Just returned my iPhone 6s Plus... honest review comparison w/ Note 5

[Fr0gburp3r]

The FP reader on my 6s Plus is faster and more accurate then my Note 5. I barely even get to see the lock screen before it unlocks. Not so much on my Note 5. I also get better battery life on my iPhone 6s Plus. I love being able to edit 4k videos like stitching, adding music, voiceover, etc and publish to youtube, vimeo, etc with iMovie right from the 6s Plus. Multitasking is also better on my 6s Plus because apps don't restart/reload as much as my Note 5. Games are also better on the 6s Plus. A good example is Dead Trigger 2. My Note 5 doesn't display all of the effects the game has such as water and reflections. My 6s Plus has all the effects. Web browsing is also faster on the 6s Plus. I haven't even enabled Ad blocking yet which will make it even faster. The S-Pen was fun to play with the first week. I really haven't used it much since. It's nice to have access to the file system on the Note 5 and all the customization but I don't tinker as much as I used to.

 

[Zachary Boddy]

I know they're both great phones but I'd have to go for the Note 5 because of that AMOLED display and Android. I'm not a fan of iOS at all.

 

[jdhooghe]

My 6S gets here Tuesday so I'll be able to compare the two as well. Samsung made a hell of a product and the only thing keeping it down is honestly Google. Android apps reaally need to be more restricted in how they turn on in the background. That said, I'll be keeping both phones.

 

[JanShim]

My 6S gets here Tuesday so I'll be able to compare the two as well. Samsung made a hell of a product and the only thing keeping it down is honestly Google. Android apps reaally need to be more restricted in how they turn on in the background. That said, I'll be keeping both phones.

By "turn on" do you mean how much data they use in the background or their memory usage?

 

[Almeuit]

My 6S gets here Tuesday so I'll be able to compare the two as well. Samsung made a hell of a product and the only thing keeping it down is honestly Google. Android apps reaally need to be more restricted in how they turn on in the background. That said, I'll be keeping both phones.

Hopefully the app permissions in M will help with this. I am not 100% on these issues since I normally have all syncs going full blast but I would be annoyed if they wouldn't stop.

 

[AllPhones]

I know very little about the iPhone (new or old), but it seems to me the Spen has for years been allowing you to do some of the things the iPhone just started doing. Previewing pics and messages for instance. Hover the spen and there's your preview.

Listening to bits and pieces of Apple's innovations, there are times I can remember thinking, "I've been doing that since my Note 3".

Again, I know very little about the iPhone, so I'm not bashing. For me, the best things about them are easily achieved with my Notes, and there are things my Apple friends wish their phones could do that I take for granted because I've been doing it for years.

Posted via the Android Central App

Yep......and the Galaxy S4 was doing the figure hover of pics and messages for preview before the Note 3. So the iPhone is doing it by 3D Touch. I just think the iPhone looks a little cleaner doing things, but the N5 just has more feature and options in IMO.

 

[Katrina White1]

To Apple's defense though you need to have the stylus out to achieve these shortcuts lol

I agree. However, needing the stylus doesn't make them new Apple features. It only makes them old to Android features accessed a different Apple way...with your finger. ;-)

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[jdhooghe]

Hopefully the app permissions in M will help with this. I am not 100% on these issues since I normally have all syncs going full blast but I would be annoyed if they wouldn't stop.

Hoping so too! If Google honestly tackles this issue and makes apps behave in the background then I can see this being enough to taking some of that market share back.

 

[Fr0gburp3r]

I agree. However, needing the stylus doesn't make them new Apple features. It only makes them old to Android features accessed a different Apple way...with your finger. ;-)

Posted via the Android Central App

Using a finger is more convenient than having to pull out the S-Pen to use that feature. My S4 had the feature when you hover your finger over the enabled app but did Samsung take that feature away on newer devices?

 

[digitalbreak]

Touch ID in iPhone 6s is wicked, wicked fast. The Note 5 is still isn't bad is pretty much the same as in 5s and 6 but 6s is wicked fast. I have one and have compared it myself.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[JanShim]

S Pen: I don't find the S Pen that useful but a neat feature to have for note takers.

