How do the iPhone 6 and the Samsung Galaxy S5 stack up?
Apple recently released their latest flagship devices, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and interested people will want to know how they measure up against similar Samsung products, given how the Korean tech company is currently Apple’s (and most other smartphone companies for that matter) biggest competitor in the smartphone market.
The iPhone 6 is best compared with the Galaxy S5, the latest Samsung flagship smartphone.
When it comes to construction, the iPhone 6 has a full aluminium unibody design, while the Galaxy S5 is made of plastic.
Size wise, the iPhone 6 measures 138 x 67 x 6.9 mm, and weighs 129g, while the Galaxy S5 is 142 x 72.5 x 8.1 mm and weighs 145g. This means that the iPhone 6 is slightly smaller and thinner than the Galaxy S5.
In terms of display, the iPhone 6 packs a 4.7-inch IPS LCD, 750 x 1334 pixels, 326ppi display, while the Galaxy S5 uses a 5.1-inch Super AMOLED, 1920 x 1080 pixels, 431ppi display. The iPhone 6 should give better viewing angles thanks to its IPS display, while the Galaxy S5’s Super AMOLED will give better contrast ratio, and displays darker colors better than the iPhone 6. Images and words will also appear sharper on the Galaxy S5 because it has a higher pixel ratio than the iPhone 6.
For processing power, the iPhone 6 has a 1.4Ghz Apple A8 dual-core chip with 1GB of RAM, while the Galaxy S5 has a 2.5Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core Krait 400 chip with 2GB of RAM. While the iPhone 6’s processor is definitely slower, Apple is known for making things run quickly and smoothly on less powerful processors due to perfect software and hardware integration, so it is hard to make a straight up comparison with the Galaxy S5 in this case.
The iPhone 6 has a 8 mega-pixel iSight camera with True Tone Flash and 1080p, 60 frames per second video recording capability, while the Galaxy S5 has 16 mega-pixel camera with Selective Focus and 2160p, 30 frames per second video recording capability. The iPhone 6 does allow super slow-motion video recording capabilities of up to 240 FPS at 720p, however, in comparison to 120 FPS at 720p.
So when it comes to the camera, the Galaxy S5 trumps the iPhone 6 in terms of hardware, but as both cameras are optimized for different recording and photo taking functions, it is tough to count out the iPhone 6 based on raw numbers alone.
The Galaxy S5 definitely trumps the iPhone 6 out right in storage though. The iPhone 6 has set 16GB, 64GB and 128GB models, while the Galaxy S5 has 16GB and 32GB models, but the Galaxy S5 supports an external microSD card of up to 128GB.
Battery wise, the Galaxy S5 also beats out the iPhone 6. The Galaxy S5 has a 2,800 mAh removable battery, which gives about 21 hours of talk and 390 hours of standby time, while the iPhone 6 has a 1,900 mAh non-removable battery that allows for 11 hours of talk time and 250 hours of standby.
Both phones have similar features like NFC support, fingerprint sensors, a barometer, and one-handed mode, but the Galaxy S5 pips the iPhone 6 slightly with its heart rate sensor and split screen multi-tasking capability.
Finally, the iPhone 6 runs iOS 8, an OS that is optimized for Apple mobile devices, while the Galaxy S5 has Samsung’s version of the Android 4.4.2 KitKat, which differs from the stock Android KitKat in that it has additional Samsung “bloatware” that can’t be removed.
Check out two video comparisons of the iPhone 6 and Galaxy S5 below.
