New Samsung ad attacks iPhone X download speed, ignores performance benchmarks
Samsung's latest ad attacking the iPhone compares the download speeds of iPhone X to that of the Galaxy S9 while at the same time poking fun at Apple Store employees.
The ad, titled "Ingenious: Speed," is set within a bright retail environment clearly meant to reflect an Apple store. It starts off with a woman waiting to be helped by an employee. Quickly, the worker, complete with an Apple logo t-shirt, approaches to make a sale.
When asked about iPhone X's download speeds, the employee boasts they are faster than those of iPhone 8. She responds with apprehension, looking for confirmation that iPhone X is not as fast at downloading data as the Galaxy S9. Her query renders the employee speechless, with his only response being an unending, "Ummmm..."
Samsung touts data obtained from Ookla's Speedtest Intelligence Data obtained February through April of 2018 as the basis for the claim. Weighted average download speeds of all major LTE carriers were compared.
In our own testing of the S9+ vs iPhone X, we saw no such numbers, largely due to the actual speeds we were able to achieve in our area. Others out there, where faster speeds were available, were able to achieve some pretty remarkable download results on the S9 and S9+.
Regardless, the ad clearly doesn't step into other, arguably more crucial, areas of phone performance where our tests had iPhone X in a clear lead. Looking at the Geekbench results, iPhone X completely destroys the S9+, especially in single core performance. The iPhone came in with single- and multi-core scores of 4,243 and 10,433, respectively, while the S9+ managed scores of 2,007 and 8,307.
Graphics-wise, iPhone X still outpaced the S9+. The S9+ scored 14,308, very close to, but not topping, iPhone's 15,177. In all our testing, there were a couple tests where the S9+ won out, but by-and-large the iPhone X was the more powerful device.
Next year, Samsung is expected to release the Galaxy S10 and S10+, which will most likely attempt to more evenly compete with Face ID. Currently, the S9 and S9+ use a 2D scanner when validating a face and is much less accurate than Apple's 3D infrared TrueDepth camera system.
The ad, titled "Ingenious: Speed," is set within a bright retail environment clearly meant to reflect an Apple store. It starts off with a woman waiting to be helped by an employee. Quickly, the worker, complete with an Apple logo t-shirt, approaches to make a sale.
When asked about iPhone X's download speeds, the employee boasts they are faster than those of iPhone 8. She responds with apprehension, looking for confirmation that iPhone X is not as fast at downloading data as the Galaxy S9. Her query renders the employee speechless, with his only response being an unending, "Ummmm..."
Samsung touts data obtained from Ookla's Speedtest Intelligence Data obtained February through April of 2018 as the basis for the claim. Weighted average download speeds of all major LTE carriers were compared.
In our own testing of the S9+ vs iPhone X, we saw no such numbers, largely due to the actual speeds we were able to achieve in our area. Others out there, where faster speeds were available, were able to achieve some pretty remarkable download results on the S9 and S9+.
Regardless, the ad clearly doesn't step into other, arguably more crucial, areas of phone performance where our tests had iPhone X in a clear lead. Looking at the Geekbench results, iPhone X completely destroys the S9+, especially in single core performance. The iPhone came in with single- and multi-core scores of 4,243 and 10,433, respectively, while the S9+ managed scores of 2,007 and 8,307.
Graphics-wise, iPhone X still outpaced the S9+. The S9+ scored 14,308, very close to, but not topping, iPhone's 15,177. In all our testing, there were a couple tests where the S9+ won out, but by-and-large the iPhone X was the more powerful device.
Next year, Samsung is expected to release the Galaxy S10 and S10+, which will most likely attempt to more evenly compete with Face ID. Currently, the S9 and S9+ use a 2D scanner when validating a face and is much less accurate than Apple's 3D infrared TrueDepth camera system.
Comments
When unable to produce a charger, what priority would 1.3% faster downloads have.
Anyway, everybody his favorite thing.
Happy claiming at the Apple servicedesk...
I doubt that Samsung is really expecting to convert iPhone users with this ad. I'd say it's more geared toward those that already hate Apple—for whatever reason—and aren't certain what Android-based smartphone to buy.
edit: So the Galaxy S9+ has a CAT 18 LTE modem which has a theoretical download speed of 1.2Gibps. So what does that mean in real world use for loading a website? Or uploading a video to Dropbox?
This is absolutely reeks of desperation.
Surely things can’t be that bad
Oh, okay, so maybe they are.
The really odd thing is that their problem isn’t being caused by Apple, which makes this all the more desperate.
How about making a product that does no need to be compered to the cometition and that sets you aside. However you keep what you are doing best is to copy and in some minuscule aspect of your product performs better than the device of the competition and you boast about it.
Try a little harder coming up with a real innovation that is a game changer...
2) If you took a good look at the Get a Mac" campaign you'll see that it's not the same kind of ad. They aren't even close. For starters, Apple didn't specifically ever mention an actual competitor until several years into the "Get a Mac" campaign after Windows Vista had been a huge dud. There were several of those ads, but most of them were just a generic, boring business guy (played by John Hodgman in the US and David Mitchell in the UK) pretending to be a generic, brining PC.
Remember, Apple's Macs compete against all PC vendors, and Windows is a given so while not ideal to mention their competing OS, it was a kick em when they're down moment, but they aren't mentioning any specific PC vendor. This isn't by accident. The primary focus is on all the things that all those generic WinPCs have in common. That's who Hodgman and Mitchell pretended to be.
Do you really not see the difference when they refer to all things under the umbrella as "PC", which technically would include Macs, except that Apple specifically makes a point to set itself apart as being unique from "PCs." The focus of Apple's attack ads v Samsung's couldn't be more obvious to me.
What I said was - more or less:
Samsung are either smarting at the loss of part of their OLED iPhone screen contract and are taking it out on Apple (as only they, Samsung, know how), or they want to lose even more of said contract.
Maybe I pressed the wrong button in my haste (I was almost out the door when I did it).
Er … no, "I'm a Mac…" wasn't a great line of ads either in my opinion. They ran them in the UK, but not for long.
And it says just as much about Samsung as the advertising company because Samsung saw it and thought it was okay. The advertising company will also take its steer from Samsung in what type of advertising they're aiming for. Looking at the result, the brief was something along the lines of "We got nothin', so come up with an ad that's a deflection from that."
And in that regard, the advertising company probably did the best they could.
This Samsung ad is just boring and a little bit embarrassing.
I think you are misinterpreting the motivation of the average consumer.
I would bet that price point is the largest deciding factor & buy-one-get-one deals drive sales far more than an ad like this.
What do they then experience? Sluggish scrolling, poor capacitive touch screen performance and processor performance that causes them attempt pinching to zoom a pic several times before the pic actually zooms, and phones that die within a year, quickly fill up with pics and apps, distorted images when taking a pic (Oppos tend to elongate selfie images), malfunctioning charging ports, scratched screens, etc. You get what you pay for.