Samsung S7 vs iPhone 6 Plus

[aubryscully]

Hi guys, so I've had the S7 (Snapdragon) for the last 6 months now. It has been nice, but I've been let down by its performance and mediocre battery life. I use Nova Launcher with minimal animations and really everything else optimized to improve performance (except rooting), but it is still sometimes slow at random tasks. Opening up the phone can be slow, opening/switching apps can be slow, etc.. I have tried clearing the cache, deleting unused apps, minimizing background processes, getting rid of bloatware, and even doing a factory reset on the phone, but it is still slow. While I love the camera and the physical design, the lack of snappiness along with the not fantastic battery life (around 3 hours of screen on time during normal use) has had me a bit frustrated.

 

I do however have an unused iPhone 6 Plus 128GB laying around due to a family member upgrading to the 7 plus, and I was wondering if it would be worth switching to. I have done some poking around looking for answers, and the consensus seems fairly positive on the iPhone side, but I wanted yalls opinions. I don't really care for all of the customization that Android offers, as I have my S7 setup to be fairly similar to an iPhone, and I dont really care about widgets. While I do understand that the S7 has a superior camera, I would be willing to sacrifice a bit if it meant better performance/battery.

 

What would yall do if yall were me? Buying a new phone right now is out of the question as I am a bit broke after getting a whole new desktop rig, and I already have 2 perfectly useable phones available to me. Thanks for the help.

[The Sloth]

well its really up to you, i have a iPhone 7 plus and a 6p. going back to an iPhone after android seems a bit weird to me personally. you will know the difference in screen depending on who you are, i can see pixels in my iPhone 7.  I would suggest you check out custom roms for your s7 they help out a lot. My fiance just switched from an i phone 6 to a pixel, stock android is better in my opinion than bloated skins android offer. 

[dalekphalm]

7 minutes ago, aubryscully said:

Hi guys, so I've had the S7 (Snapdragon) for the last 6 months now. It has been nice, but I've been let down by its performance and mediocre battery life. I use Nova Launcher with minimal animations and really everything else optimized to improve performance (except rooting), but it is still sometimes slow at random tasks. Opening up the phone can be slow, opening/switching apps can be slow, etc.. I have tried clearing the cache, deleting unused apps, minimizing background processes, getting rid of bloatware, and even doing a factory reset on the phone, but it is still slow. While I love the camera and the physical design, the lack of snappiness along with the not fantastic battery life (around 3 hours of screen on time during normal use) has had me a bit frustrated.

 

I do however have an unused iPhone 6 Plus 128GB laying around due to a family member upgrading to the 7 plus, and I was wondering if it would be worth switching to. I have done some poking around looking for answers, and the consensus seems fairly positive on the iPhone side, but I wanted yalls opinions. I don't really care for all of the customization that Android offers, as I have my S7 setup to be fairly similar to an iPhone, and I dont really care about widgets. While I do understand that the S7 has a superior camera, I would be willing to sacrifice a bit if it meant better performance/battery.

 

What would yall do if yall were me? Buying a new phone right now is out of the question as I am a bit broke after getting a whole new desktop rig, and I already have 2 perfectly useable phones available to me. Thanks for the help.

Just to clarify, this is an iPhone 6 Plus, not a 6s?

 

The 6 Plus is an older generation phone, compared to the Samsung S7. The 6 Plus (and the 6) would be more comparable to the Samsung S6 and S6 Edge. The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus would be closer to a Samsung S7.

 

It may depend on specific tasks though.

 

The S Plus uses the Apple A8 SOC, whereas the 6s Plus uses the faster A9 processor. Considering that most reviews of the 6s Plus say it trades blows with the Samsung Galaxy S7, if you switched to a 6 Plus, you'd likely be getting a downgrade, if anything.

[ARikozuM]

I say give it a shot. I personally use a Note 4 for veterinary work while the iPhone SE is my daily driver. I use iTunes and iTunesFusion (Binary Fortress) to sync both phones to iTunes.

[TheKDub]

15 minutes ago, aubryscully said:

Hi guys, so I've had the S7 (Snapdragon) for the last 6 months now. It has been nice, but I've been let down by its performance and mediocre battery life. I use Nova Launcher with minimal animations and really everything else optimized to improve performance (except rooting), but it is still sometimes slow at random tasks. Opening up the phone can be slow, opening/switching apps can be slow, etc.. I have tried clearing the cache, deleting unused apps, minimizing background processes, getting rid of bloatware, and even doing a factory reset on the phone, but it is still slow. While I love the camera and the physical design, the lack of snappiness along with the not fantastic battery life (around 3 hours of screen on time during normal use) has had me a bit frustrated.

