it is versus time here at TechnoBuffalo and for this battle we've got the two
kings of Android and I'm ready to piss off 50% of you in one corner we've got
the latest from Samsung this is the Note 8 in the other the latest from Google
this is the Pixel 2 XL on paper and objective tests these two sit atop the
Android throne I'm sorry for you LG V30 or Huawei P10 fans out there these are the two
phones to beat it is 2018 so you change up the categories a little bit we've got
six categories to pick a winner and like all of our verses it will not be a
cop-out whatever is best for you type answer we're gonna declare a winner so
to round out our six categories the first is Hardware this is now including
the build and specs of device we've got camera display software battery and
intangibles so our first category is Hardware this used to be build in
previous verses but now encompassing everything inside and outside of the
phone so on paper these phones are extremely similar the US version the
Galaxy Note 8 which we're talking about the Snapdragon 835 the RAM stories a bit
different the Note 8 got 6 as opposed to the 4 in the pixel 2 XL I
have not had any sort of slow down at all with the note 8 in fact performance
has been incredibly fast and things that are usually pretty intensive things like
multitasking no issue with that whatsoever really intense gaming no
issues I have had no OS slowdown I've had no OS stutters and no OS issues so
if you had issues with other Samsung phones in the past leave that aside the
Note 8 is incredibly quick for the build side of things aesthetically this might
be one of the most beautiful phones ever made in my opinion I love the way this
phone looks I love the way this phone feels the glass on the back certainly
makes it fragile but from a purely aesthetic standpoint the Note 8 is a
work of art so we'll talk later at length I promise about the display but
the infinity display on the phone rounds out the way the phone looks and feels I
love the curve and how it sits in the hand and on the negative side I've
talked long and hard red in the face like the stupid location
the fingerprint sensor I don't care if you use a case or it's fine for you I'm the
one making this video and for me that's a stupid location I wish they'd put it
somewhere else which we'll probably see in the upcoming Galaxy S9 so yeah so
the story for the note it's fast it's beautiful and it's really quick but it's
not to be necessarily outdone by with the Pixel 2 XL brings to the table
and you think just cuz it's got to be server and less it gonna be slower not
the case it's amazing what can happen when software and hardware at least for
the most part get vertically integrated this phone is a beast on the design
standpoint the Pixel 2 is a nice phone it's a goodish looking phone it's gotten
bigger bezels than we've seen on late 2017 I guess now 2018 standards but you
do have front facing speakers which are nice the screen is still pretty good so
the two-tone look of the pixel is not for everybody's taste I like the metal
feel I like the way the metal complements the glass least
aesthetically on the device I've said it quite a bit in other videos I do not
like the ridge that comes around the side of the screen my finger hits it I
prefer the infinity edge that I've got on the note it's a functionally designed
phone it is function over form here that's what Google is known for it's
this phones not gonna win any design awards and might win awards later on but
it comes to design it's certainly not going to take the cake from the gorgeous
things that we've got from Samsung and on the positive side they put the
fingerprint sensor we're fingerprint sensors belong not next to the camera
sensor where you can reach it without having to turn your phone around so hats
off to you google for actually doing what you should do the fingerprint
sensor I know a lot of this is probably the hardest category that I've had to
pick a winner that was a theme that came through throughout all these categories
but I'm not gonna cop out and say ending in a tie for me when the best
features about the Note 8 that I use all the time and that is the s-pen
having that option to use the s-pen being able to plug in headphones listen
to music are things that I have used that give the Note 8 a slight but I'll
be it an edge over the pixel 2 XL Samsung takes this round so next let's
jump into camera and I want to say these are two of the best smartphone cameras
on the market it's hard to take bad pictures with either of these but there
are many factors to make one of them better
let's start with what we've got from Samsung and the Note 8 just in case you
can't recite phone specs from the top of your head here's what the Galaxy Note 8
is packing so it's a 12 megapixel dual pixel sensor F 1.7 aperture and 2 times
optical zoom and dual ois so portrait shots are all the rage on smartphones
it's no exception that it's in the note 8 and it takes incredible portrait shots
I love they can do the focusing afterwards it's really easy to bokeh
and blur out the backgrounds incredible job on portrait things and low light
things in highlight any picture that I take with the cameras just tend to look
good perhaps by some taste a little a little bit saturated I like the poppy
colors you can adjust it in settings if I really like what Samsung has done out
of the box with the cameras and the front sensor is no slouch either it's
got smart out-of-focus 8 megapixels it takes really good selfies I made that I
take probably more selfies than I should and often times I find myself reaching
for the note 8 the moral with the note days is it's hard to take bad pictures
