Samsung's Apple-Bashing Ads vs. Reality

Samsung's dropped but another Apple-bashing ad, once again mocking clients who camp out for hours in front of Apple stores.

The latest fanboys ad

In the latest "fanboys" ad, a Samsung Galaxy S II owner approaches a group of Apple fans, and asks why they've been waiting in line for so long.

Don't get me wrong--I'm all for amusing advertisements, however I'm as well for truth in advertising. So let's dissect the latest anti-Apple Samsung commercial, as then as the original "Straightway Best Thing" commercial, and see how they compare with reality:

Nice little jab from Samsung

This is a nice little jab from Samsung, referencing the iPhone 4S battery drain that some users have experienced. During a software update fixed the problem for some iPhones, it as well caused more problems for others. The word "sketchy" is just vague enough for this to be considered a legitimate claim.

Yes, the Galaxy S II has a much larger screen than the iPhone 4S, measuring 4.5-inches diagonal on T-Mobile and Sprint. AT&T sells a 4.3-inch Galaxy S II that runs on its HSPA+ network, and a 4.5-inch version dubbed the "Skyrocket" that runs on its 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution, latest standard in the mobile network technology) network. They're all a lot bigger than the iPhone's 3.5-inch display, so it's a legitimate claim. Nevertheless bigger isn't necessarily better, especially if you have small hands.

The Galaxy S II is a 4G phone

Samsung is suggesting that the Galaxy S II is a 4G phone, during the iPhone 4S is not. In reality, AT&T's iPhone 4S supports HSPA+, just like the Galaxy S II on AT&T and T-Mobile. And Sprint's Galaxy S II uses WiMax, which was often slower than HSPA+ in PCWorld 4G speed tests. The only Galaxy S II that can legitimately claim to be faster than any iPhone is the AT&T Skyrocket, which supports 4G LTE. Nevertheless because Samsung advertises all models in its commercial, we can consider this to be a bogus claim.

It seems like this explanation from one Apple fanboy got cut off in the middle. What he should have said was "keep all my music available on any device through the cloud," because that's what Apple's iCloud does. I can understand Samsung not wanting to describe any of the iPhone's appealing features in an advertisement, however it's nonsense to think you can't keep any of your music if you don't wait in line for three days to buy an iPhone. Samsung would've been better off explaining that iTunes Match costs $25 per year to sync non-iTunes songs with any Apple device, during Google Music streams your entire MP3 library for free. Yet as it stands, this is a bogus claim.

What Samsung is referring to

It's not clear what Samsung is referring to. The company pre-loads a "MediaHub" app for purchasing music and movies, and sharing that content with other Samsung devices. To stream from the cloud, but, Android users will want Amazon's MP3 app or Google Music. They're both available through the Android Market, so consider this a legitimate claim, even if the ad doesn't explain it very so then.

"Tons" is an exaggeration. Out of the box, Galaxy S II users can buy movies through Samsung's MediaHub, or through the Android Market. That's two places to buy movies. However it be, I'm not sure why you'd need a lot of places to buy movies--one store should be enough if prices are fair and it has what you want--so this is a bogus claim, and a strange one at that.