Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

[kevin123_smith]

Hi everyone!
I have seen a YouTube video titled "Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus vs iPhone X - Speed Test! (4K)" Video link. In this video, Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus has beaten the iPhone X in multitasking. The youtuber launched several apps in both of the phones. After that, he tested whether all the apps are still running in the backgroud or they have to be refreshed (See 6:58 to 9:00 from the video link). Galaxy S9 Plus kept all the apps in the RAM without refreshing any of them, but the iPhone X had to refresh some of the apps. Note: Galaxy S9 Plus has 6 GB RAM and iPhone X has 3 GB RAM.

I have read in many websites that iPhone's RAM management is different and better than Android's, that's why iPhone has always less RAM than their Android competitors.

I found the following in this website ( https://www.cultofmac.com/303223/ios-twice-memory-efficient-android-heres/ ):---

According to Glyn Williams over on Quora, iOS devices run better than Android devices with twice the RAM (Quora link: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-iP...an-2-GB-RAM-of-Android-phones/answers/7061202 ) because Android apps use Java, and need all the extra RAM to do something called garbage collection. What’s garbage collection? It’s a process that triggers the recycling of memory once an Android app is done using it. Usually, this works pretty well on systems that have a lot of free RAM, but once you get a lot of different apps running, things start getting dicey. According to Williams, Android’s garbage collectors work best when Android apps have 4 to 8 times as much memory as is actually needed in order to perform the garbage collection process. Once you stop having that amount of free memory available, performance starts suffering. This is why Android devices need to have twice as much RAM to run apps as your iPhone does. And as we’ve previously seen, more RAM negatively affects battery life too, which is part of why Android phones need to have larger batteries to attain the same battery life as an iPhone 6 too.

As for iOS? The operating system doesn’t need all the extra memory associated with Java and Android, since it was designed to avoid this sort of garbage collection from scratch. It only needs the memory it’s using. What a radical idea, huh?

iPhone X has 3 GB RAM and Galaxy S9 Plus has 6 GB RAM, but Galaxy S9's RAM management is worse than iPhone X's (according to above article). So it should Not outperform the iPhone X. But surprisingly, the youtube video proved the opposite- Galaxy S9 beats the iPhone X.
I am surprised!!
What can be the reason(s) ? Please explain. Thanks.

 

[Just_Me_D]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

Just like clockwork!

1. The two articles you referenced were from 2014, and apparently a lot has changed in those 4 years.
2. The iPhone X and the Samsung Galaxy S9 are two different phones. I'm quite sure we'll see YouTube videos depicting how the iPhone X is faster than the Samsung at some point.
3. Does it really matter that a video is depicting the Samsung Galaxy S9 to be faster than an iPhone X? If so, why?
4. The answer to your question is "I don't know".

 

[Rob Phillips]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

At some point one has to ask “Why does it really matter?”

 

[tadpoles]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

I doona, personally care if the S9/S9+ beats the X in some tests. Why shouldn’t it? Who say the X has to be the absolute best at everything because it costs the most? Not I. I like my Xes just fine and I know the S9 duo are helluva fine phones too. I need to have both tbh.

 

[Smply_Rckless]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

Personally, I've never cared about these speed tests. Both phones are beasts at what they do & can't go wrong w whichever one u choose.

 

[metllicamilitia]

Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

Apple also changed things with iOS 11. You’ll notice occasionally it looks like your app icons are glitching, but iOS is cleaning something from the apps. I assume this is clearing out cached data, which would cause apps to restart. While previously iOS used to keep more apps open in the background, I think Apple has decided it’s unnecessary and is maintaining the max amount of usable RAM for apps that are currently being used.

 

[Quis89]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

For the most part i don’t care about this stuff. But the app refresh is a point I’m jealous of. Many times I will leave one app and go into another only to bounce back and the app be forced to refresh like new. I wish Apple could improve that. Especially on a phone I paid over $1000 for.

 

[kevin123_smith]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

Hi. For example: I am doing things among 5 different apps (eg: a game, facebook etc.) and I am switching to one app from another. While I am doing this, if one/two apps start from the scratch again, then I will lose my work. Does Apple care about multitasking or not?

