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iPhones too expensive? - Comparison with others

Avatar Rick Churchill
Whenever the "Macworld" magazine reviews the latest Apple offering it invariably praises it and compares only with other Apple products. (Incidentally I am able to read a large number of magazines free on line including "Macworld" and "iPad & iPhone User", using my Poole Library connection.)
My friends always tell me that the iPhone is overpriced and that an Android phone of equivalent specification is cheaper. My own experiences with a much cheaper Android phone made me buy an iPhone 11 but I came across this review in "Android Advisor" comparing the iPhone 11 (£729) with the Samsung Galaxy S10+ (£899), Google Pixel 4 XL. (£829) and the OnePlus 7T (£549). It was an interesting comparison.

The review stated the following:
Storage: Apple charges £50 to upgrade (at purchase) to 128GBytes whereas the Samsung and OnePlus are already on-board. Google charges £100.
Camera: they all have multiple cameras and the iPhone was deemed the most versatile and accurate. In poor light it was the clear winner although it was harder to tell the difference in good lighting.
Display: The Samsung outshone the rest although the iPhone was brighter but the iPhone LCD (made by LG) did not match the OLED screens of the others (all made by Samsung) for contrast. The Google Pixel 4, even with its OLED screen, was not as vibrant.
Battery: Although having the smallest battery the Apple OS manages it well and it came out ahead with the Google Pixel 4 trailing.
Charging: The iPhone comes with only a 5 watt charger so after an hour was only 33% charged whereas the Samsung and Google were charged to 74% and 77% respectively and the OnePlus was completely charged but lacks wireless charging. Wirelessly the Samsung, Google and Apple phones charge at 12, 11 and 7.5 watts respectively making the Samsung the hero of the charging category.
Performance: The Google had serious issues. It was slow and needed regular restarting. Apple is a clear winner here being nearly 3 times as fast as the Samsung and more than twice as fast as the OnePlus on browsing, more than twice as fast as the others in computing and significantly faster in other tasks.
Sound: The Samsung is the only one with a 3.5mm jack socket whereas the Apple has the lightning plug outlet. Both these come with earbuds whereas the other two have neither earbuds or sockets.
Biometrics: The Apple face recognition stole the show from the Google implementation.
Operating System: Here the article is very subjective and listed good points on both sides but liked the Google Android implementation the best.
Overall the magazine chose the OnePlus 7T as the best value phone. I would still choose the iPhone because of it's seamless integration with my other Apple devices.

More details can be seen in the magazine.

Re: iPhones too expensive? - Comparison with others

Avatar Tony Still
I presume you're referring to the MacFormat review (MacUser closed some 3 years ago).

It's an interesting comparison. For me, the security aspects weigh heavily and there is no comparison: iOS was designed from scratch to be secure (that's the reason for some of its apparent limitations) while Android...just wasn't.

Security extends beyond the handset too, most visibly in the App Store where Apple's vetting of every app for correct behaviour and no malware has been streets ahead of Google's efforts.

Finally, iOS devices last longer because of Apple's update policy that keeps them current for much longer. That also means that they get security updates for longer (Google has improved its record in this area but the problem there is that device manufacturers change things, rendering the standard Google updates unusable, and then drag their feet over passing on the updates (or simply don't bother)).

I think all of this is one of those 'whole is more than the sum of the parts' situations where Apple is doing the better job.

Re: iPhones too expensive? - Comparison with others

Avatar Rick Churchill
I seemed to have got all the magazine names wrong, it was Macworld and Android Adviser magazines. I have corrected this.

Yes, you're right. The security aspect is a major factor.

I was interested to read that the Galaxy phone, apart from its super OLED display, was not a patch on the iPhone when it came to processing power. Apple charge £300 to upgrade to the iPhone 11 Pro which gives it the OLED screen and an additional camera. The iPhone 11 Pro has no 128 GBytes option having to spend £150 on an upgrade to 256 GBytes so the Pro at £1199 with a decent amount of memory seems overpriced considering the OnePlus incorporates an OLED screen at £549.
The iPhone 11 remains good value.

Re: iPhones too expensive? - Comparison with others

Avatar Tony Still
Yes, a standout feature of the latest iPhones is that Apple does not cut any corners on pricing 😦.
 
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