No Apple product will give you the best bang for your buck. That's just reality.
With that being said, for me it's the Note 8 and it's really not close.
I've only bought Apple phones up to this point, starting with the 3g, the 4, the 5, and now the 7+. The thing is, the 7+ is just boring, and it's not because of the hardware, it's because iOS largely looks and feels the same as it always has. Moving around in my iPhone 5 started slowing down, and things like typing wasn't as quick, but all my apps still ran just as well on the 5 as they do on my 7+. Basically, it made me actually ask "why the hell did I just pay $1000 for the 7+"?
What's new about the iPhone 8? Bezel-less screen, OLED, and wireless charging. Things that Samsung have already had, and in the case of OLED, Samsung has had it for a very long time. For the software, iOS will again feel the same with a few new features, but most of the interesting features are only for iPad. Whereas Android is so customizable with how you phone looks and feels it's crazy. Seriously, just check out homescreen setups on youtube to see how you can truly make your phone look different from every other phone, whereas that isn't the case with iOS.
Also, true multitasking is a big deal for me, having youtube on while surfing the internet is awesome, and something you can't do with iOS. Not to mention all of the other features of android, including the additional features that Samsung has added (multi-tasking is much more powerful on Samsung phones). For those who are still under the impression that Samsung phones are a lag fest because of their software, that's not the case anymore so you can drop that narrative. I've seen plenty of S8's and S8+'s run smooth as butter, with maybe a hiccup every once in a blue moon. My iPhone 7+ has a hiccup once every blue moon as well. From all reports, the UI on the Note 8 has been even further optimized to eliminate those hiccups. So again, you can stop spreading the lagfest narrative of 3 years ago.
Then there's the S-Pen. I used to be one of those types who thought it was just a gimmick, and simply replaced your finger with a pen, and only really helpful if you're an artist. That's actually what Apple would like you to think if you go back to when Steve Jobs was knocking it on stage. Then I realized how much I'd use it as an engineer. I'm always brainstorming new concepts and sketching out ideas to quickly see if they have merit, drawing free body diagrams, or even circuit schematics. I'd always find myself looking for a piece of paper and pen when I had an idea pop into my head only to see that there was nothing around. That's all solved with the S-Pen, especially since it's so quick that you can just write with the screen off and not have to go unlock the phone, open an app, and then start typing (like you would with an iPhone).
That's not it though, like I said, the pen doesn't simply replace your finger, it makes a lot of common tasks more efficient. Something simple like copying text, just hold the button on the pen and drag the across the text. With my iPhone, half the time I first try to select something, it doesn't get the right letter, then I have to spread the corners of the selecting tool to my start and end points of what I want selected. Sounds simple, but the Pen takes a tiny pain in the a** and makes it super convenient, add all of those tiny pain in the a**'s over the course of two years and that's a lot of time and headaches saved.
What about other things? As someone who travels and encounters websites in foreign languages, just hover the pen over the sentence you want translated and it does it then and there. Otherwise, you have to go through that tiny pain in the a** of selecting and copying the text, minimize the app, find and open google translate, then paste to finally see the translation. One step instead of 5-6 steps.
That's not even mentioning the easy creation of gifs, writing things on screenshots, etc... Basically, if you learn everything about the S-Pen and use all of the features it provides, it's a game changer. If you don't, at the very least it makes common tasks that everyone does at some point that much more convenient/faster.
Oh, and about cost. Yes, the note 8 unlocked goes for $930. The thing is, Samsung will let me trade my 5 year old iphone 5 in for $200. Now I'm only paying $730, good luck getting that type of deal from Apple. For pre-ordering, I also got a 128GB SD card and a fast wireless charger for free (worth ~$180). Even if you don't have any old phone to trade in, you are getting way more bang for your buck with the Note 8. Then, of course, 2 months down the road Samsung will be offering plenty of deals so you can get it for less, whereas the iPhone 8 will be just as expensive as it always was all the way up to the day the iPhone 9 is announced.
With all of that being said, for me, it's pretty obvious that the Note 8 is the way to go, and it's not even close.
