Get the iPhone X or Samsung Note 8!

Get the iPhone X or Samsung Note 8!

Other smartphone makers might object, but these days, the mobile landscape feels like an ongoing battleground between Apple and Samsung. That's particularly the case when one of these companies rolls out a new phone.
Other smartphone makers might object, but these days, the mobile landscape feels like an ongoing battleground between Apple and Samsung. 

That's particularly the case when one of these companies rolls out a new phone.

Design

The design trend Samsung started with the Galaxy S8 phones earlier this year continues with the Note 8. Samsung's phablet is practically all-screen up front, with the phone's display wrapping around the Note 8's edges and the top and bottom bezels all but gone. If there's a flaw to this look, it's that it's forced Samsung to move the Note 8's fingerprint sensor to the back of the phone, a design decision made worse when Samsung placed that sensor right next to the Note 8's rear cameras.

The iPhone X has a similar look, with one noticeable difference. Like the Note 8, the iPhone X's screen stretches from top to bottom, though it doesn't wrap around the sides of the phone. The biggest departure for the iPhone X, though, is the notch that houses the front-facing camera and related sensors: it dips down into the iPhone X's display. The notch has already divided opinion, and that's before anyone's had the chance to watch videos and play games on the screen.

Regarding size, the Note 8 is noticeably taller than the iPhone X — 6.4 inches to 5.7 inches — with the width and thickness about the same. That's entirely the result of the Note 8's larger 6.3-inch display. At 6.9 ounces, the Note 8 outweighs the 6.14-ounce iPhone X, too.

Winner: Note 8. We'll take more screen space over a compact form, and the curved edge-to-edge look of the Infinity Display is hard to beat.

Display

Samsung has enjoyed a big advantage over Apple for years because its phones used OLED panels. Apple has turned to LCD screens and continues to use them with its new iPhone 8 and 8 Plus models.

But it looks like Apple finally wants to close the display gap with Samsung, by giving the iPhone X an OLED screen. The supplier of that OLED panel? Samsung itself (reportedly). Look for the iPhone X to have better contrast and blacker blacks than you've seen before on an iPhone.