The Galaxy Note 7 is miles ahead of the iPhone

The Galaxy Note 7 is miles ahead of the iPhone

I ordered a Galaxy Note 7 just before turning off the lights for bed last night. I’ll probably order an iPhone 7, too, when it hits the market in September, but Samsung’s device is already leaps and bounds ahead of what we’re expecting from the iPhone 7. Android and iOS fanboy wars aside, the Galaxy Note 7 is an impressive device that pushes the boundaries of what mobile devices are capable of, and there’s currently no indication Apple has anything that scratches the surface of what the Galaxy Note 7 can do.

Just take a look at some of the features: theGalaxy Note 7 has a 5.7-inch curved Quad HD display capable of accepting input from the SPen stylus. Apple is almost certainly not going to have a Quad HD screen, or anything that comes close, and you can forget support for a real stylus. There’s a rumor the iPhone will be water resistant, but the latest reports suggest it won’t actually be IP68 rated, which means it’ll probably survive some splashing but not a full on dunk in the pool as the Galaxy Note 7 can take.

Samsung listened to its fans and brought back a microSD card slot for expandable storage, allowing you to build on the 64GB of base storage without breaking the bank. Pigs will fly in a frozen hell before Apple ever does that. Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 supports fast charging and wireless charging, and there’s still no indication Apple will add either of those features to the iPhone 7. The Galaxy Note 7 supports mobile HDR, some of the most brilliant streaming video content and a next-generation feature still arriving on new TV sets. There’s no word if this is coming to the iPhone, but I tend to doubt it. Samsung has pushed the barrier with virtual reality, and now has a brand new headset with an even more immersive experience for Galaxy Note 7 users. Apple hasn’t yet dipped its toes in that market, so you can rule that out for the iPhone 7.

Apple is working on making the fingerprintreader faster and may offer 3D Touch in the home button this year. Meanwhile, Samsunghas moved on to the next big thing: an irisscanner that complements the fingerprint reader. It’s fast, and it allows you to create a locked folder that’ll keep prying eyes out. There’s no indication Apple has any sort of iris scanning tech on the horizon.

And we can revisit mobile payments, even though they aren’t new with the Galaxy Note 7. You can use your Galaxy Note 7 to make payments at checkout machines even when NFC isn’t present. You need NFC for Apple Pay, so you’re limited in where you can actually use Apple’s service. Me? I’d rather not worry, so Samsung takes the cake here.

I don’t mean to trash Apple or its iPhone products, I just mean to point out that it seems to be severely lagging in the smartphone market. Apple has made its name and, indeed, its business by releasing products and technologies not when they’re new, but when they’re perfected. That’s how it basically created the tablet market and create such demand for its smartphones that it just announced the 1 billionth iPhone sold.

We know that the big iPhone is reportedly set to launch next year, with the debut of the iPhone 8, but can Apple afford to wait that long before people start to switch?