in fact you got to be a really crappy photographer to take anything that's bad
in any sort of light and that's a theme that colds true with the pixel as well
and just looking at the spec sheet you think this would be a blowout because you know
one sensor versus two but damn Google did a great job this time around
anything I threw at the pixel 2 xl just took good pictures and that's true
with the note 8 as well where I became really impressed with what the pixel 2
xl could do was with its portrait modes uses machine learning and neural
networking to get better it's recognized what a person is recognized hair to
recognize the area between fingers junkit strange spider-man webbings and I
think that's where the pixel 2 xl starts to shine while the note 8 is
awesome as is the pixel 2 xl is going to be getting better and already
seen it get better over the two ish months as I've been using it yeah it's
not perfect I wish to 4k wasn't capped at 30 frames per second but I can
overlook all those things for an incredible rear facing camera and
incredible front facing camera with portrait mode if I had to pick a device
just based on camera in fact if I had to pick any phone in the entire world based
just on camera going to be hard-pressed to find one better
than the pixels 2 xl and that's saying something because the
Samsung is really good but the 2 xl is definitely taking this round alright so
next let's go to display and I'm not I'm not gonna belabor this point much longer
than it than it needs to we've told a lot of stories I made a whole video
about how this display on the pixel 2 is not as bad as everybody says and it's really
not especially after the November update it looks a lot better you look at the
saturated colors that people tend to like and it's a fine display in its own
right when you compare it against the best display that I think has ever been on
a phone 6.3 inch display on the Samsung Note 8 is incredible pictures look
incredible the Black levels are incredibly black obviously the colors
are extremely vibrant I say this a lot it looks like there's a sticker on this
display I've had this phone for now a better part of three and a half almost
four months and I'm still impressed with how good the screen looks even direct
sunlight you just cannot beat the screen on the note 8 I'm gonna short this
category a little bit because it's not necessary you should have seen this one
coming for a mile away Samsung's clearly taking a display category alright so
next let's jump it to software this is a new category for us one we reserve
we're comparing two phones running the same operating system and at least on
paper they're the same operating system they're both running Android albeit
aesthetically very different takes on what Google's OS can offer so I'm not
Samsung on the past for their take on Android TouchWiz modern UI or whatever
you want to call it it's gotten way better but they're still fighting that
stigma from the galaxy s5 and earlier when they threw everything at the
kitchen sink at a samsung phone if you haven't used a modern Samsung phone if
you haven't used a device since the s7 you are missing out it's gotten a lot
better and maybe it's exactly just to say this maybe I'm I'm gonna be screamed
at by the Android purists but there's a lot of things that Samsung does on their
version of Android that I like better than what Google does on stock OS I like
the setting menu I like the dialer like how gestures are integrated I like how
handles multitasking and app pairing there's a lot of really good things inside of
the note 8 there are some annoyances though of what Samsung's done having
duplicate apps versus Google stock apps are super annoying
I don't wanted a separate Samsung only app store super annoying but I guess
they can be hidden suppose but I think one of the biggest
compliments I can give to the modern Samsung skin Fork of Android whatever you
want to call it so that when I use the Samsung device I'm not putting a
third-party launcher on it it's not something I can say for many phones
they've done a really nice job here utilizing what their phone can do and
taking advantage of all the features and sensors that are built into it and the
mortal this section here is don't knock the Samsung skin till you've tried it
on the negative side though Samsung is notoriously slow for software updates so
assume the version of Android you get when you buy the Samsung phone is pretty
much what you're gonna have for a super long time Oreos been out for a while
we're still stuck on nougat I wish Samsung was faster with the OS updates I
get that it takes time but it's frustrating when devices like the pixel
get updates much faster which brings me to the 2 XL
so this is pure Android as Google intended or I guess now it's pure
Android as Google intended on the pixels I know a lot of Android purists holds a
pixel and the previous Nexus line up to this huge esteem for what Android
flagships phone should be and to say anything negative about it is completely
sacrilegious but there are some things that I don't like about this and I'm
just gonna say it I don't like the weather widget at the top I wish I could
change it resize and remove it all together I don't like the search bar at
the bottom for my eye and my aesthetic it belongs at the top and maybe I'm just
not used to it I wish I could change it which I could tweak that's Google
doesn't let kind of strange they took a bit of Apple-ish approach to telling you
how things should look on their phones and obviously I know if their party
launchers can fix app talk about the experience just out of the box so having
said that really like a latest version of Android the most up to date the most
