Galaxy S8 Gets Smoked by iPhone 7 in Speed Test

We’re less than two weeks away from the release of the Samsung Galaxy S8 on April 21, but some lucky YouTubers have already got their hands on Samsung’s latest flagship and begun doing some side-by-side comparisons between the S8 and one of its closest competitors: the iPhone 7 Plus.

This video from YouTuber EverythingApplePro compares the S8 and iPhone 7 Plus in a speed test that consists of opening up a series of apps one after another before finishing off by rendering a 4K 30 fps movie file.

Credit: EverythingApplePro/Youtube — (Image credit: EverythingApplePro/Youtube)

One might expect that because it’s packing Qualcomm’s latest flagship Snapdragon 835 chip, the S8 would have an advantage over the 6-month-old iPhone 7 Plus and its A10 Fusion processor. However, the video above seems to show differently, as the iPhone 7 Plus completed the test in almost half the time of the S8.

MORE: 7 Reasons Not to Get a Galaxy S8 Right Now

At first, the iPhone 7 Plus only maintained a small lead when opening and closing relatively lightweight apps like Snapchat and Super Mario Run. Where the iPhone 7 Plus really pulled ahead was during the video rendering task. At the end of the test, the iPhone 7 Plus finished with a time of 3 minutes and 38 seconds, compared to 7:35 for the Galaxy S8.

Another interesting tidbit is that when EverythingApplePro went to rerun the test, it seems the Galaxy S8’s memory management had cleared all the apps except for the video editing app from the S8's RAM. Meanwhile, the iPhone 7 Plus was able to keep all of the apps open in the background, which meant it didn’t have reload any software when running through the test a second time.

These results would seem to suggest that despite being older, the iPhone 7 Plus is significantly faster than the brand-new Galaxy S8.

There are also other Youtubers, such as Xeetechcare, who performed similar app opening tests between the Galaxy S8 and iPhone 7 Plus. Those results suggest that the S8 might actually be faster.

We’re looking forward to performing our own tests and benchmarks on the Galaxy S8 in the very near future, so check back soon to Tom's Guide.

TOPICS

Sam is a Senior Writer at Engadget and previously worked at Gizmodo as a Senior Reporter. Before that, he worked at Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag as a Staff Writer and Senior Product Review Analyst, overseeing benchmarks and testing for countless product reviews. He was also an archery instructor and a penguin trainer too (really).