Samsung Ad Pokes Fun at Apple Genius Bar and Touts Faster Galaxy S9 LTE Speeds

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.

Tag: Samsung

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Top Rated Comments

Pbrutto Avatar
95 months ago
lol, Samsung dosent have a Genius Bar....because their phones are already in the mail for replacement with something like a 27.4% failure rate
Score: 52 Votes (Like | Disagree)
blairh Avatar
95 months ago
This is so wildly stupid.
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macduke Avatar
95 months ago
And in the real world you’re lucky to get 30Mbps so it doesn’t actually matter in any way, shape or form.
Score: 26 Votes (Like | Disagree)
aohus Avatar
95 months ago
so dumb

it is extremely rare to hit maximum theoretical download speeds.

just as much as apple preys on the non-tech crowd with their slick marketing naming conventions, samsung does the same with their 'tech crowd' by trying to whip up support through trivial benchmarks such as these
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
igneousc Avatar
95 months ago
lol, Samsung dosent have a Genius Bar....because their phones are already in the mail for replacement with something like a 30% failure rate
Yea I dealt with samsung support multiple times for a girlfriends S6, it was insanely miserable.
The genius bar is definitely a busy place(tough to get appts at times), but dealing with apple support has always been a pleasant experience for me.
Touting a faster LTE cheap as a must have feature in a phone is so lazy lol
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TimmeyCook Avatar
95 months ago
Samsung must be the worst company when it comes to advertising.

These ads just want to make wars. To incite tribalism.

Stupid people can't differentiate between real information and ads. They are going to watch this ad, and come at random people with iPhone with "hurr durr, my phone is faster than yours, you are an idiot because you bought an iPhone".
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)