
before we get to subjective opinion.
And that's a category called Intangibles.
That's a category name you came up with at TechnoBuffalo.
- [Jon] True.
- [Michael] Can you tell us what it means?
- [Jon] Yeah I mean, the things that are intangible.
- Duh. Inflammable.
- [Jon] It's the stuff that makes the phone experience
unique. You can't really break out into it's own category.
It's what makes the Galaxy S9 Plus the S9 Plus.
The iPhone 10 the iPhone 10.
So, I'll start, can I start there?
- [Michael] Please.
- [Jon] So, obviously, there's a lot of things
that make this phone unique. And I think,
intangibly speaking, this is the phone that a lot of
Apple-faithful were waiting for and hoping for.
And if you weren't expecting a radical iOS redesign,
you were hoping for a bezel-less design.
You were hoping for wireless charging.
You were hoping for the removal of that home button,
or at least moving it somewhere else.
And, Apple delivered that with the iPhone 10.
So, a lot of intangibles here.
I think where you start is with the notch.
You're starting with Face ID. And you're getting
a lot with that. You love or hate the notch.
We talked about that. Check it out.
But, what the notch is gonna give you is really Face ID.
And with Face ID, it sounds gimmicky,
the commercials are beyond ridiculous,
but it does work very well.
Like much better than you would expect.
And that makes the experience unique as you almost
forget that your phone has ever been locked.
- [Michael] Before we get too far away from that,
we should just say right out here that I think
it works a lot better than the Samsung solution,
which is a combination of factors. It's a hybrid thing.
We've got the iris scanner for a very secure side
of the Samsung experience. But you can set
with, what's it called, it's an intelligent scanning, right?
You can set it to fall back on the less secure face unlock,
which is faster, but it's still not as fast,
simultaneously fast and secure as the iPhone X.
- [Jon] Yeah. My experience with Samsung was it worked
almost 100 percent of the time, but was never as fast.
So that's a big intangible feature.
Things like Apple Pay, obviously, are a big one.
If you've ever had two phones sitting on a desk
and you've heard the vibration from the Galaxy S9,
and really most Android phones versus the vibration
coming out of it's haptic engine, that's a subtle
huge difference.
- [Michael] The only thing I've seen come close on
Android is the LG V30 and the Note 8.
But still, the iPhone still runs away with it.
- [Jon] It does make a difference. And, I think other
intangible things you finally have with the iPhone.
You finally have wireless charging. You do.
- [Michael] Qi wireless charging, to be specific.
- Qi. And can I talk about annoying intangibles?
- I wish you would.
- Slightly about the iPhone.
- Please do. Cause I'm going to run away with it
on the S9. So go ahead.
- [Jon] So fast charge capable, but if you want to
fast charge it, Apple is happy to sell you accessories
that do not come included. That's an annoying intangible.
If you own a MacBook, and you want to charge your iPhone,
Apple's happy to let you do that, for a $25 charge
to get a USB-C to Lightning cable. Obviously,
there are cheaper options. But first party wise,
that's ridiculous that that stuff is not included
with the phone.
- [Michael] Yeah. And I was gonna piggy back on that
for the S9 intangibles. Because that's, with the S9 Plus
and the S9, you get a fast charger in the box,
as you always have for generations and generations of
Samsung devices. It is rather criminal that you don't
get that on the much more expensive iPhone 10.
To continue, did you want to hit the Eco System
before we left?
- [Jon] The Eco System is a huge benefit,
and I think a big reason a lot of people get the iPhone.
Things like, your iMessages, it seamlessly works
if you use a Mac, your backup and restore.
The Eco System is incredible. And unmatched in the industry.
- [Michael] And here's the thing, and this has been
the recurring theme of the entire two-part comparison.
When we switch over to looking at the S9, and the S9 Plus,
you just get an overwhelming avalanche of options and
features and aspect.
We've talked about the fast charger bit already.
Bixby.
Not better than Siri.