secure the latest that Google has to offer I know I am always going to have
on my Pixel device and that's a peace of minds that you don't get with something
like Samsung and quite honestly I just enjoyed the experience it's fast
everything about this phone just feels screamingly quick I like the way the things
work together I like how Google's services are presented the way they were
meant to be this one's tougher to call than I expected but a slight edge this
round is going to Google and the Pixel 2 XL but credit to Samsung freaking
incredible UI alright so next let's jump to battery in previous verses videos I've
just told you my use case and which one lasted longer but it's a new year we
wanted new test to see which battery is actually better and going to last you
longer so here's what we did we took both phones the note with it's 3300 mAh
battery and the pixel XL if it's slightly bigger 3520 mAh
battery and we drained them to 0 which is harder than you think and we
use the in box accessories to charge these phones up and see which ones
charge faster so after one hour the note 8 was at 59% and the pixel 2 was at 62%
so we wanted to try and drain the phone so we charged them up to 100% we turned
max brightness on be close all apps we kicked on airplane mode but kept Wi-Fi
working and we streamed the same three hour YouTube clip and that's where
things got interesting they were exactly the same
after 8 and a half hours both phones died so those tests were surprisingly
close we gave this category a slight edge and I'll admit it I'm aware of the
irony of giving a battery category to the note this one goes to Samsung by
virtue of doing more with less milliamp hours last but not least let's jump into
intangibles all the little things that come together to make the phone and
awesome package of both of these bring a really long list of intangibles on the
note side you've got things like the s-pen wireless charging Samsung pay
which is different than Android pay ip68 expandable storage you've got a
headphone jack a lot of little things that make this an incredible device to
use and to hold the Pixel 2 XL brings a ton of awesome things to the
table and I can't overstate this enough one of the things that brings is a
fingerprint reader and they're really nice to use location but aside from that
you're getting incredible speakers the latest updates from Google you're
getting stock Android is important to a lot of folks and of course Android pay
is built into this of course you're missing some things you get with other
phones like expandable storage that's been oddly a staple of the pixel line
and the Nexus line before that and that phone jack is gone we look at the laundry
lists of extra features that phones bring to the table the note 8
just taking intangibles so now that I've got your foaming-at-the-mouth either
with happiness or because you are super pissed off let's recap and declare our
winner of this versus Hardware went to the Note camera went to the pixel
display went to the note software it went to the pixel battery went to the
note intangibles went to the note in any great battle Ali Frazier there can
only be one winner no matter how hard both people fight there's no
participation trophies in vs. and despite the pixel to being a badass
baller phone only one winner and that is the Galaxy Note 8 they did an incredible
job with this device I think everything about it is borderline perfect but...
it's pretty crazy that I just happened to be texting you on my Google Pixel 2 XL
and you said that the Note 8 was better so I just kind of had to come
here to argue that. Ladies and gentlemen it's a starting tackle from the LA
Chargers Mr. Joe Barksdale. Philip Rivers was only sacked 18 times this season sorry.
He's the guy that's protecting mr. Philip Rivers so I'm
saying I'm saying the Note is the winner and as somebody who's used both
phones we've talked at length about both phones. I actually have actually had
the note and I was probably one of the most excited people for that phone
I had to know 7 and you know we all know the battery things
and all that but in that time also you know waiting for
the note I had a Google pixel XL and when I got the note I really missed the
pixel XL and what I meant by that was the software features the user interface
the ease of you know notification dismissals I mean it's just an easy
phone to use it just works you know it's not the sexiest or most extravagant but
at the end of the day you know this is the phone that I would want to have
every day. For the record before for anybody yells at me about why I picked the note
or how much Samsung paid me I convinced Joe to get the pixel 2 Xl. I
legitimately love both phones. The week we played the Patriots yep you convinced
me to get it he was just sitting there at hotel bored I was like going to make
now it just came out you loved it. I limped on over and got it. I just
didn't know that you were gonna abandon your first love of the Galaxy
Note 8 I didn't know you were gonna be so wrong with your assessment. Are we going to
fight again I thought I taught you I can't even say that laughing. Are you
physically intimidated by me. Very. Do we look the same height sitting yeah cuz
standing up is super funny. Joe thanks for coming Joe has a new
album coming out 25th. It's called butterflies rainbows and
moonbeams and I'm sure you know you guys are here music and hopefully you Jon
will have me back again. We'll link to where people can get the album.
No pre-orders but when it's out it's out
Check out a pretty talented musician and a good friend Joe thanks for
finally coming on but I'll take it easy on you next time
you