Author: batteryforpc

The Philips OLED805 marks another battle in the raging OLED price war. Those hunting for the truly vibrant imagery of OLED panels are still looking at significant outlays to ensure their pixel hungry desires are sated, but it’s getting heated out there. 

The best OLED TVs – which make up a lot of best TVs overall, of course – are a hotbed of competition among biggest brands, competing to deliver the best visuals, best design and, importantly, a great price. The Philips OLED805 enters the market as a perfect combination of all three.

Sadly for our US readers, this TV is available in the UK and Europe only – OLEDs at this price are dominated by the LG CX in the US.

Leaving the cheaper end of the market to the excellent Philips OLED754 (again UK-only – but the US has the Vizio OLED-H1 now) the OLED805 is an exceptional television that has it all and, despite undercutting the LG CX by £100 at the 65-inch size, the Philips 65OLED805 is anything but a compromise.

Its Ambilight-illuminated design is a thing of beauty, and the addition of AI to Philips’ picture processing technology takes the brand’s OLED picture quality to new heights. Add in universal HDR support, and the only real catch is when it comes to gaming.

PHILIPS OLED805 REVIEW: PRICE & FEATURES

The Philips OLED805 comes in two sizes: the 55-inch 55OLED805 for £1,499, or the 65-inch model we’re reviewing here, the 65OLED805.

At £2,199, the 65-inch Philips 65OLED805 is eye-catchingly affordable for a 65-inch OLED TV. The entry level LG 65OLEDBX has recently come out for just £1,799, but that set lacks the processing horsepower of either this Philips set or the £2,299 LG OLED65CX model that the 65OLED805 feels much closer to.

The 65OLED805’s extensive features list does little to suggest that Philips has cut lots of corners to hit its aggressive price. For starters, the simple fact that it’s an OLED TV, where every pixel can produce its own light and colour independent of its neighbours, will immediately warm the cockles of many AV fans. 

This is true of all OLED TVs, though. Where the 65OLED805 gets really interesting is in the ways it stands out from the OLED crowd. Starting with the new 4th generation of Philips’ powerful P5 picture engine. 

The P5 name refers to what Philips sees as the five main pillars of TV picture quality: source recognition, sharpness, contrast, colour and motion handling. In trying to optimise all of these five key picture quality traits, though, Philips deploys far more than five picture processing elements. In fact there are dozens of them, each applied in the best order to yield the most optimised results.

The new 4th generation of P5 is significantly bolstered by the addition of AI support. This uses knowledge learned by feeding thousands of different images through a neural network to more quickly and accurately identify and categorise incoming image types, enabling the TV to apply the most appropriate processing options in real time.

The system essentially divides everything into five categories: Nature, Face, Motion, Dark and Other. Any images put into the first four of these categories have all-new AI-calculated processing applied to them. Relatively unspecific images that end up in the Other category receive essentially the same (also excellent) processing they would have received on last year’s Philips OLED TVs. 

The promising picture features are backed up by a 50W, 2.1-channel audio system that supports Dolby Atmos playback, while Smart features on the 65OLED805 are, as usual with Philips’ premium TVs, provided predominantly by Android TV (Pie). It’s good to see, though, that Philips is finally backing Android TV up in the UK with the Freeview Play platform. This works around Android’s ongoing ‘blind spot’ with certain key UK broadcaster catch up apps. Though it can’t solve Android TV’s current lack of an Apple TV app.

It’s also a treat to find that the TV supports both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision HDR premium formats, when most TV brands only support one advanced HDR option or the other.

At first glance the 65OLED805’s connections looks right on the money. Four HDMIs is as many as you’ll find on any TV right now, and two USB ports will be ample for most people (though some TVs provide three). There are the usual Bluetooth and Wi-Fi options, too.

There are, though, also limits to what the 65OLED805’s connections can do. They don’t support eARC, for instance, that might have allowed the set to pass through lossless Dolby Atmos sound via HDMI to soundbars or AVRs. 

Nor do they support ‘next-gen’ gaming features such as 4K at 120Hz Variable Refresh Rate, or the Auto Low Latency Mode standard for automatically setting the Game Mode when a console is turned on.

If you manually select the Game mode when using the TV with a console or PC, it reduces the time the OLED65805 takes to produce pictures to just over 33ms. This is an okay result, but we have seen other premium TV brands getting below 15ms. 

