Samsung S8 vs iphone 7

The Samsung S8 with the Infinity display is a real visual treat on comparison with the iPhone 7.

Samsung’s ‘Infinity Display’, which is marketing jargon for a screen that occupies nearly the entire face of the phone. Compared to the iPhone's lowly 65.6% screen-to-body ratio, most of the Galaxy S8’s front is display. This was made possible by shifting the fingerprint scanner to the back and jacking up the size of the display panel to 5.8 inches (from a previous 5.1 inches). As a result, the Samsung Galaxy S8 has a much bigger screen than the 4.7-inch iPhone 7.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 has a 5.8-inch display (or 6.2-inches with the Galaxy S8+). It uses a quirky 18.5:9 aspect ratio, which means you’ll get a seriously widescreen image. You’ll also benefit from a fairly generous QHD+ screen – that’s 2960 x 1440 pixels, giving you an overall pixel density of 567ppi.

By comparison, the iPhone 7 has a much smaller 4.7-inch display with a less impressive 750 x 1334 pixels, which works out at a pixel density of just 326ppi. That means the Galaxy S8 has a significantly sharper display, which means it should be sharper and more detailed. Add that to the fact that Samsung's Galaxy S8 is using an AMOLED panel, which should have richer colours and better contrast than the LED-backlit LCD screen on the iPhone 7, and so the Galaxy S8 screen is far more impressive than the iPhone 7.

The iPhone 7 has proved itself more than capable with a 12-megapixel camera that boasts a wide f/1.8 aperture and built-in optical image stabilisation (OIS). But Samsung’s Galaxy S8 also features a 12-megapixel shooter with OIS, and an even wider f1/.7 aperture, which means more light can reach the phone’s image sensor – that’s a good thing.

The iPhone 7’s front-facing camera turns out 7-megapixel shots, and has a respectable f/2.2 aperture. But Samsung appears to trump Apple on hardware again, offering higher resolution (8MP) selfies, and an exceptionally wide f/1.7 aperture. Still, there are plenty of factors that affect how good a photograph looks.

Samsung Galaxy S8 has a better IP68 waterproof certification. This means it’s been tested at depths of 1.5 meters for 30 minutes. By contrast, the iPhone 7 is IP67-certified, which means it survived a more shallow one-metre dunk for 30 minutes.

While the iPhone 7 may boast waterproofing and a fingerprint scanner, Samsung wins for features. The Galaxy S8 is waterproof and has a fingerprint scanner too, but unlike the iPhone 7, it can be wirelessly charged, unlocked using an iris scanner, and still has a 3.5mm headphone jack too. Better still, base storage starts at 64GB (compared to Apple’s 32GB), and there’s a Micro SD card slot to boot.