 

I do however have an unused iPhone 6 Plus 128GB laying around due to a family member upgrading to the 7 plus, and I was wondering if it would be worth switching to. I have done some poking around looking for answers, and the consensus seems fairly positive on the iPhone side, but I wanted yalls opinions. I don't really care for all of the customization that Android offers, as I have my S7 setup to be fairly similar to an iPhone, and I dont really care about widgets. While I do understand that the S7 has a superior camera, I would be willing to sacrifice a bit if it meant better performance/battery.

 

What would yall do if yall were me? Buying a new phone right now is out of the question as I am a bit broke after getting a whole new desktop rig, and I already have 2 perfectly useable phones available to me. Thanks for the help.

 

Odd, I've had my S7 (Exynos), haven't had any issues with performance or battery life, and I've been using the phone for a good 7 months now without a single factory reset or anything like that.

 

You're not likely going to get much better battery life from an iPhone, but might find it to be a little quicker seeing how IOS is made for the specific sets of hardware, whereas Android covers dozens of manufacturers and models.

[IOI-655321]

Apple is a bad company, Samsung is better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW-pNuy65EI

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, TheKDub said:

 

Odd, I've had my S7 (Exynos), haven't had any issues with performance or battery life, and I've been using the phone for a good 7 months now without a single factory reset or anything like that.

Possible the OP has a defective phone. The other obvious possibility is that you two have different expectations for what is "slow". If I press an app, and it loads within 1 second, I wouldn't consider that slow. Another person might say it "lagged" though.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, IOI-655321 said:

Apple is a bad company, Samsung is better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW-pNuy65EI

lmfao - as much as people love to shit on Apple, Samsung is not some innocent little Angel of a company. They're just as "evil" as Apple is. They're a large multinational corporation, where the first priority for them is to make as much profit as humanly possible. Apple is simply better at doing that then Samsung (though not for lack of trying).

 

Say what you will about the products, that's an entirely different conversation.

[IOI-655321]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

lmfao - as much as people love to shit on Apple, Samsung is not some innocent little Angel of a company. They're just as "evil" as Apple is. They're a large multinational corporation, where the first priority for them is to make as much profit as humanly possible. Apple is simply better at doing that then Samsung (though not for lack of trying).

 

Say what you will about the products, that's an entirely different conversation.

Well, at least Samsung doesn't make their products hardware seem new when in actuality the hardware is years off. Yes, I agree they are both companies that value money over their consumers but one is much more deceptive. 

 

"2.9GHz dual-core sixth-gen Intel Core i5 processor.

Intel Iris Graphics 550.

8GB of RAM."-http://www.zdnet.com/article/apples-new-macbook-pro-tech-specs/

[TheKDub]

5 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Possible the OP has a defective phone. The other obvious possibility is that you two have different expectations for what is "slow". If I press an app, and it loads within 1 second, I wouldn't consider that slow. Another person might say it "lagged" though.

 

Well, there are two separate chips in the phones, one of which I believe is more multi-thread oriented, and the other more single-thread oriented (like AMD and Intel), and one of which has better battery life as well. That as well as the fact that he's using a carrier phone could be contributing to it.

Maybe he has an app that's causing it to slow down, and keeps putting it back on after factory resets.

[aubryscully]

5 hours ago, nerdslayer1 said:

well its really up to you, i have a iPhone 7 plus and a 6p. going back to an iPhone after android seems a bit weird to me personally. you will know the difference in screen depending on who you are, i can see pixels in my iPhone 7.  I would suggest you check out custom roms for your s7 they help out a lot. My fiance just switched from an i phone 6 to a pixel, stock android is better in my opinion than bloated skins android offer. 

I do understand that OLED is so much better and what not, but personally I use 1080p 24" monitors at my desk and don't notice pixels. I'm young and my eyesight is good so idk what my deal is, but 1080p looks better than fine for me. Granted, it is very neat to be watching a movie in a dark room and to admire how deep the blacks are, but overall it doesn't really matter much to me. And as for custom ROMs, I am wanting to stay away from rooting as it will trip KNOX and I've seen loads of user complaints that rooted my same model. Thanks for the response!

[aubryscully]

5 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Just to clarify, this is an iPhone 6 Plus, not a 6s?

 

The 6 Plus is an older generation phone, compared to the Samsung S7. The 6 Plus (and the 6) would be more comparable to the Samsung S6 and S6 Edge. The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus would be closer to a Samsung S7.

