Galaxy Note 4 or iPhone 6 Plus for the next two years?

[Bahroo]

Nothing is "future proof", but the iphone 6 and 6 plus are clearly not going to last for three reasons:
- screen resolution even on the 6+ just barley at par
- RAM is laughable and will be a stumbling block as the OS gets updated and web usage gets more and more multimedia oriented
- Storage is stuck, so you can’t add more later

The camera is what has best change of holding up as it is class-leading in practical usage. But that said, the 8MP resolution will become more and more of a hinderance as resolution of TV’s desktop computers increases, because that is where these images are shared to and viewed

Resolutions of TV's and desktop monitors aren't drmatically going to change to over 4K/5K resolutions in matter of 2 years, what are you even saying?? 8 megapixels is really high resolution and well well above 1080p resolution

How is a 1080p panel on a 5.5 inch screen barely on par?? lmao... the 6 Plus has the best 1080p panel in a smartphone currently right now

 

[Tsuchiya]

stick with the 6 Plus, the better battery life and longer support guranteed by Apple and the future proofness of the Apple A8 will give you at least 3 years minimum out your 6 Plus, by February 2015, all applications and app updates that are submitted to the iOS App store have to support 64 bit code, so the apps that arent updated to 64 bit yet, will give 6/6 plus owners a 40% speed boost running the application in 64 bit mode then 32 bit mode, which is a dramatic speed increase from app updates alone(and not even software updates from Apple that will further improve performance)

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cant compare note 3 screen to 6 Plus screen, Note 3 uses pentile pixel layout screen and red and blue subpixels on the Note 3 are under 300 PPI, which is why you see such a dramatic difference going from the Note 3 to the Note 4 display, it is because both use pentile pixel layout, going from a 1080p panel to Quad HD panel with RGB Pixel layout you will not see no where near the difference in clarity or sharpness (you most likely cant even tell any differnce at all) because after a certain point you really cant make out any more pixels. (anything above 400 ppi really)

I didn't know Apple were imposing a 64-bit requirement. Interesting.

For what it's worth, I did end up keeping the 6+. Turns out my new carrier isn't too receptive to refunds or exchanges. Merely swapping to a Note 4 was more of a headache than it's worth (and I'd probably have lost my phone number in the process).

I'll reassess whether I want to keep it this time next year when the next generation of devices come out. At least my carrier will let me unlock the phone after 6 months so I could upgrade if need be.

 

[Technarchy]

For long term phone ownership, I'd stick with the iPhone.

Part of the reason I got the S5 and returned to android was AT&T NEXT which gives me 12 month upgrades.

This pretty much negates any concerns about hardware and software support.

 

[jamezr]

For long term phone ownership, I'd stick with the iPhone.

Part of the reason I got the S5 and returned to android was AT&T NEXT which gives me 12 month upgrades.

This pretty much negates any concerns about hardware and software support.

But you could stick with the iphone if you just buy the phone outright. Then you can upgrade at anytime.

 

[sunking101]

The iPhone 5 has been the most 'future proof' iPhone of recent times. In real world use it still zips along almost as fast as the i6, and it has the same amount of RAM as the 5S and i6. As it's a 32bit phone it seems to handle that 1GB of RAM better than the 5S and i6. Surely a phone that's over two years old should be ready for the scrap heap? Not so, because the very presence of the iPhone 6 and it's paltry 1GB of RAM will make sure that it soldiers on for another couple of years. Someone mentioned it earlier in this thread and I agree, the iPhone 6 is already showing its age. Before it was released in fact. Most specs are perfectly fine across the board, but that RAM is going to be its Achilles Heel.

We've had increasing app and webpage reloading ever since iOS7 was introduced on the iPhone 5 and it has only got worse with iOS8. How on earth will the iPhone 6 cope with iOS9? Unless of course the iPhone 6S is also crippled with 1GB of RAM. I expect that many i6 and 6+ owners will breathe a huge sigh of relief should that be the case!

I will add that I own a 6+. I do feel a bit of a mug but the Note 4 and Nexus 6 don't do it for me for a variety of reasons. I just wish Apple had dropped 2 gigs of RAM in the thing because they're charging a premium for a device they know full-well isn't in the least bit future proof.

 

[The Game 161]

But you could stick with the iphone if you just buy the phone outright. Then you can upgrade at anytime.

I've done that with every phone the last few years but at some point it's just too much sometimes.

