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

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

iPhone 17 Pro Launching in Three Months With These 12 New Features

Saturday June 14, 2025 5:45 pm PDT by
The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are three months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of June 2025:Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone X through iPhone 14 Pro have a...
iPadOS 26 App Windowing

Apple Explains Why iPads Don't Just Run macOS

Friday June 13, 2025 7:46 am PDT by
iPadOS 26 allows iPads to function much more like Macs, with a new app windowing system, a swipe-down menu bar at the top of the screen, and more. However, Apple has stopped short of allowing iPads to run macOS, and it has now explained why. In an interview this week with Swiss tech journalist Rafael Zeier, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi said that iPadOS 26's new Mac-like ...
Logitech Logo Feature

Logitech Announces Two New Accessories for WWDC

Friday June 13, 2025 7:22 am PDT by
Alongside WWDC this week, Logitech announced notable new accessories for the iPad and Apple Vision Pro. The Logitech Muse is a spatially-tracked stylus developed for use with the Apple Vision Pro. Introduced during the WWDC 2025 keynote address, Muse is intended to support the next generation of spatial computing workflows enabled by visionOS 26. The device incorporates six degrees of...
iphone 16 pro models 1

17 Reasons to Wait for the iPhone 17

Thursday June 12, 2025 8:58 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you skipped the iPhone...
iOS 26 Feature

Apple Seeds Revised iOS 26 Developer Beta to Fix Battery Issue

Friday June 13, 2025 10:15 am PDT by
Apple today provided developers with a revised version of the first iOS 26 beta for testing purposes. The update is only available for the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 models, so if you're running iOS 26 on an iPhone 14 or earlier, you won't see the revised beta. Registered developers can download the new beta software through the Settings app on each device. The revised beta addresses an...
Mac Studio Feature

Apple Begins Selling Refurbished Mac Studio With M4 Max and M3 Ultra Chips at a Discount

Thursday June 12, 2025 10:14 am PDT by
Apple today added Mac Studio models with M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips to its online certified refurbished store in the United States, Canada, Japan, Singapore, and many European countries, for the first time since they were released in March. As usual for refurbished Macs, prices are discounted by approximately 15% compared to the equivalent new models on Apple's online store. Note that Apple's ...
m4 macbook air pink

Apple Now Selling Refurbished M4 MacBook Air Models

Friday June 13, 2025 3:34 pm PDT by
Apple today added M4 MacBook Air models to its refurbished store in the United States, making the latest MacBook Air devices available at a discounted price for the first time since they launched earlier this year. Both 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air models are available, with Apple offering multiple capacities and configurations. The refurbished devices are discounted by approximately 15...

Top Rated Comments

Pbrutto Avatar
90 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
90 months ago
This is so wildly stupid.
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macduke Avatar
90 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
90 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
90 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
90 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)