- [Jon] That's not saying a huge lot
- [Michael] It's not.
- [Jon] That's not saying a huge amount.
- But Google Assistant is better than them both.
- Not even close.
- And you can run Google Assistant, you can't necessarily
map the button to Google Assistant without a hack,
but you can run Google Assist on the S9 Plus
just like you can on any Android phone.
Still talking about the S9 here. You have the option
to turn it in to a stand-in computer, using Dex.
- [Jon] Dex.
- [Michael] Which, I haven't played much with the new
touch pad yet, but there is no accessory for Dex,
so that's not dead.
IP 68 Ingress Protection versus the iPhone's IP 67.
I'm not even calling that an advantage, I'm just saying.
- [Jon] It's one Ingress Protection better.
- [Michael] Of course. And then you look at the
standard itself and you're like, wait, there's no,
there's so much leeway in manufacturer selection
that these could actually mean the same thing.
It's only assumed to be better.
There is a port on here that, have you ever seen
this before? This round port on the bottom?
- [Jon] I remember it vaguely.
- [Michael] I'm tired of this joke and everyone's made it.
But the headphone jack. If you care about it,
I don't really, it came in handy on a flight once really.
Also, Face ID, very good. Fingerprint scanner,
still useful at times.
- [Jon] And finally in a good location?
- [Michael] Yes. Right below the camera where it belongs,
and you can use it as a track pad to drop
the notification shade, which I always call out
cause I always love it. I wish the iPhone 10 had
found space for a fingerprint scanner in addition
to the excellent Face ID. So there that is.
Samsung Pay, you mentioned Apple Pay, well
Samsung Pay works in pretty much all the same locations.
Wait, no, it works in every location that has a
credit card reader. What am I missing?
Expandable storage. Pop a Micro SD card in there.
Wireless fast charging, yeah, but fast charging with
dual mode. So I can still drop this on Starbucks pads
that haven't gotten the PMA to Qi update in.
I can wirelessly charge with this, I can't do it
with the iPhone.
Whoa, I'm out of breath. What's going on.
- I think also of note, extra band support.
- [Michael] For LTE?
- [Jon] For LTE, you're getting with the Galaxy S9,
especially relevant I think if you're on T-Mobile.
- [Michael] Yes.
- [Jon] I personally live in a fringe T-Mobile area,
barely get service with the iPhone 10.
With the Galaxy S9 Plus, I get two bars.
I know that doesn't mean that much. What it means
for me is I can consistently and regularly make phone calls
without it dropping.
- Right.
- So that may be a big intangible for a lot of folks.
- [Michael] The very definition of intangible.
Signal strength.
- [Jon] That was a big, that was a big,
intangibly large category.
- [Michael] Nice.
- [Jon] You like that?
- [Michael] Yeah I do.
- [Jon] So it should, at least to me, it seems obvious,
but who is your pick for intangibles?
- [Michael] It's not just you, it is obvious.
My pick for intangibles, the Galaxy S9 wins the
intangibles for me. What about you?
- [Jon] Galaxy. For everything you just said.
Galaxy S9 for intangibles for me too.
- Before we move on here, I do, I think we want
to make this clear, right, you guys are probably asking
all about battery, and performance. That kind of
nebulous category name. We touch on those an awful lot
in the first part of the video. Go back and check it out.
But also, they're roughly equivalent.
- There wasn't much of a point belaboring it
when the equivalency is pretty close. A45, A11.
- [Michael] Yeah, and then the Exynos build of the
other Samsungs, so you can do the side by side,
you can do the app launch thing, which is great
if you're into that, that's cool. Honestly, I think,
from a day-to-day standpoint, these are comparable.
I will say the iPhone is a little bit more fluid,
as is typically the case. But Samsung has never made
a faster phone than this.
And battery, we're just kind of...
- [Jon] It was, equally not awesome?
- [Michael] Equally unimpressive. Average.