 

[Shanghaichica]

But you could stick with the iphone if you just buy the phone outright. Then you can upgrade at anytime.

The cost outright sounds a lot but now that I've calculated how much I paid to get my 6 plus on contract, £325 to buy off my previous phone and then £120 upfront for the device. It came to £445. To buy the phone outright would have cost me £780. So not much more than I paid. However I was able to sell my S5 for £350 so only spent £95 in the end. It does make you think through.

 

[The Game 161]

The cost outright sounds a lot but now that I've calculated how much I paid to get my 6 plus on contract, £325 to buy off my previous phone and then £120 upfront for the device. It came to £445. To buy the phone outright would have cost me £780. So not much more than I paid. However I was able to sell my S5 for £350 so only spent £95 in the end. It does make you think through.

Where did you sell yours?

 

[Shanghaichica]

Where did you sell yours?

One of my mum's work colleagues bought it. I'd kept it in good condition. He was really happy that the flap on the charging port was still intact lol

 

[The Game 161]

One of my mum's work colleagues bought it. I'd kept it in good condition. He was really happy that the flap on the charging port was still intact lol

Nice

I got £300 for my Iphone 5 which helped fund my S4 at the time. Was one sell my phone website. there aren't loads of options.

did sell my gear 1 the other day for £50 to a guy at work.

 

[Shanghaichica]

Nice

I got £300 for my Iphone 5 which helped fund my S4 at the time. Was one sell my phone website. there aren't loads of options.

did sell my gear 1 the other day for £50 to a guy at work.

I know there aren't. I was going to sell it on mazuma for £210, until I got the other sale. I think you get more of you sell it privately but it's often hard to find a buyer so you end up having to take whatever those sites will give you. I suppose he got a good deal considering I threw in the S-view cover and spare battery charging kit too.

 

[jamezr]

One of my mum's work colleagues bought it. I'd kept it in good condition. He was really happy that the flap on the charging port was still intact lol

That was my biggest complaint about the S5. That dang flap! Never had one come off but what a pain to charge my phone Finally went to a wireless charger.

 

[Technarchy]

We've had increasing app and webpage reloading ever since iOS7 was introduced on the iPhone 5 and it has only got worse with iOS8. How on earth will the iPhone 6 cope with iOS9? Unless of course the iPhone 6S is also crippled with 1GB of RAM. I expect that many i6 and 6+ owners will breathe a huge sigh of relief should that be the case!

I agree iPhone could use more RAM, but whenever RAM comes up the only thing people mention 99% of the time is Safari. One would be hard pressed to suggest 1gb of RAM is hampering performance in other aspects of day to day iPhone usage.

It's annoying, especially with iOS not liking cross app sharing, so when navigating between safari and other apps, you're going to lose what is on the Safari screen, but in app performance and device performance is still very good.

More importantly device support will be strong for years.

Context:

The iPhone 4S was released in 2011 and is STILL supported by Apple with updates.

How many android phones from 2011 will be supported by the manufacturer with Lollipop...? Zero. Galaxy Nexus came out in 2011...where is the support, and that is Google?

If one really wants to get a device paid for/paid off, and save money with long term device ownership of 2+ years, the iPhone is the best option.

 

[MRU]

The iPhone 5 has been the most 'future proof' iPhone of recent times. In real world use it still zips along almost as fast as the i6, and it has the same amount of RAM as the 5S and i6. As it's a 32bit phone it seems to handle that 1GB of RAM better than the 5S and i6. Surely a phone that's over two years old should be ready for the scrap heap? Not so, because the very presence of the iPhone 6 and it's paltry 1GB of RAM will make sure that it soldiers on for another couple of years. Someone mentioned it earlier in this thread and I agree, the iPhone 6 is already showing its age. Before it was released in fact. Most specs are perfectly fine across the board, but that RAM is going to be its Achilles Heel. .

You clearly haven't used s Galaxy S5 which suffers VASTLY more with ram management despite having a full 1gb more. I never experience the amount of app reloads on my iPhone 6 or 6 plus as I did on the S5.

Indeed, My iPhone 6 plus memory management seems to be near identical as my Note Pro 12.2 despite a 2gb differential.

So I fail to see how in actual use its 'crippled' or redundant.

 

[The Game 161]

You clearly haven't used s Galaxy S5 which suffers VASTLY more with ram management despite having a full 1gb more. I never experience the amount of app reloads on my iPhone 6 or 6 plus as I did on the S5.

