iPhone X reality check for business
The iPhone X has been in the headlines steadily since it was announced last week. Heralded as the ‘the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone’, the new Apple flagship may indeed be the most powerful iPhone ever. It looks great, has a fantastic screen, powerful and feature rich. But, let us not get carried away with the hype. The iPhone X is most definitely the most powerful iPhone yet. It is also the ‘the biggest leap forward in iPhones since the original iPhone’. However, even in its latest guise, the iPhone X only just manages to compete with the existing flagship phone Samsung Galaxy S8.
The Samsung Galaxy S8, S8 Plus and Note 8 all have a edge-to-edge screen and a glass chassis. Not just any glass either, the S8 uses reinforced Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and back providing both durability and a high-quality finish.
Hardware specifications
When you drill down, there isn’t a whole lot that the iPhone X does that the Samsung S8 hasn’t already done. The S8 already has an all-glass design, it has a 5.8 inch screen and has a higher resolution at 2960 x 1440 vs the iPhone X at 2436 x 1125. It also 570 pixels per inch (ppi) versus the iPhone’s 458 ppi. While that difference in ppi isn’t going to make a huge difference, it should slowly begin to put perspective onto the hype the iPhone X has been enjoying. That’s before we talk about LED vs. AMOLED technology. While the iPhone X does have an advantage in True Tone, the Samsung screen isn’t exactly difficult to use in varying light conditions.
The iPhone X’s processor is indeed fast, the fastest ever in an iPhone. The A11 Bionic chip has six cores comprised of 4 small Mistral cores and two large Monsoon cores. It uses 3GB of RAM to deliver blistering speed.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 uses a Exynos processing chip. It also uses the Adreno 540 GPU. It has 4GB of RAM. While there is currently no app or productivity suite that will exhaust either of these, more is always better with hardware!
The iPhone X comes with a generous 64GB or 256GB of internal storage while the S8 only has 64GB. However, the S8 also accepts MicroSD cards up to 256GB where the iPhone does not.
Battery life is a significant concern for business users as you might expect. The battery data for the iPhone X has yet to be released. Apple have said it will last for 2 hours longer than the iPhone 7 and has the advantage of wireless charging. The Galaxy S8 also has wireless charging and will last a full work day even with moderate to heavy use making it an ideal device for a busy day, whether it’s video conferencing, taking notes or making calls.
Samsung Knox and DeX
Apple has a powerful suite of software and hardware that makes it a viable option for business but Samsung has two standout suites in Samsung Knox and DeX.
Samsung Knox is an MDM solution that allows enterprise to deploy handsets quickly and efficiently. It can deploy system images, manage OS and app updates, enforce policies, ensure full device security and utilise bio-metric device locks. It can also provide a secure and private work space for employees to wherever they are.
Samsung DeX is something truly new. It is a small device that turns your Samsung Galaxy S8 into a desktop replacement. It connects a monitor, keyboard and mouse and allows you to use your handset as a portable computer. It’s a game changer which truly utilises the Samsung Galaxy S8’s processing power.
iPhone X business perspective
There is no doubt that the iPhone X is a superb phone and will be bought by the thousands, if not millions despite costing almost £1,000 each. However, if you dig underneath the headlines and really check it out, there is nothing new here. Nothing that Samsung and other manufacturers haven’t done before and on most occasions better than Apple
In the case of the Samsung Galaxy S8, there is nothing in the iPhone X that the S8 doesn’t do better. For a lot less money too!