For those hunting down low latency screens, especially with the release of the new generation of consoles, take a look at our best gaming TVs. 

PHILIPS OLED805 REVIEW: PICTURE QUALITY

Philips has long been a trailblazer when it comes to picture processing, leading to its premium TVs consistently producing unusually dazzling colours, contrast and sharpness. At the same time, though, Philips’ processing love-in can cause pictures to look a bit forced and prone to digital noise. Which is where the OLED805’s new AI features come in.

We’re accustomed now to seeing AI features doing impressive things to sharpness and detail – especially when it comes to upscaling HD sources to 4K, or HD/4K to 8K. With the OLED805, though, the AI works across pretty much all aspects of the picture to make the results look more natural. Without, crucially, detracting from Philips’ traditionally aggressive approach.

So, for instance, skin tones are now much more consistently likely to look believable, without saturation levels feeling reduced. There’s more subtle shading in skin tones, too, ensuring people are less likely to end up looking like mannequins. 

The AI categorisation means, too, that while the rest of the colour palette still looks bold and punchy, it also looks more balanced and grounded in authenticity. There’s much less likelihood of certain tones ‘shouting out’ above the rest, for instance, or tipping from vibrant into gaudy.

Pictures retain the extreme sharpness and detail Philips is renowned for, but again AI is on hand to ensure that any sharpness processing is applied more intelligently. In other words, it seems to analyse the image in much finer detail, and apply its sharpening and noise control processing in a much more localised way that avoids such issues as grittiness, noise or stressed object edging. 

Native 4K and upscaled pictures aren’t perhaps quite as forensically sharp as they have tended to be on some previous Philips TVs, but the results are preferable overall. Especially as the more localised application of sharpening tools makes pictures look more three-dimensional.

Philips has thrown more processing power at removing blur and judder from motion than arguably any other TV manufacturer over the years. But with the OLED805, again, the latest processing reduces the likelihood of this processing causing unwanted motion side effects such as flicker or blurry haloing around moving objects. 

An excellent new PureCinema mode, in particular, does a superb job with 24fps films of reducing judder without smoothing the picture to the point where it starts to look like a cheap soap opera.

While the AI features work across all presets apart from Movie (which basically turns almost all of the processing off and actually functions as an ‘as the artist intended’ Filmmaker Mode), there is also a dedicated AI picture mode that gives you more specific controls over how strongly different aspects of the AI system work. 

Strangely, though, I found the Standard and Natural presets more effective in their out of the box state than the customisable AI mode. Effective enough, in fact, to make it much less necessary than it ever has been before on a Philips TV to keep heading into the menus to tweak various settings.

All this and I still haven’t mentioned how the OLED805 also benefits from OLED technology’s traditional prowess when it comes to contrast. Dark scenes look black where they should look black, rather than grey or washed out. And bright highlights in dark pictures appear without any of the brightness compromise or surrounding light haloes you get with even the finest LCD TVs.

As a result, while the 750 nits or so of brightness the 65OLED805 can deliver on a white HDR window covering 10% of the screen falls short of the sort of numbers LCD TVs can achieve, the set’s local contrast ensures that contrast-rich HDR images still look phenomenally intense. 

The 65OLED805 also delivers full-screen bright HDR shots with a surprising amount of brightness for an OLED screen – yet still delivers that extra ‘kick’ to the very brightest parts of images that helps separate the HDR men from the boys.

There are one or two relatively small flaws to report. Dark but detailed shots can very occasionally reveal faint vertical bands in the picture. Very dark shots can lose a little shadow detail too, though again this issue really is pretty rare/minor, and tends to disappear when using a Dolby Vision source.

Next, the OLED805’s noise reduction systems can be a little enthusiastic (especially when using the HDR AI preset) despite the new AI assistance, sometimes softening 4K sources to the point where they lose noticeable amounts of sharpness and detail. So don’t be afraid to set the NR systems to minimum or even turn them off with native 4K. Though turning them off completely arguably slightly messes with the overall picture balance Philips’ suite of AI enhancements is trying to create.

As with any OLED TV, finally, it’s recommended that you take care over what you watch on the OLED805 in order to minimise the small potential for the screen to suffer permanent image retention. This essentially means trying not to spend excessive amounts of time watching TV channels or games that have bright static logos or HUDs.

PHILIPS OLED805 REVIEW: SOUND QUALITY

The 65OLED805 sounds better than it has any right to given its super-trim design. Especially if you’re not wall hanging it, and so can leave a few centimetres between the screen’s rear and your wall so that its three large rear-mounted drivers have room for manoeuvre. 