Indeed, My iPhone 6 plus memory management seems to be near identical as my Note Pro 12.2 despite a 2gb differential.

So I fail to see how in actual use its 'crippled' or redundant.

you got an iphone 6 plus? when was this? you kept that quiet

 

[Shanghaichica]

I agree iPhone could use more RAM, but whenever RAM comes up the only thing people mention 99% of the time is Safari. One would be hard pressed to suggest 1gb of RAM is hampering performance in other aspects of day to day iPhone usage.

It's annoying, especially with iOS not liking cross app sharing, so when navigating between safari and other apps, you're going to lose what is on the Safari screen, but in app performance and device performance is still very good.

More importantly device support will be strong for years.

Context:

The iPhone 4S was released in 2011 and is STILL supported by Apple with updates.

How many android phones from 2011 will be supported by the manufacturer with Lollipop...? Zero. Galaxy Nexus came out in 2011...where is the support, and that is Google?

If one really wants to get a device paid for/paid off, and save money with long term device ownership of 2+ years, the iPhone is the best option.

I agree with regards to support. My mum is still rocking her iPhone 4. It doesn't support ios8 but up until a few months ago it was still supported by Apple and that came out in 2010! She's had the phone since it came out and it's still working. I can't imagine any android phone still being usable 4/5 years later. By contrast, the original Galaxy note was released a year later and stopped receiving updates just short of 2 years ago. By early 2013 it was virtually unusable for me.

 

[MRU]

Galaxy Note 4 or iPhone 6 Plus for the next two years?

you got an iphone 6 plus? when was this? you kept that quiet

Lol ... Yeah I did confess to someone but yeah swapped my 6 slate grey for a 6 plus silver and despite my protestations over phablets, I actually think it's much better than the 6....

Yes it's big, but doesn't feel quite as big as my note 3 or one plus one did.

The landscape option in stock apps is great too. Basically it's replaced my iPad mini and iPhone 6

Oh and battery life is great. Easily get two days of good usage, and games like wolf amongst us look great on it too....

Still keeping my alpha as my more pocketable portable though...

 

[The Game 161]

Lol ... Yeah I did confess to someone but yeah swapped my 6 slate grey for a 6 plus silver and despite my protestations over phablets, I actually think it's much better than the 6....

Yes it's big, but doesn't feel quite as big as my note 3 or one plus one did.

The landscape option in stock apps is great too. Basically it's replaced my iPad mini and iPhone 6

Oh and battery life is great. Easily get two days of good usage, and games like wolf amongst us look great on it too....

Still keeping my alpha as my more pocketable portable though...

Yeah it does seem too tall to me as a stand alone device even as a note user but I can see why some have a note 4 and use the plus as a smaller tablet type option.

If I was to get an iphone it would be the plus for this option..wouldn't leave the note as a my main driver. But I have seen a few have the plus too as a extra tablet.

 

[TurboJobo]

I wouldn't really called it support, Every time a new ios comes out more than half of the new things on it don't go into the last gen, and they become slow, sure a nexus since 2012 might not have the latest updates but i bet it's still as fast as it when it came out, but an 4s even my5, with ios8 its really slow battery wont last for some reason it turns off at 50% charge and apple tells me its normal, that the battery its in perfect condition just to do a simple restore and even then its the same. Apps crash the same. Only thing keeping me from going into android is imessages and my music into itunes.

 

[I7guy]

I wouldn't really called it support, Every time a new ios comes out more than half of the new things on it don't go into the last gen, and they become slow, sure a nexus since 2012 might not have the latest updates but i bet it's still as fast as it when it came out, but an 4s even my5, with ios8 its really slow battery wont last for some reason it turns off at 50% charge and apple tells me its normal, that the battery its in perfect condition just to do a simple restore and even then its the same. Apps crash the same. Only thing keeping me from going into android is imessages and my music into itunes.

You may have a bad battery.

 

[SecITGuy]

You clearly haven't used s Galaxy S5 which suffers VASTLY more with ram management despite having a full 1gb more. I never experience the amount of app reloads on my iPhone 6 or 6 plus as I did on the S5.

Indeed, My iPhone 6 plus memory management seems to be near identical as my Note Pro 12.2 despite a 2gb differential.

So I fail to see how in actual use its 'crippled' or redundant.

will agree with you that IOS uses less ram than Android. But when i had the S5 it had no performance issues. It was fast and responsive.

