The BaTTle Of
The TiTans
Translate
Between
Apple, Samsung and Google, who has the best flagship phone?
THE SMARTPHONE Super
Flagship war has been an interesting one. For years it played out between Apple
and Samsung on one side, and a changing star cast of other brands on the other.
For a few years, HTC had a flagship with the chops to take on these two giants;
at another point Google Nexus phones gave them a run for their money; and then
either LG or another brand played a guest appearance and quickly faded into
oblivion. For the last few years, though, it’s been a straight out battle at
the top among the Apple iPhone, the Samsung Galaxy S series and the Samsung
Note phone. It even started to get a little boring. That dramatically changed
this year.
The Pixel from Google
came out with all guns blazing. It’s a phone that has no weaknesses, ticks all
the boxes on the hardware front, a phone that slaps on glass and metal on the
outside to make itself look very pretty and then adds even more firepower with
its Google Assistant add-on. And to ensure that everyone got the point that
this was a top-of-the-line flagship phone, Google also priced it really high.
THE
CONTENDERS
There are others that
should be part of a flagship shootout. Xiaomi, One Plus, Honor, Motorola,
Lenovo, HTC, LG – all have contenders. But this is about the tussle for the top
spot and also about being brutally realistic. The Samsung Note 7 blew itself
out of this race (literally), the HTC 10 is a brilliant phone but hasn’t been
able to take on these three (I do hear though that HTC has some mind-blowing
phones up its sleeve that may well bring it back in competition soon) and all
the others have great products but can’t be considered if this is a battle of
the Super Flagships. That leaves us with three phones that truly can rule the
roost. The iPhone 7 Plus, the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and the Google Pixel XL.
Let’s take them apart in a super shootout. res movies, reading an ebook or
playing a game, the difference between a Quad HD and Apple’s Retina display
does become obvious.
CAMERA
The iPhone 7 Plus has
really got its optics game on point. And this is because of a very intelligent
use of its dual lens. It can be used as an optical zoom and also does a great
job with diffused DSLR-style backgrounds. I also found its optical
stabilisation to be far superior. While the Pixel XL is claimed to have the
best phone camera ever, my results were great but not as good as the 7 Plus
(except in lowlight photography). The S7 Edge has a great camera but is beaten
by the other two phones quite convincingly.
BATTERY
I’m glad to announce that
none of the three phones come with an extra feature where the phone battery
blows up. But there is an added twist in the tale as mAh ratings don’t tell the
real story. On paper, the Pixel XL and the S7 Edge have better battery packs
built-in, but in real life, the iPhone 7 Plus outlasted them in every test I
tried. This is a huge deal for Apple as its most criticised feature has always
been its very poor battery life.
DISRUPTIVE
FEATURE
Each has one that really
matters. The S7 has the curved screen and uses it very intelligently, the Pixel
XL has Google Assistant that works well, while the iPhone 7 Plus dual camera is
a game changer. No winners here because great innovation deserves a pat on the
back.
PRICE
The S7 Edge has been around for a while and thus, its price has
taken a nice, comforting fall. You can get one for about `50,000. The Pixel XL
wants to be seen as a premium flagship and is priced at `67,000 and the iPhone
continues its legacy of being super high-priced and thus, clocks in at `72,000.
Apple seems to have the best cashbacks (of upto `12,000), but you can get some
good deals online and offline on the others too.
LOOKS
The Pixel XL has a glass
and metal back and nice style chops but nothing that would blow your socks off
at first glance. The Apple iPhone 7 Plus Jet Black does manage to take your
breath away but is prone to serious scratches, and eventually, does have the
same form factor as the previous versions. The S7 Edge is the easy winner here
as the curved glass form factor and all the materials used make it quite a
masterpiece.
DISPLAY
This is bread and butter
on phones this large. The Pixel XL has a stunning AMOLED Quad HD display which
matches the S7 Edge’s Super AMOLED Quad HD display dot to dot. The 7 Plus loses
the resolution battle but more than makes up for it with its very real colour
saturation. However, while watching high-
FINAL
WINNER
Many ways to answer this.
If you own an iPhone 6, buy the 7 Plus. If you own an iPhone 6S Plus and still
want an upgrade and a change, control that urge and wait for the next iPhone.
If you own an Android phone and want to upgrade to something newish, buy the
Pixel XL. If you aren’t in any camp or have no loyalty to any brand/OS or are
an intelligent person not swayed by hype or just want the best bang for your
buck in a Super Flagship, the S7 Edge is the way to go!
·
Rajiv Makhni Rajiv Makhni is managing editor,
Technology, NDTV, and the anchor of Gadget Guru, Cell Guru and Newsnet 3
·
HTBR30OCT16
No comments:
Post a Comment