Samsung's back to a familiar advertising tactic in its latest Galaxy S9 video - making fun of Apple. The new "Ingenius: Speed" ad shared this afternoon by Samsung pokes fun at the Genius Bar while touting Samsung's faster download speeds.
In the video, a customer at the "Ingenius" bar that resembles an Apple Store asks about the iPhone X's download speeds compared to the Galaxy S9's speeds, leaving the Apple retail employee unable to respond.
Customer: So the iPhone X doesn't have the fastest download speeds.
Genius: It is faster than the iPhone 8.
Customer: But the download speeds aren't faster than the Galaxy S9. I thought it was the "smartphone of the future."
Genius: Um...
Samsung's new video, and its Galaxy S9 website, are touting its LTE performance scores on Ookla's Speedtest Intelligence Data from February to April 2018. Ookla, for those unfamiliar, uses real-world user-submitted speed test results and aggregates LTE speeds from a variety of devices.
In Ookla's spring speed tests, the Galaxy S9, which is equipped with Qualcomm's X20 LTE chip, was 37 percent faster than the iPhone X and 43 percent faster than the iPhone 8, on average.
The iPhone X is equipped with either Qualcomm's Snapdragon X16 or Intel's XMM7480 LTE chip, depending on model, which does indeed have lower theoretical maximum download speeds than the X20. While the Galaxy S9 and S9+ are faster than the current iPhones when it comes to download speeds, rumors suggest Apple is making improvements with its 2018 iPhone lineup.
Apple is planning to introduce improved antenna technology for faster connection speeds, along with dual-SIM dual standby functionality. Apple's new iPhones may use Intel's XMM 7560 and Qualcomm's X20 chips, both of which are faster than the LTE chips in the current iPhone X.