Sound is cast well beyond the left and right edges of the TV’s chassis, creating a powerful and immersive wall of sound. There’s plenty of well-placed detail within this horizontal splay too, and the sound has a surprisingly forward feeling to it for a TV that has no forward firing speakers. Voices are delivered with both clarity and context, and while bass isn’t particularly meaty, it’s present enough to make the sound stage feel quite dynamic, and sounds clean and distortion-free.

There isn’t as much verticality to the sound as I’d ideally have heard from a Dolby Atmos TV, but maybe this is just a case of the 65OLED805 sensibly accepting its limitations.

PHILIPS OLED805 REVIEW: DESIGN & USABILITY

The OLED805 is a seriously good looking TV. Way better looking than you’d expect given its price, in fact. The frame around the screen is extremely trim, and the outer edges of the rear panel are only a handful of millimetres deep. The main panel boasts a gorgeous brushed metallic finish, too.

The OLED805 carries a chunky black plastic protruberance over around two thirds of its rear, but you can’t see this from all but the most extreme viewing angles. It’s easy to forgive this chunky bit, too, when you realise that it houses both the OLED805’s unexpectedly powerful speaker system, and the LEDs necessary to deliver Philips’ unique Ambilight technology. 

Ambilight casts coloured light out from the TV’s edges that can either be set to a single colour for bias lighting purposes, or to dynamically track the colour content and brightness of the images you’re watching. This sounds gimmicky, but actually, provided you run the feature at a fairly low brightness level and mild level of ‘responsiveness’, it’s almost uncannily effective at making the image even more immersive. 

The OLED805’s screen sits on a pair of ultra minimalist metal feet that are really just crisp silver bars you can barely see when watching the TV straight on. In its standard configuration, the OLED805’s screen sits right down on these feet, further minimising their design impact. Handily, though, Philips provides a pair of feet ‘heighteners’ that can raise the screen up for people wanting to use the TV with a soundbar.

As mentioned briefly earlier, the OLED805’s new AI features make it considerably easy to get the best out of than previous generations of Philips TV. There’s much less need to keep revisiting the onscreen menus. That said, the menus are still dense, multi-layered and complicated when you do decide to engage with them. 

I personally still find the Android TV smart system less friendly than most rival systems. It’s not as customisable as some, for instance, and the way the home menu takes over the whole screen feels old fashioned. It also takes a quantity-over-quality approach to apps. It is at least much less prone to sluggishness and crashes than it used to be, though.

PHILIPS OLED805 REVIEW: VERDICT

The addition of AI technology to the OLED805 proves a masterstroke, finally enabling Philips to deliver pleasingly aggressive processing to pictures without the results actually looking processed. 

The fact that the OLED805 is also one of the prettiest and OLED TVs in town and is well-priced is just the icing on the cake.

For those who aren’t concerned about next-gen gaming features, but would like hugely immersive movies that don’t require any effort to get to peak quality (thanks to the AI processing), the Philips OLED805 is ideal.

PHILIPS OLED805 REVIEW: ALSO CONSIDER

The main competitor at this price point is the LG CX, which is almost identical in price to the OLED805 at the same sizes – though the 65-inch OLED805 is a little cheaper. The LG CX offers the next-gen gaming features that this lacks, and is similarly impressive in image detail. However, the OLED805’s speaker quality and its Ambilight feature go towards balancing that out. Our full LG CX review explains why we like that TV so much.

You might also like the LG BX as an option, if you want to save a bit of money, or put some money towards a soundbar. It’s a little less bright than the OLED805, and with less advanced processing, but is still an OLED screen with supreme rich black levels and stunning colours. Like the LG CX, it’s equipped with all the next-gen gaming features.

We at TechRadar Pro often cover the latest Windows 10 updates and issues, but also sometimes fall victim to bugs in the operating system ourselves.

Last week, we experienced a strange Windows 10 problem that prevented our Start menu from opening, which is of course a major inconvenience.

Every time we clicked on the menu or pressed the Windows key, we were served the following message: “Critical Error: Your Start menu isn’t working. We’ll try to fix it next time you sign in.”

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Unfortunately, fixing the issue wasn’t as simple as signing out and back in again; and the scarcity of information online made restoring full functionality to our device surprisingly painful.

