Apple's iPhone XR Stands Out In Speed Test Against Samsung Galaxy Note 9
Author - Nov 05, 2018
As the competition between Apple and Samsung goes on, the iPhone XR was put in a two-lap speed test against Galaxy Note 9. The result will impress you.
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Theoretically, there’s no chance the iPhone XR can compete the Galaxy Note 9 in terms of speed. Why? Let’s look again at some basic info of the phones.
| iPhone XR | Galaxy Note 9 | |
| Processor | A12 Bionic | Snapdragon 845 |
| RAM | 3GB | 8GB |
| Storage | 64GB NVME | 512GB UFS 2.1 |
| Resolution | 1792x828 | 2960x1440 |
| OS | iOS 12.0.1 | Android 8.1 |
| Price | $749 | $1,249 |
As you can see, at a price of $500 lower, the iPhone XR runs on 3GB RAM as opposed to 8GB RAM of Galaxy Note 9; however, the public will never fall for assumptions. So a Youtuber did a speed test between the two phones, he posted the result on his channel Phone Buff.

Turns out, the iPhone XR holds up astonishingly well against the Galaxy Note 9. In the test, the two flagships had to launch a series of the same apps in the same order forth and back. In the first lap, despite less than half the RAM of Note 9, the XR managed to launch the last app while Note 9 was two apps behind. Hence, the iPhone XR won the first lap with fifteen seconds faster than Samsung’s phone.
In the second lap, the tester had the phones open the apps in reverse order so as to find out which app stayed running and which needed restarting. Notably, the Galaxy Note 9 succeeded in making up for all the time it lost to the XR in the first lap. Particularly, everything with the XR went pretty smoothly, but with the Facebook app restarting, the XR was held back a little while the Note 9 did an excellent job reopening all the apps.
In the end, the test ended with a tie, the iPhone XR and Galaxy Note 9 finished within 2:38.33 and 2:38.48 respectively.
It was quite an impressive performance of the XR with the A12 Bionic chip as in the XS and XS Max. This test obviously just indicates one among various aspect about a phone, but it did erase whatever worries users may have about the XR’s operation.
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