 

It may depend on specific tasks though.

 

The S Plus uses the Apple A8 SOC, whereas the 6s Plus uses the faster A9 processor. Considering that most reviews of the 6s Plus say it trades blows with the Samsung Galaxy S7, if you switched to a 6 Plus, you'd likely be getting a downgrade, if anything.

Yes, it is an iPhone 6 Plus. I do understand that it is a generation older, but from my super brief and definitely not scientific testing, the 6 plus seemed faster at opening/locking the phone via fingerprint as well as opening apps. How much would you think that the S7's extra horsepower would affect daily usage, given that I don't really ever play mobile games?

[aubryscully]

5 hours ago, ARikozuM said:

I say give it a shot. I personally use a Note 4 for veterinary work while the iPhone SE is my daily driver. I use iTunes and iTunesFusion (Binary Fortress) to sync both phones to iTunes.

Thanks for your input. What is the difference in snappiness between the phones?

[aubryscully]

5 hours ago, TheKDub said:

 

Odd, I've had my S7 (Exynos), haven't had any issues with performance or battery life, and I've been using the phone for a good 7 months now without a single factory reset or anything like that.

 

You're not likely going to get much better battery life from an iPhone, but might find it to be a little quicker seeing how IOS is made for the specific sets of hardware, whereas Android covers dozens of manufacturers and models.

Thanks for the info. Is your S7 snappy when opening apps and opening the phone and whatnot? Mine is great alot of the time, but other times it just doesn't respond quickly at all.

[aubryscully]

5 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Possible the OP has a defective phone. The other obvious possibility is that you two have different expectations for what is "slow". If I press an app, and it loads within 1 second, I wouldn't consider that slow. Another person might say it "lagged" though.

I would really hope that it isn't defective. It performs beautifully when it wants to, but other times it is super sluggish. Best analogy I can make is moving from a nice SSD rig over to the same rig but with an HDD. While it does everything you want it to, it just isnt nearly as responsive. And I don't think my expectations are too high, as it does perform so good when it wants to. Its just those other times when it isnt fast that is super frustrating.

[aubryscully]

6 hours ago, TheKDub said:

 

Well, there are two separate chips in the phones, one of which I believe is more multi-thread oriented, and the other more single-thread oriented (like AMD and Intel), and one of which has better battery life as well. That as well as the fact that he's using a carrier phone could be contributing to it.

Maybe he has an app that's causing it to slow down, and keeps putting it back on after factory resets.

Hmm, I had thought about bloatware being the issue, but i made sure to go through everything and disable anything that looked fishy or that I knew I wouldnt need (including default facebook app). Also, it is an AT&T variant, but I got it factory unlocked when we moved to TMobile, and so many of the stock apps dont work anymore anyways. Anything else that you think I should check?

[ARikozuM]

1 hour ago, aubryscully said:

Thanks for your input. What is the difference in snappiness between the phones?

I had to RMA the Note 4 (or send in for repair) since it would boot-loop for no reason. I don't use many apps on either phone. Aside from the built-in apps, I use AviMark and a few games. No messaging apps aside from Skype. 

 

Overall, I do think that the iPhone SE is snappier when opening apps from a closed state. The Apple ecosystem seems to work and look much better with Windows than many of the Android suggestions I've tried. I don't think I would use Android as a daily if Apple came out with a Note 4-like device with an "iPen".

[TheKDub]

3 hours ago, aubryscully said:

Thanks for the info. Is your S7 snappy when opening apps and opening the phone and whatnot? Mine is great alot of the time, but other times it just doesn't respond quickly at all.

 

Very.
I have maybe a 20-100ms delay between clicking the app and it's animation firing, but that's a more than acceptable amount of time.

[Kosios]

You might have a defective phone.  Also the iphone 6 is probably slower.

[dalekphalm]

8 hours ago, aubryscully said:

I would really hope that it isn't defective. It performs beautifully when it wants to, but other times it is super sluggish. Best analogy I can make is moving from a nice SSD rig over to the same rig but with an HDD. While it does everything you want it to, it just isnt nearly as responsive. And I don't think my expectations are too high, as it does perform so good when it wants to. Its just those other times when it isnt fast that is super frustrating.

Interesting. Well I personally have never tried the Galaxy S7 (Almost bought one, but didn't). The newest Android phone I've spent any amount of time with is the Nexus 4.

 

I currently have an iPhone 6s 128GB, and it's goddamn fucking ludicrous how fast it feels. For comparison, my last phone was a Nokia Lumia 830, which packs a pretty measly Snapdragon 400.