Yeah. We should say the iPhone 10 is a bit older,
and so it probably did better in the initial review
if you go back and watch the initial reviews.
- So, we've taken a breath, and now before we get
to my favorite category, the cop-out category,
I want to throw it to Jon so he can give us
what many of you have come for.
- The winner!
- The final score.
- So we ran through four hotly-contested, landmine
categories, and we came to a winner by a score of
five to three.
Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus
is our winner.
- We have one last thing, which is why we brought
you all the way over here, and that's because
so many people, whenever we talk about this stuff as
objectively as possible, want to know our
subjective opinion.
But Jon, what do you like to carry?
What's your thing? What fits into your life?
And the same for me.
So, which of us wants to go first?
- Take it.
- Yeah?
- It's your channel.
- Okay. And you're the guest, so you get to lead us out.
I don't want to come off as hating the iPhone 10.
I think that's pretty clear. If I carried an iOS device,
I would carry the iPhone 10 and I think I'd like it
an awful lot. Not least of all because it reminds
me of the Palm Pre. RIP, pour a little out.
But, the way I use my phones,
from occasionally dropping it on strange wireless chargers,
to watching movies on a flight,
to using two apps side-by-side,
to setting up my home screen exactly the way I want it,
to occasionally shooting some really super slow-motion
video, which I actually do quite a lot.
There's no contest for me.
The S9 fits in to, and on a whole, Android, fits in to
my life and my lifestyle a lot better than does
any iPhone, even the iPhone 10, which, one more time,
I still rather enjoy. But the S9 is what would live
in my pocket given the choice.
- [Jon] Taking all the objective stuff out,
what do you like? And I feel like for years
I've been pleading with Apple to make a different phone.
And I would have liked if iOS got that overhaul.
We may not see that for a few more years.
But we got the hardware overhaul.
We've got an incredible screen, albeit built by Samsung.
You've got a beautifully designed phone,
still, you know, with the notch. There are caveats
to all of this. But the question we asked each other,
was if both these phones were sitting next to each other,
and you were going out for a weekend, or going
out for the night, which one are you grabbing?
And I think for me, I would grab the iPhone 10.
And this is the first time in a while I've been
able to say that with an iPhone.
And perhaps I'm still in awe of the newness.
Despite being out for a few months, of the iPhone 10,
because it's so a radical departure of what
Apple's had in the past,
but I think I would still pick the iPhone 10.
I'm out with my kids a lot. So I'm not fiddling
with camera settings. I've got to snap a quick picture.
Things like that make the ease-of-use a lot more
simple with the iPhone.
- [Michael] That's fair.
- [Jon] So I'm going to embrace the hate,
I'm gonna embrace the name-calling,
but I'm being honest.
- [Michael] This was an exhausting but fun ride.
- [Jon] I don't feel as dirty as I thought I was gonna do,
I feel alright. We'll see what the comments are.
- We will. And by the way, let us know in the comments
if you enjoyed the interaction.
This is a break from the normal Mr. Mobile format.
And one more time, just in case you're tuning in late
for whatever reason, does that ever happen on YouTube,
who knows. If you missed the first half of this comparison,
there's a lot of meat in there. And I'm gonna ask
Jon Rettinger to tell us where you can find that.
- Yes so go over to our YouTube channel,
it's TechnoBuffalo.
- TechnoBuffalo.
- Link to it down below. Hit subscribe, we got a
ton of tech content.
- Smash that like button.
- Smash it. Just destroy it.
- If you wanna see John Rettinger come out over
to the Boston studio, let me know, in the same place.
- I don't mind flying east.
- Come on over.
- I just need an invitation.
- Consider yourself invited.
- I feel like I put you on the spot and you had to.
- Hey man, anyone who wears that shirt is always
welcome in the Boston studio.
- I like to say rocks that shirt.
(laughing)
- Thank you very much.
- Thank you my friend.
- Stay mobile.
- Stay frosty.
- My friends.
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