I bought a Note 5 a few days after launch with the intention of trying it out for a couple weeks and then returning it for the iPhone 6S Plus. Why? Because the Notes have always been released shortly after the iPhones and because I always bought the latest iPhones, I never bought a Note because the iPhone was so new. I thought seriously about trying the Note 3 and 4, but because I had just gotten the iPhone 5S and 6 respectively, I never did. Well, this year, Samsung flipped the script and rushed the Note 5 out the door before the iPhone 6S and I jumped at the opportunity to give it a try. I played with it for a minute in the store while I waited and thought it was pretty cool, but fast forward 24 hours, and I was in love. I used it for a month and a half and while I loved it, there was a big problem. I live in a fringe service area where there is a weak signal outside my house and inside, it's even worse. Upstairs, I get one or two bars. Downstairs, I'm lucky to get one. To remedy this, Verizon sent a network extended, but it does not support 4G. So, with my old iPhone 6 Plus, I had to turn off 4G, at which point it connected and worked perfectly. With my Note 5, this isn't possible because there is no setting to toggle 4G without rooting, and rooting isn't possible with the Verizon model. This was an annoyance at first, but once I had a recurring medical problem in which I had to have emergency surgery to correct in April and I was trying to talk to my surgeon to find out what I should do and the phone dropped the call 5 times in a very short conversation, I knew that it just wasn't going to work. So the next day (this past Friday, two days ago) I picked up an iPhone 6S. I had trouble deciding between the 6S and 6S Plus because I had the 6 and 6 Plus and liked the both very much, but after having the Note, I've become jaded regarding the Plus because Apple doesn't treat it like a real phablet. I honestly wasn't expecting to be very happy with either new iPhone because I used iOS for a year solid and just got sick of it and needed a change. I've got to say, though, that I've been very pleasantly surprised. So I thought since I've seen a lot of people switch between these two phones, as well as operating systems, that I would do a comparison, category by category. Bear in mind, though, that this is not a full review, it's a quick comparison of the areas that are most important to me. So, here it goes...
Design: Both phones are impeccably designed and constructed of the most premium materials. However, this is 100% personal preference, so while I'll give my opinion, I won't spend much time on this portion because it's going to vary person to person. I tend to prefer the design of the Note 5 because it's just so fresh and clean, but I prefer the iPhone 6S for durability. The Note is strikingly beautiful but the chamfered edges are prone to scratches, while the 6S is much more scratch-resistant but bears unsightly antenna lines. The Note also might fare worse in a drop, because both sides are glass and could easily shatter.
Software: This is probably the biggest difference between the two. The Note runs a light version of TouchWiz over Android Lollipop, of course, while the iPhone runs iOS 9. The Note is all about being open-ended and customizable, while the iPhone is much more enclosed and streamlined. I personally can appreciate both approaches and truly don't prefer one over the other. My favorite new feature of TouchWiz is that it has a built-in theme store to completely change the look and feel of the device on a whim. The themes range from ultra-professional looking to appearing to bear the illustrations of a child with developing motor-skills. With the iPhone, without Jailbreaking, the most you can do to customize the appearance is to change the wallpaper and create various folders for your apps. Stability used to be where iOS was lightyears ahead of Android, but those days are now behind us. I cannot recall a single hiccup in the month and a half that I had my Note, while I've had around 10 stutters and hiccups in the past two days that I've had my 6S. I fully believe that this is very temporary and that Apple will remedy the situation quickly, but it's not something that I remember experiencing with any iPhone launch before.
Camera: This area is pretty dead-even. Both rear-facing cameras take breathtaking photographs, better than most point-and-shoots. I prefer the flash on the iPhone, though, as it tends to produce more natural colors in the dark. The front facing camera on the Note is sharper, but the 6S isn't far behind.
Battery Life: This is the area that really surprised me. I was less than thrilled with the battery life when I had my iPhone 6, though it was a little better on my 6 Plus, but I didn't expect good things transitioning to the 6S. I was wrong. I am a fairly heavy user and I haven't yet finished the day with less than 50% battery, versus the typical 30% that I ended with on my Note. Not only is the standby time on the 6S much better than the Note, but it also handles usage better. I often played a matchstick puzzle game on my Note and I had to be careful not to play too long, otherwise I'd have to charge it. That's not a problem with the 6S. The only area in terms of battery and charging where the Note clearly has an advantage is the fact that it supports both fast charging and wireless charging (and a combination of the two with fast wireless charging).
Display: This, to me, is no contest. The Note 5 has, hands down, the most beautiful screen on the market. The colors are so vibrant that they just explode off of the screen and it is breathtaking. The only advantage that the iPhone has versus the Note is that it produces slightly more realistic colors, but I'll take the possibly overly saturated colors of the Note any day.