Windows 10 error: ‘Your Start menu isn’t working’

The famous Windows Start menu provides easy access to all manner of important functions and features – from applications to files, settings, power options and more.

So, while the OS is still technically usable with the Start menu out of action, the experience becomes disjointed and much less smooth.

Although some articles on the Windows 10 Start menu error date all the way back to 2015, there is a surprising lack of information online about what might cause the issue and how it should be fixed. The advice that is available (mostly from third parties) is highly varied and, in our experience, mostly ineffective.

We tried signing in and out, rebooting in Safe Mode, restarting Windows Explorer, checking for Windows 10 and driver updates, uninstalling DropBox and our antivirus service – all of which appear in advice materials online. In the end, though, we had to resort to a full factory reset.

To make matters worse, we had committed the cardinal sin of not keeping an up-to-date backup; our most recent was more than nine months old.

Mercifully, this particular Windows 10 error did not prevent us from navigating Windows Explorer and copying our most recent files over to an external hard drive. But if this was not the case, we would have been in trouble.

The issue served as a timely reminder to always keep regular backups – and we won’t be making the same mistake again. As a reminder, the best way to protect your valuable data is by following the 3-2-1 backup rule: store three copies of data, on two types of media, with one copy stored offsite.

Microsoft is yet to respond to our request for clarification over what might cause the Windows 10 Start menu issue and whether a reliable solution is available that does not involve a full factory reset.

Aimed at creators—photographers, videographers, graphic designers, musicians, and the like—the HP Envy 15 delivers with a gorgeous and expansively large display, modern and powerful components, and minimalist design. I’ve used the Envy 15 extensively over the past two months and I love it for the most part. But there are a few niggling issues that mar a near-perfect computing experience.

Design

As its name suggests, the HP Envy 15 is a large, 15.6-inch laptop, and I’m a big fan of its uncluttered minimalist design, which is both premium and professional looking. I especially appreciate that HP floats its excellent island-style keyboard in the middle of the keyboard deck, with large speaker cutouts on each side, rather than saddling it with an overly busy and non-centered keyboard with a number pad.

Yes, I know some prefer a number pad on 15-inch or larger laptops, but the Envy’s layout is better for typing and for the types of tasks performed by creators. Besides, the Envy lineup isn’t a business-class device, despite the obvious appeal. If you want a number pad, you’ll need to look elsewhere in HP’s lineup.

I also like that HP integrated its excellent fingerprint reader into the keyboard rather than placing it on the wrist rest. But the clean look is somewhat undercut by the fact that the wrist rest is visually raised above the keyboard, no doubt to keep the keys from touching the display. It’s a minor but somewhat jarring interruption of the otherwise clean design. It’s even noticeable when the display is closed.

Display

The HP Envy 15 can be had with a variety of display choices, but the review unit is a stunning, expansive, and very glossy 4K/UHD VESA-certified DisplayHDR AMOLED panel with a 100,000:1 contrast ratio that pumps out 400 nits of brightness. I like it a lot, but I would imagine many creators would prefer at least a matte display option.

Unfortunately, no one would describe the HP’s bezels as small, and its lackluster 82.6 percent screen-to-body ratio bears that out. The lower bezel, in particular, is humongous, at over an inch tall. This device is crying out for a taller and bigger 16:10 display panel that could better fill its containing slab.

Internal components

Thanks to its powerful Intel 10th-generation H-series Intel Core CPUs and powerful dedicated NVIDIA graphics capabilities, the HP Envy 15 is a beast that will meet the needs of any creator. Indeed, it basically qualifies as a low-end if not mid-market gaming PC. This is no Ultrabook.

The review unit shipped with a 6-core Core i7-10750H, but you can upgrade to an even more impressive 8-core Intel Core i9 if needed. It can be had with 16 or 32 GB of DDR4 RAM, plus up to 2 TB of PCIe-based NVME SSD storage in a RAID 0 configuration. The review unit arrived with 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage with 32 GB of Intel Optane, not to mention NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 graphics with Max-Q.

And here’ something you don’t see very often: The HP Envy 15 is upgradeable: Anyone can easily pop off the bottom of the PC after unscrewing a few normal screws and upgrade the RAM (HP only uses one of two slots in the 16 GB configurations) and/or storage anytime they wish. Nice!