 

[MRU]

will agree with you that IOS uses less ram than Android. But when i had the S5 it had no performance issues. It was fast and responsive.

Oh it is fast and responsive, and credit to samsung they made it fast and nippy in the general UI, however when you open a few apps like google play music / newsstand / youtube / tapatalk / chrome and when you get to about the 5th open app, go into multi-tasking and jump back to the first open one and you will find it have to reload content. Now it's not a 'major' deal by all means - but it certainly is there. Whether it was just very aggressive auto-kill in stock rom, or just too many background services buried beneath touchwiz that basically ate up ram leaving little for apps when multitasking.

The Note 4 doesn't suffer from this but it has 3gb of ram, but even then ram usage is quite high even with only the basics open compared to other devices.

The Alpha in my experience also manages its ram a little better - but I think it may simply be that there are less background services running compared the S5 that it can multi-task better between apps - however it still pails compared to a stock google device or even HTC's M7/M8 as sense is almost as memory efficient as stock.

 

[SecITGuy]

Oh it is fast and responsive, and credit to samsung they made it fast and nippy in the general UI, however when you open a few apps like google play music / newsstand / youtube / tapatalk / chrome and when you get to about the 5th open app, go into multi-tasking and jump back to the first open one and you will find it have to reload content. Now it's not a 'major' deal by all means - but it certainly is there. Whether it was just very aggressive auto-kill in stock rom, or just too many background services buried beneath touchwiz that basically ate up ram leaving little for apps when multitasking.

The Note 4 doesn't suffer from this but it has 3gb of ram, but even then ram usage is quite high even with only the basics open compared to other devices.

The Alpha in my experience also manages its ram a little better - but I think it may simply be that there are less background services running compared the S5 that it can multi-task better between apps - however it still pails compared to a stock google device or even HTC's M7/M8 as sense is almost as memory efficient as stock.

When it reloads content how long does that take? Is it instantaneous?
I have had the scenario you laid out and not noticed content reload at all.
It has always been my understanding that an OS should use as much of the available ram as it can. This speeds up the OS and makes it more responsive. Unused ram is just wasted is it not?

 

[MRU]

When it reloads content how long does that take? Is it instantaneous?
I have had the scenario you laid out and not noticed content reload at all.
It has always been my understanding that an OS should use as much of the available ram as it can. This speeds up the OS and makes it more responsive. Unused ram is just wasted is it not?

unused ram is wasted ram is a misnomer. Whilst certainly there is an argument that vast amounts of extra ram is wasteful (ram that your device is hardly ever likely to use), having only a small amount free / available for apps to open results in exactly what the S5 experiences with forced reload/refresh of content.

Yes It will take a maybe only a few seconds to refresh - but you really need to experience a device such as the M8 / Moto X / Nexus 5 and run it side by side with the S5 and where the S5 will start having to reload content after 5 or so open apps, the others can have double that open without the need to refresh the content when opening the oldest app in multitasking.


Take the HTC M8 - it runs at around 700-750mb without open apps - just booted fresh

The S5 will hover between 1.2-1.4gb without additional open apps - booted fresh.

The M8 with those apps I mention previously open will likely get upto 1gb, and therefore have 800mb still user available - so can open more apps and go in and out of those open without refreshing.

The S5 will start to show 1.6-1.7 used of 1.83 available with those few apps open, and it is at this point the auto-kill of older apps kicks in - and thats why when you open multitasking and re-open the oldest app - its forced to refresh it content, and in the process kill the next oldest app (so it too will have to reload/refesh content next time its open).


So how then can a device that is using up all its ram here be better than a device which isn't maxing out its available ram? The answer is simple - it isn't.

The less ram heavy device is capable of running more apps and keeping them in memory. Ram isn't being wasted at all - its merely available - wasted no.

Its the heavier device S5 utilising far more ram that is in actual practice - wasteful.

 

[mKTank]

Hi so I'm a guy (who's been around when it comes to phones, check out my signature) who has went from iPhone 6 to Note 4 to 6 Plus in the past month.

I don't know if your question has been answered yet or if you've already made a decision, but I'll say it anyway: get the 6 Plus. I like Android when it's done right, and features of Touchwiz aside, it's done really wrong on a Note 4. Everything lags. Going to the 6 Plus was a breath of fresh air. I couldn't care less about toys like the S Pen and IR blasters.