 

[anon(1733)]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

Honestly it doesn't matter. Both phones are great at different things. We can argue all day long on which beats which. Everyone uses their devices differently and have different needs from them.

In the end there is no one perfect device for everyone. There's only the best device for each individual person. Pick what you enjoy and forget all the other stuff. Nothing will be perfect.

 

[MaxSmarties]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

Those videos are useless and doesn’t reflect real usage.
No one is cycling between apps in such a way. Galaxy S9 like any other Android smartphone just use brute force (a ridiculously huge amount of RAM ) to circumvent the inherently inefficient operative system. That’s fine, absolutely, until you don’t like to demonstrate Android superiority with that.

 

[MaxSmarties]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

Hi. For example: I am doing things among 5 different apps (eg: a game, facebook etc.) and I am switching to one app from another. While I am doing this, if one/two apps start from the scratch again, then I will lose my work. Does Apple care about multitasking or not?

If you are doing things among 5 apps, none will start from the scratch.
Those ridiculous videos are using several apps including several games...

 

[cwbcpa]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

My advice is to never base a buying decision off of some "test" like this. Most of these tests are doing things that the average person will never do. I would recommend that someone looking to buy a phone, choose an operating system or ecosystem that you want use and then pick the phone that does what you need it to do. Pretty much every flagship phone operates smoothly and does what we all "need" it to do. It's a matter of preference as to what operating system & device does that best. I can make an argument for android or iOS depending on the persons wants, needs and priorities. From there I can even make an argument for which iPhone is best or which Samsung, LG, HTC or Pixel phone is best. Enjoy these videos for the entertainment if you want, but don't let them influence your decision on what to buy.

 

[anon(5630457)]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

Ok. So? Every new phone that comes out should be better than devices that came out last year.

 

[Ledsteplin]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

With RAM, the iPhone doesn't need as much RAM as the Android phones. It's as simple as that.

 

[dejanh]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

For the most part i don’t care about this stuff. But the app refresh is a point I’m jealous of. Many times I will leave one app and go into another only to bounce back and the app be forced to refresh like new. I wish Apple could improve that. Especially on a phone I paid over $1000 for.

Absolutely agree but let's not kid ourselves that Samsung is any better in this regard. I have owned many Samsung devices over time, including the last generation of S8+ series and they all had horrible memory management. When your phone is first set up and has no usage on it, it seems to work well. After a while, you still start to get apps shutting down on you in the background left-right-and-center. Samsung isn't known for proper memory management and custom kernels available on XDA generally do a much, much better job.

 

[tadpoles]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

Absolutely agree but let's not kid ourselves that Samsung is any better in this regard. I have owned many Samsung devices over time, including the last generation of S8+ series and they all had horrible memory management. When your phone is first set up and has no usage on it, it seems to work well. After a while, you still start to get apps shutting down on you in the background left-right-and-center. Samsung isn't known for proper memory management and custom kernels available on XDA generally do a much, much better job.

A system cache partition wipe go a long way with Android phones. Unfortunately, not everyone knows this and they watch their devices slow down, inexplicably, over time.

 

[dejanh]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

A system cache partition wipe go a long way with Android phones. Unfortunately, not everyone knows this and they watch their devices slow down, inexplicably, over time.

I felt like I’m on XDA for a second. Kidding aside, no user should be expected to do this, ever.

 

[anony_mouse]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

I felt like I’m on XDA for a second. Kidding aside, no user should be expected to do this, ever.

I can honestly say that my Android phone does not slow down, and I have never wiped the system cache partition.

Also, to be completely fair, the only device I have had such a problem with was an iPad. I had to do a factory reset after the size of "miscellaneous" files grew to several gigabytes.

 

[anon(5630457)]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

I can honestly say that my Android phone does not slow down, and I have never wiped the system cache partition.

Also, to be completely fair, the only device I have had such a problem with was an iPad. I had to do a factory reset after the size of "miscellaneous" files grew to several gigabytes.

The only Android device I had that never slowed down was the Google Pixel 2 XL. All of my Samsung devices have slowed down over time.

 

[o4liberty]

Re: Why does “Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus” beat the "iPhone X" in multitasking ? I am surprised!

Operating system is totally different it all depends how each system uses it resources on every task. I own both the note 8 and X with the x being more consistent than the note.