Samsung Galaxy Note 4 vs iPhone 6 plus comparison

Samsung Galaxy Note 4

 vs

 iPhone 6 plus comparison 

Samsung is known for its feature-rich (some would say "overflowing"), utilitarian designs but it's slowly coming around to metal designs with the Alpha and now the Galaxy Note 4. It's just a metal rim, so the user-replaceable battery and microSD card slot are intact.

The screen size also remained unchanged (5.7") to keep the device manageable single-handedly, but resolution increased to QHD. The defining feature of the Note series, the S Pen, was also improved and Samsung included optical image stabilization (OIS) to the list of camera specs.

The biggest change for Apple is the screen - after years of keeping just about the same size and sharpness, the company took the plunge. The design language changed more than it did for the Galaxy and is now smooth and rounded like an iPod Touch, it's impressively slim too. It's the OIS-enabled camera that is the other advantage over the vanilla iPhone 6.

With bigger screens, both phones and their respective platforms (iOS and Android + TouchWiz) have their ways of boosting usability.

Pros

·       iPhone 6 Plus has great specs and build quality

·       Like a smaller more connected iPad

Cons

·       Galaxy Note 4 has more raw power

·       Samsung's phone has better display specs

iPhone 6 Plus vs Galaxy Note 4 comparison review

UK price

The Galaxy Note 4 is a premium high-end smartphone so it's no surprise to see it with a price tag of around £550 inc VAT for the 32GB edition. The iPhone 6 Plus costs a bit more. There are three models which start at £619 for the 16GB model. This scales up to £699 for 64GB, and £789 for 128GB. You will pay a premium for the iPhone phablet just as you pay extra for any iPhone. We think that is a worthwhile expense, but the Galaxy Note 4 is a tremendous handset. So let's see what you get for the money with the iPhone 6 Plus. 

Key specs and performance

With the Galaxy Note 4 you get a 2.7 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor or Exynos 5433 octa-core processor, and 3GB of RAM. We found it to be extremely smooth and snappy when launching and switching apps.

The iPhone 6 Plus comes with a new processor, known as the A8. This is a 20-nanometer 64-bit CPU with 2 billion transistors. It is a dual core chip with a frequency of 1.2 GHz. It's paired with 1GB RAM. The iPhone 6 Plus is consummately slick and zippy in use.                                                                                

Some Android manufacturers - Samsung included - have been accused of gaming benchmarks. You should know that both of these handsets are super-fast, responsive, and powerful.

Screen

The screen on the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is stunning. It's a 5.7in Quad-HD Super AMOLED display. That's a resolution of 2560 x 1440, which means a whopping 515ppi pixel density. The iPhone 6 Plus has a 5.5-inch Retina HD screen, which means in this case a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and a pixel density of 401 ppi. So again lagging behind in terms of pure specs, but will you notice the difference? Apple says it offers wider viewing angles because of its dual-domain pixels, after all.

While using the Note 4, we found that the screen had an incredible sense of depth, and we can imagine that it'll be difficult to go back to full-HD once you've used a smartphone or tablet with a Quad HD screen like this one. Which is not to say the the iPhone 6 Plus display is in any way a bad screen, just that the Note 4's is quantifiably better.

Storage

The 32GB Galaxy Note 4 comes with a microSD card slot which can take up to 128GB cards. The iPhone 6 Plus comes in 16GB, 64GB and 128GB flavors, but has no expandable storage. Onboard storage is always better for performance, but it is reflected in the price. None the less, with the exception of the next to useless 16GB model, we prefer the iPhone's storage options. Onboard is always better.

Software

Android vs iOS is a conundrum. Android isn't like it used to be: if you are new to the smartphone game there's no obvious winner. These are the two most popular and best mobile operating systems around so it's about picking which one is right for you.

In essence, if you are a long-term iOS user you are probably best off sticking with what you know. You have after all almost certainly spent a lot of cash on apps that you'll have to spend again in Android. But it is worth considering that your iTunes music files will work in Android, and Android offers the opportunity of shopping around for music, movies, books and TV shows.

Cameras

The iPhone 6 Plus has the same top-line megapixel numbers as the iPhone 5s: 8Mp on the rear, and 1.2Mp on the front. But some things are more important than megapixel count. Apple assures us that the new iSight camera is better than its predecessor in many ways: optical image stabilization, is an impressive addition; as is continuous-autofocus when shooting video. We like the option of 240fps slow-mo video as well as 120fps. Improved panorama shots, face detection and low-light performance, round out Apple's claimed improvements. And burst mode has been added to the front-facing camera as well the rear one.

Samsung has improved the camera in the Galaxy Note 4, and we found the results to be quite impressive. The rear-facing camera is 16 Mp, with auto focus and Smart OIS (optical image stabilization). HDR on the Galaxy Note 4 offers a live preview, so you can see exactly what your image will look like before you capture it which is a neat trick. As you would expect, it can still record 4K video like its predecessor.