Sony Xperia XZ3 vs Samsung Galaxy Note 9 By SuperSaf

- What's up guys? Saf here on SuperSaf TV and, in this video, we're going to be looking at the key differences between the Sony Xperia XZ3 and the Samsung Galaxy Note9. So, the XZ3 has just been announced and it comes around six months after the XZ2 so it is a bit of an incremental update, and we're going to be putting it up against the Note9 to see how it stacks up against Samsung's best. So, initially, let's start off with the build and design. Both of these have a metal frame with curved Gorilla Glass 5 panels both on the front and back. Now if you look at the XZ3 from the front, I have to say it does look a lot like the Galaxy devices that we've had for the past few years. That is Samsung's signature design with those dual curve edges at the front and this is something that Sony have now incorporated into their design.

Now having said that, both devices do look beautiful. They are very well-built and are very premium, and they're both water and dust-resistant, which is great. Now the Note9 is slightly larger in terms of the height and width, however, the XZ3 is actually thicker, around about a millimeter thicker compared to the Note9, and generally speaking the XZ3 is going to be the more comfortable device to hold, because of the larger size of the Note9. Now the Note9 does have a larger size because it has a larger display. A 6.4 inch display compared to the 6 inch display of the XZ3. Now, both devices have OLED technology for their displays.

This is the first time we've got Bravia OLED on a Sony Xperia device, and it looks absolutely stunning. The Note9 already has one of the best displays in the market, but Sony are claiming that the XZ3 beats anything else out there. Now, in my hands-on time with both devices, I have to say both look absolutely stunning. Some of the best displays out there. It's very, very difficult to tell which one is better, both have great vibrant colors, very deep blacks, high contrast ratios, and both devices have Quad HD plus resolution, and things are very, very sharp.

The XZ3 does have a slightly smaller display with roughly the same amount of pixels, so it does have a slightly higher pixel density. But realistically speaking, this is not something you're going to notice day-to-day. Both of these have great displays. The Note9 does have slightly smaller bezels, however, compared to the XZ3 which has smaller bezels compared to the XZ2, but not as small as the Note9. Now let's move on to performance.

Both devices are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor. The Note9 also has a variant with the Exynos 9810. That's going to depend on your market, however, when it comes to RAM, the Note9 has either 6 or 8 gigabytes of RAM. The XZ3 just comes with 4 gigabytes of RAM, so, for the performance side of things, the Note9 does get the advantage here. However, the XZ3 does get the advantage for software.

It does come with Android Pie out of the box. The Note9 currently is running on Oreo, I have no idea when we're going to get Android Pie. Now when it comes to storage, the Note9 comes with either 128 gigabytes, that's the base version, or you can get up to 512 gigabytes, which is insane. That amount of storage on a smartphone. The XZ3 just comes with 64 gigabytes, that is the only version, however, both devices you can expand with the micro SD card slots, so that is really nice to have on both devices.

Now moving on to cameras, the Note9 has a dual-camera set-up, the hardware is pretty much the same as the S9 plus. So you've got a primary camera which has dual-aperture, it's going to switch between F1.5 and F2.4. Really cool how this happens and it's great for low-light. I have done some camera tests with the Note9 and the S9 plus. I'll be linking the latest SuperSaf style camera comparison in the cards as well as in the description below if you want to check it out.

The Note9 also has a secondary telephoto camera, which is going to give you 2x optical zoom, and it's also going to help with the bouquet effect. With the XZ3, you've got a 19 megapixel Motion Eye camera, this has an F2.0 aperture, but it is only a single camera. Now, having spoken to Sony, they have confirmed that the XZ3 has the same camera hardware for the rear-facing camera, as the XZ2. So that's not a difference there, however, we should have some improvements in software. I'm not sure how much the software is going to help here, especially when it came to low-light in my test with the XZ2, once again I'll link that camera comparison in the cards versus the S9 plus.

Low-light, it really did struggle, and that's because you're trying to cram in 19 megapixels on a similar size sensor, whereas on the Note9 you will be having 12 megapixels. And once again, because of the single camera on the XZ2 the bouquet effect, portrait mode, whatever you want to call it, wasn't so great. This is something that I hope has been improved on XZ3, but it's something I'm going to have to test out. Now when it comes to video, we've got 4K at up to 60 frames a second on the Note9, but the Xperia XZ3 comes with something that the Note9 doesn't have, and that is 4K HDR. This is something that was introduced initially with the XZ2.

You also have super slow-motion on both devices, the Sony, however, has 960 frames a second at up to 1080p, on the Note9 you've only got 720p at 960 frames a second. Now one important thing to bear in mind is that both of these only shoot a small burst at that frame rate, so it's just going to be like 0.2 seconds. So it is going to be very difficult to capture the exact moment on both devices, however, on the Note9, you do have automatic motion detection, this is basically a square which you can place in your scene, and as soon as it detects motion in that scene it's going to start recording. This makes things a lot easier to record that slow motion, otherwise it can be very, very difficult. For the front-facing cameras the Note9 has eight megapixels with an F1.7 aperture, the Sony Xperia XZ3 has a 13 megapixel camera this time, so that is something that has been improved from the XZ2, and that has an F1.9 aperture. Both devices also have a portrait mode from the front-facing camera, which is going to blur the background.