Performance & Other Features: In terms of performance, both phones absolutely scream. There is no lag in either interface whatsoever (aside from the occasional bug in the 6S). The only difference discernible to the naked eye is browser speed, in which the iPhone pulls ahead. It isn't a huge lead, but it's definitely a lead. The next feature is the fingerprint scanners, and I came into this when I got the 6S expecting this to be dead even. I, again, was completely wrong. I thought the Note had zero lag when scanning your fingerprint, until I used the 6S. The Note takes around half a second, whereas the iPhone takes maybe a millisecond. You can literally brush your finger across the home button in a swift motion and it will read it accurately and instantly every single time. It's truly an engineering feat. The biggest feature that is unique to the iPhone is 3D Touch. It might seem like a gimmick, and the initial feature-set might seemingly support that notion, but it has a few great touches and the potential to be great. My favorite feature of it in its current state is to Force-Touch the left side of the screen and swipe to the right, which switches between the two most recently used apps. It's quite handy. However, it is nothing compared to the S-Pen. There are no words to allow me to adequately profess my love for the S-Pen in a sufficient manner. It is so useful and just plain awesome. It can be used for drawing, writing, signing PDF files, handwriting to text recognition, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. The shining feature, though, by a mile, is the ability to remove the S-Pen while the screen is off, write on the black screen, and after you've finished your note to replace the S-Pen and your note will now be saved for the next time your use your phone. It's ingenious.
Design: Both phones are impeccably designed and constructed of the most premium materials. However, this is 100% personal preference, so while I'll give my opinion, I won't spend much time on this portion because it's going to vary person to person. I tend to prefer the design of the Note 5 because it's just so fresh and clean, but I prefer the iPhone 6S for durability. The Note is strikingly beautiful but the chamfered edges are prone to scratches, while the 6S is much more scratch-resistant but bears unsightly antenna lines. The Note also might fare worse in a drop, because both sides are glass and could easily shatter.
Software: This is probably the biggest difference between the two. The Note runs a light version of TouchWiz over Android Lollipop, of course, while the iPhone runs iOS 9. The Note is all about being open-ended and customizable, while the iPhone is much more enclosed and streamlined. I personally can appreciate both approaches and truly don't prefer one over the other. My favorite new feature of TouchWiz is that it has a built-in theme store to completely change the look and feel of the device on a whim. The themes range from ultra-professional looking to appearing to bear the illustrations of a child with developing motor-skills. With the iPhone, without Jailbreaking, the most you can do to customize the appearance is to change the wallpaper and create various folders for your apps. Stability used to be where iOS was lightyears ahead of Android, but those days are now behind us. I cannot recall a single hiccup in the month and a half that I had my Note, while I've had around 10 stutters and hiccups in the past two days that I've had my 6S. I fully believe that this is very temporary and that Apple will remedy the situation quickly, but it's not something that I remember experiencing with any iPhone launch before.
Camera: This area is pretty dead-even. Both rear-facing cameras take breathtaking photographs, better than most point-and-shoots. I prefer the flash on the iPhone, though, as it tends to produce more natural colors in the dark. The front facing camera on the Note is sharper, but the 6S isn't far behind.
Battery Life: This is the area that really surprised me. I was less than thrilled with the battery life when I had my iPhone 6, though it was a little better on my 6 Plus, but I didn't expect good things transitioning to the 6S. I was wrong. I am a fairly heavy user and I haven't yet finished the day with less than 50% battery, versus the typical 30% that I ended with on my Note. Not only is the standby time on the 6S much better than the Note, but it also handles usage better. I often played a matchstick puzzle game on my Note and I had to be careful not to play too long, otherwise I'd have to charge it. That's not a problem with the 6S. The only area in terms of battery and charging where the Note clearly has an advantage is the fact that it supports both fast charging and wireless charging (and a combination of the two with fast wireless charging).
Display: This, to me, is no contest. The Note 5 has, hands down, the most beautiful screen on the market. The colors are so vibrant that they just explode off of the screen and it is breathtaking. The only advantage that the iPhone has versus the Note is that it produces slightly more realistic colors, but I'll take the possibly overly saturated colors of the Note any day.
Performance & Other Features: In terms of performance, both phones absolutely scream. There is no lag in either interface whatsoever (aside from the occasional bug in the 6S). The only difference discernible to the naked eye is browser speed, in which the iPhone pulls ahead. It isn't a huge lead, but it's definitely a lead. The next feature is the fingerprint scanners, and I came into this when I got the 6S expecting this to be dead even. I, again, was completely wrong. I thought the Note had zero lag when scanning your fingerprint, until I used the 6S. The Note takes around half a second, whereas the iPhone takes maybe a millisecond. You can literally brush your finger across the home button in a swift motion and it will read it accurately and instantly every single time. It's truly an engineering feat. The biggest feature that is unique to the iPhone is 3D Touch. It might seem like a gimmick, and the initial feature-set might seemingly support that notion, but it has a few great touches and the potential to be great. My favorite feature of it in its current state is to Force-Touch the left side of the screen and swipe to the right, which switches between the two most recently used apps. It's quite handy. However, it is nothing compared to the S-Pen. There are no words to allow me to adequately profess my love for the S-Pen in a sufficient manner. It is so useful and just plain awesome. It can be used for drawing, writing, signing PDF files, handwriting to text recognition, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. The shining feature, though, by a mile, is the ability to remove the S-Pen while the screen is off, write on the black screen, and after you've finished your note to replace the S-Pen and your note will now be saved for the next time your use your phone. It's ingenious.
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