Forget Your iPhone X, Ignore The Samsung And Pixel 2 Choices, This Is Your Smartphone Of 2017
Apple’s iPhone X would be an easy winner. The bezel-free screen (at least from a construction point of view), the use of a bright and vivid screen technology for the first time on an iPhone, the change in the UI, and the gee-whizz power of facial recognition all caught the public’s imagination.
A skateboarder jumps the curb crossing a street in Los Angeles, California on october 13, 2017, where advertising for Apple's new iPhone X (Photo: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images)
But the twisted secret of the iPhone X is that all of these elements can be found elsewhere. I’ve been using wireless charing since the early days of Windows Phone, OLED screens are pretty much standard on high-end Android smartphones, and buttonless user interfaces reach back to Nokia’s Maemo smartphones and Jolla’s Salifish OS handsets.
I’m not sold by the argument that Apple has managed to put all of these elements together in a better way. In a different way yes, but the transition from the ‘old’ iOS way (as seen in the iPhone 8 family) to the ‘new’ iOS UI is going to take time to prove that new is best.
Both the hardware and the software of the iPhone X are still the first generation of this iPhone design (the first update since the iPhone 6 in 2014). While sales appear solid and there are no major surprises within the iPhone X, as we’ve seen in the last week Apple’s approach to battery management is now suspect. It’s the only major manufacturer that is having to throttle its hardware because of poor long-term battery usage. Will that impact on the iPhone X in 12 months time?
There’s enough of a cloud over the iPhone X that holds it back from first place.
Samsung Galaxy S8 Edge Plus
To be fair, this could easily be the slightly smaller Galaxy S8, or the slightly larger Galaxy Note8 with S-Pen, but the Samsung ‘Eight’ family shows off the best and worst of the South Korean smartphone manufacturer
In terms of commercial performance the Galaxy portfolio is the only collection that comes close to the retail performance of Apple’s iPhone. It’s a handset that could have truly changed the debate on what it means to be a smartphone. And that’s where I feel Samsung has dropped the ball.
To be fair after the debacle with the incendiary Note7, 2017 was always more about playing safe with the crown jewels. The Galaxy S8 launch was delayed while the battery issues were resolved (and a two-year warranty on all batteries and a promise of 95 percent capacity after two years in hindsight has put pressure on Apple), and the S8 hardware advanced specifications and numbers but fundamentally added nothing new to the mix.
The Note 8 followed a similar path, pushing Samsung’s use of dual-lens camera technology, but fundamentally iterating on the previous design while making sure the minimum amount of risk was taken.
A guest takes a photo of French Montana using the Samsung Galaxy S8 during Samsung's Made for Summer Series Live (Photo by Matthew Eisman/Getty Images for Samsung 837)
As for software, Samsung continues to work on its digital assistant, and providing a dedicated ‘Bixby’ button on its mobile hardware is a strong statement of intent. But Bixy remains a promise rather than a desirable feature. It feels… incomplete.
Of the three handsets I’d choose the S8 Plus. The larger screen over the S8 being the main factor. It’s slightly smaller than the Note8 which makes the S8 Plus is easier to hold in my hand. There’s also a slight edge in battery capacity, and personally I’ll take that over the increased imaging potential of the dual lens camera on the Note8. But it is tough at the top and Samsung’s competency in hardware is balanced by an apparent lack of drive and ambition.
Next page: Two more Android contenders…
">Once more I have the curious challenge of picking my smartphone of the year. Thanks to the industry pretty much agreeing on the performance and specifications required of a flagship handset, I’m going to need to use a rather dangerous criteria - personal judgement. After all, if this was to be an article looking at everyone's opinions we’d end up with ‘the smartphone that upset the least number of people’ of the year, and I don’t want that.
There’s no empirical way of doing this, and that means that my criteria has been rather more about deciding why a smartphone shouldn’t win the accolade… and seeing which handsets are still standing. The winning handset needs to say something about itself, about the manufacturer behind it, and it needs to have made an impact on the industry in the last twelve months.
But first, the honourable mentions for the handsets that just missed out on my top spot.
Apple iPhone X
If I was awarding the ribbon for the phone that made the most noise and gathered the most attention in 2017, then Apple’s iPhone X would be an easy winner. The bezel-free screen (at least from a construction point of view), the use of a bright and vivid screen technology for the first time on an iPhone, the change in the UI, and the gee-whizz power of facial recognition all caught the public’s imagination.
A skateboarder jumps the curb crossing a street in Los Angeles, California on october 13, 2017, where advertising for Apple's new iPhone X (Photo: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images)
But the twisted secret of the iPhone X is that all of these elements can be found elsewhere. I’ve been using wireless charing since the early days of Windows Phone, OLED screens are pretty much standard on high-end Android smartphones, and buttonless user interfaces reach back to Nokia’s Maemo smartphones and Jolla’s Salifish OS handsets.
I’m not sold by the argument that Apple has managed to put all of these elements together in a better way. In a different way yes, but the transition from the ‘old’ iOS way (as seen in the iPhone 8 family) to the ‘new’ iOS UI is going to take time to prove that new is best.
Both the hardware and the software of the iPhone X are still the first generation of this iPhone design (the first update since the iPhone 6 in 2014). While sales appear solid and there are no major surprises within the iPhone X, as we’ve seen in the last week Apple’s approach to battery management is now suspect. It’s the only major manufacturer that is having to throttle its hardware because of poor long-term battery usage. Will that impact on the iPhone X in 12 months time?
There’s enough of a cloud over the iPhone X that holds it back from first place.
Samsung Galaxy S8 Edge Plus
To be fair, this could easily be the slightly smaller Galaxy S8, or the slightly larger Galaxy Note8 with S-Pen, but the Samsung ‘Eight’ family shows off the best and worst of the South Korean smartphone manufacturer
In terms of commercial performance the Galaxy portfolio is the only collection that comes close to the retail performance of Apple’s iPhone. It’s a handset that could have truly changed the debate on what it means to be a smartphone. And that’s where I feel Samsung has dropped the ball.
To be fair after the debacle with the incendiary Note7, 2017 was always more about playing safe with the crown jewels. The Galaxy S8 launch was delayed while the battery issues were resolved (and a two-year warranty on all batteries and a promise of 95 percent capacity after two years in hindsight has put pressure on Apple), and the S8 hardware advanced specifications and numbers but fundamentally added nothing new to the mix.
The Note 8 followed a similar path, pushing Samsung’s use of dual-lens camera technology, but fundamentally iterating on the previous design while making sure the minimum amount of risk was taken.
A guest takes a photo of French Montana using the Samsung Galaxy S8 during Samsung's Made for Summer Series Live (Photo by Matthew Eisman/Getty Images for Samsung 837)
As for software, Samsung continues to work on its digital assistant, and providing a dedicated ‘Bixby’ button on its mobile hardware is a strong statement of intent. But Bixy remains a promise rather than a desirable feature. It feels… incomplete.
Of the three handsets I’d choose the S8 Plus. The larger screen over the S8 being the main factor. It’s slightly smaller than the Note8 which makes the S8 Plus is easier to hold in my hand. There’s also a slight edge in battery capacity, and personally I’ll take that over the increased imaging potential of the dual lens camera on the Note8. But it is tough at the top and Samsung’s competency in hardware is balanced by an apparent lack of drive and ambition.
Next page: Two more Android contenders…
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