This is something that I'm going to have to spend more time testing. Now, moving on to security, both devices do have a fingerprint scanner, both in slightly awkward positions. This is something that I complained about on the XZ2 as well, it was too low down, and I kept hitting the camera lens, and it seems to be the same on the XZ3, so that's something that's not improved here, and with the Note9 I do think it's in a slightly better position, although it's not perfect I do think it's slightly higher. The perfect position would be in-between these two, but either way you do have a fingerprint scanner which works well on both devices, the Note9 however, does get the advantage here because it has Intelligent Scan, so that is the facial recognition, as well as the iris scanner, you can use these independently or together. Moving on to audio the Note9 has a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack, this is something that the XZ3 unfortunately does not have, it's something that we weren't expecting because the XZ2 doesn't have it either, so that is an advantage here for the Note9. And both devices do have stereo speakers, for the Note9 you've got one at the front, and one bottom-firing, they're tuned by AKG, and you've got Dolby Atmos surround Sound as well, but they sound very, very good.

With the XZ3, you've got dual front-firing speakers so one is in the earpiece, and one is right at the bottom, and they do sound sound great as well.20% louder compared to the XZ2, and you've got S-Force Surround Sound on the XZ3. Both devices sound really good to me, the Sony does get the advantage for having front-firing speakers, both of them, although the Note9 also sounds really, really good. Now moving on to the additional features that both devices offer. So the Note 9 has, of course, the S-pen. This is something that's quite unique to the Note9, and not only can you use it to jot down quick notes and things, this time it also supports Bluetooth, so you can control it remotely.

You can use it to maybe take pictures, launch apps, slide through different things, you can also connect the Note9 to a larger display, and you've got Samsung Dex built-in, this is going to give you like a desktop version on a larger screen, and it does open up a lot of possibilities, especially for some business users. With the XZ3 they've now got some new features, one of them is called Side Sense. Now, this is kind of like Apps Edge, which we've got on the Note9 where you can kind of swipe out and see some shortcuts to apps and things, but for the XZ3, you have to double-tap on the side. Now you can tap anywhere on the side, it doesn't have to be in a specific place, like you've got on the Note, you can just tap anywhere along the sides. This seemed to work okay, but I was testing out pre-release devices, this should be improved by the time we get the retail versions, and basically by tapping these twice, you are going to get a list of apps.

However, it's going to learn your most used apps, and what you're most likely to use at a particular time of day, or a particular day in the week. So, for example, if as soon as you finish work Monday to Friday you open Spotify, then Side Sense is going to know that, based on your usage patterns, and it's going to have Spotify there as the first app, and it should make things pretty easy. Definitely quite an interesting concept, I'll have to see how it works in action, and how useful it is on a day-to-day basis. You've also got something called Smart launch, so with the XZ3, when you pick it up to take a photo, it's going to kind of know that you are looking to take a photo, and it's going to launch the camera. Seemed to work okay in my testing, it's something that I probably wouldn't rely on just because I wouldn't want to miss something if I launched it and it didn't launch the camera app.

But you do have a physical shutter button, so if you press and hold that, that's still going to launch the camera, I would prefer that. On the Note9 you can double-press the power button and that's going to launch the camera as well, so it's nice that you've got these quick-launch features. I'm not sure if I'd use Smart launch. The XZ3 also has advanced 3D creator.3D creator for those of you guys who don't know, is something that Sony introduced a couple years ago, it lets you scan 3D objects basically, so you can scan your face, you can scan other things, but this time, you can now animate those things. Now I tested this out and it looks very, very freaky, I can't see myself using this on the XZ3, but if it's maybe something that you're into, then you can check it out, but it did look very, very freaky.

Now moving on to the batteries. The Note9 has a massive 4000 mAh battery, in my usage it's really good, I'll be covering more usage in detail in my one month later review of the Note9, but generally speaking, it should get pretty much anyone through the full day. With the XZ3, you've got a 3300 mAh battery, so it's quite a bit smaller compared to the Note9, and that is the same size that the Note8 was at. Now obviously we're going to have to test this out in more detail, but considering that you do have an OLED display with Quad HD plus resolution, I'd expect it not to last as long as the Note9. Both devices do have fast charging, however, which is great, so it's really nice to get a quick top-up whenever needed.

We do have wireless charging, Qi-wireless charging on both devices, however, the Note9 does support fast wireless charging as well. Now finally moving on to the price, so the Note9 is currently available, it starts at 900 Pounds in the UK, or around $1000 in the U. S. , that is for the base 128 gigabyte version. With the XZ3, it's going to release on the Fifth of October, they have not mentioned pricing as yet, although I'd expect it to be slightly higher than the XZ2, which came in at around 700 Pounds, so I'd expect it to be around 750-800 Pounds, and it will definitely come in cheaper compared to the Note9, I'd say roughly between 10-15% cheaper.

However, for that extra price you are going to be getting many more features on the Note9, such as the S-pen, the larger battery, more storage, more RAM et cetera, et cetera. So it will come down to your personal preference, in my opinion I do really like the XZ3, but I can't help but think that it's what the XZ2 should have been. That's just my opinion, but generally speaking it does seem like a very strong device here from Sony. What do you guys think of the XZ3, what do you think of it compared to the Samsung Galaxy Note9. Definitely drop me a comment below and let me know, I hope you enjoyed this video and found it useful, if you did, you know what to do.

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Source : SuperSaf