It's easy to dismiss the S Pen as something unnecessary until it becomes necessary. It's incredibly useful when annotating a photograph which you can't do without a third party app and even when you have app that lets you write on your pictures, there's no way your finger is going to replace the finesse of the S Pen (Apple wouldn't have released the Pencil if they though the human finger can work magic with their force touch technology).

 

[bassplayrguy]

But the fingerprint censor on the new iPhone is FAST. With the Note 5 you get a millisecond delay (I know...) but with the 6s you barely know it's on there because it's instant.

Is your schedule REALLY so tight that a millisecond will throw you into chaos and backlog?

 

[M-A Kuttner]

It is very much a personal preference thing at this point. There are far more similarities between the platforms than there are differences. Most of my friends who are artsy types naturally gravitate to the iPhone, while my friends who are software developers go Android as their primary device, while their iOS devices are mainly used for dev.

 

[Gray Area]

To Apple's defense though you need to have the stylus out to achieve these shortcuts lol

The galaxy s5 and s4 had the air view without a stylus, just hover your finger over the screen, but for some reason Sammy took that functionality out of the s6 during their slimming of tw.

Posted from my Beast Galaxy Note 5

DEVICE HISTORY (since they got smart)
PHONES: Galaxy Nexus, LG viper, Galaxy s3, HTC Evo 4g, Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy s5, LG G-Flex, Galaxy Mega 6.3, Galaxy s6 edge, Galaxy Note 5. TABLETS: Galaxy Note 10.1 gt-n8013, Galaxy tab 3 7.0. WATCH: Galaxy gear

 

[Gray Area]

Yep......and the Galaxy S4 was doing the figure hover of pics and messages for preview before the Note 3. So the iPhone is doing it by 3D Touch. I just think the iPhone looks a little cleaner doing things, but the N5 just has more feature and options in IMO.

I used this argument on a CNET article last week and was blasted because apparently 3d touch does more then just preview pics and emails. It will eventually allow shortcuts like deep press twitter and it will give you the option to tweet, immediately or some things like that. I guess that saves a second and 1 step off launching the app and then tapping tweet.

Posted from my Beast Galaxy Note 5

DEVICE HISTORY (since they got smart)
PHONES: Galaxy Nexus, LG viper, Galaxy s3, HTC Evo 4g, Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy s5, LG G-Flex, Galaxy Mega 6.3, Galaxy s6 edge, Galaxy Note 5. TABLETS: Galaxy Note 10.1 gt-n8013, Galaxy tab 3 7.0. WATCH: Galaxy gear

 

[Gray Area]

Using a finger is more convenient than having to pull out the S-Pen to use that feature. My S4 had the feature when you hover your finger over the enabled app but did Samsung take that feature away on newer devices?

Yes they took the air view with finger away starting with s6

Posted from my Beast Galaxy Note 5

DEVICE HISTORY (since they got smart)
PHONES: Galaxy Nexus, LG viper, Galaxy s3, HTC Evo 4g, Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy s5, LG G-Flex, Galaxy Mega 6.3, Galaxy s6 edge, Galaxy Note 5. TABLETS: Galaxy Note 10.1 gt-n8013, Galaxy tab 3 7.0. WATCH: Galaxy gear

 

[Gray Area]

Good unbiased video speed comparison for those of us that don't have both phones. Take from it what you will.

https://youtu.be/xGCVj66qz3M

Posted from my Beast Galaxy Note 5

DEVICE HISTORY (since they got smart)
PHONES: Galaxy Nexus, LG viper, Galaxy s3, HTC Evo 4g, Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy s5, LG G-Flex, Galaxy Mega 6.3, Galaxy s6 edge, Galaxy Note 5. TABLETS: Galaxy Note 10.1 gt-n8013, Galaxy tab 3 7.0. WATCH: Galaxy gear

 

[Pokefreak13]

I'm kind of surprised you found the 6S Plus to have a faster fingerprint reader. From what I've seen of the 6S and Plus (I work in a phone store so been setting up a lot of them for customers), they are pretty much equal in speed to the N5.

I originally wanted a 6S Plus but the screen on the Note 5 was too amazing to pass up.

 

[Laserbutt]

Gestures.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Fr0gburp3r]

I noticed on the video some lagging on the Note 5. Look at the Note 5 when scrolling in YouTube. Google Maps had to redraw every time he would zoom out.