I don’t do a lot of video editing or graphic design work, but I threw several modern video games at the Envy 15, including Tell Me Why, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and the recently remastered games in the PC version of the Halo: The Master Chief Collection series, and was impressed by the results. I’ll be writing more about PC gaming soon, but from what I can tell so far, the HP should satisfy all but the highest-end portable gaming needs.

That said, it generates a ton of heat and noise, especially during gaming. The Envy dissipates that heat via a rear-facing venting system that you might not visually notice unless you flip it over. (There’s also a large air intake vent on the right side of the device.) But when you push it in any way, you will certainly it: Thanks to its almost gaming-class innards, the Envy 15 can pump a lot of air and generate a lot of fan noise.

You can control how the Envy 15 interacts with its powerful innards using the HP Command Center software described below. But the thermal solution used here is interesting regardless, with two fans, a vapor chamber, and vacuum liquid cooling. Overall, HP says that this solution is 33 percent more efficient than a traditional heat pipe-based design.

Connectivity

Connectivity is modern and powerful, with Intel WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5. There’s no cellular data option, but I imagine that’s tied to the PC’s intended audience. Business-class customers can find several good choices in HP’s stable with cellular data connectivity.

Ports and expansion

Thanks to its large form factor, the Envy 15 is positively bristling with a full complement of modern and legacy expansion ports.

On the left, you’ll find a full-sized USB-A 3 port, a full-sized HDMI 2.0 video-out port, and two Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports, plus the barrel pin-style power plug—this beast requires a 200-watt power supply, so USB-C won’t cut it—and a microSD card reader.

On the right, there’s a combo headphone/microphone jack and a second full-sized USB-A port.

I tested the Envy 15 for several weeks with an external 1440p display in various configurations, but HP says that the PC supports up to three external displays, so it should meet just about any need in that regard.

Audio and video

While the Envy 15 is made for creation and not consumption, its A/V features should satisfy most users. The display is gorgeous, with deep blacks and vibrant colors, but it’s not quite as color-rich as the more expensive Dell XPS 15 I’m also reviewing.

And the sound is decent, but not exceptional, due in part to the use of Bang & Olufsen Audio, which requires you to manually configure the system for music, movies, or voice, instead of Dolby Atmos. It’s the type of thing most people would never complain about, but I happen to be reviewing both PCs side-by-side and the HP suffers a bit in this one area.

Keyboard and touchpad

Overall, the keyboard is very good, though perhaps a bit more loosey-goosey than the crisp, low-throw keyboards found on recent EliteBooks and Spectres. I love the layout though, with its right column of Home, Pg Up, Pg, Dn, and End keys. And I like the look, with the large capital letters on the keycaps, though the letters on the silver keys can sometimes be hard to see.

Beyond the obvious typing functionality, HP integrates a lot of useful technology into the Envy 15’s backlit keyboard. In addition to the aforementioned fingerprint reader, which sits between the right Alt key and the arrow keys, HP puts the power button and a webcam shutter button into keys on the top row alongside a dedicated key for HP Command Center, which is described below. Fortunately, it also leaves the Delete key in the top right corner of the keyboard where God intended.

The glass touchpad is much less successful. It’s technically a precision touchpad, meaning that it is fully configurable using the built-in Windows 10 Settings app. But it’s still just a Synaptics part, and it shows, with annoying mis-taps marring the experience. I always disable three- and four-finger gestures, regardless of the quality of a touchpad, but with this unit, I routinely find myself mistakenly grabbing and dragging browser tabs and pulling them outside of the window or making other inadvertent touchpad-related mishaps. This was a problem with HP’s premium PCs in the past, and it’s returned in the HP Envy, to its detriment.

Portability

At 4.74 pounds and about .73 inches thick at its tallest point, the Envy 15 is a far cry from the thin and light Ultrabooks I usually review. But with its 15.6-inch display and powerful innards, the HP is going for a different audience, and when you consider that it can take on some gaming laptops, it’s actually quite thin and light. Sure, the 16-inch MacBook Pro that HP is targeting weighs 4.3 pounds and is .64 inches thick. But it also starts at $2400. That’s over twice—twice!—the price of the Envy 15.

HP promises somewhere between 8 and 11 hours of battery life while playing videos with the 4K/UHD display, and over 18 hours with a Full HD panel. But my experience was less impressive, if not totally unexpected: I saw a bit over 5 hours on average in real-world usage and with no optimizations. (You can use HP Command Center to run cooler and with less performance; that should improve the battery life too.)

The good news? The HP Envy 15 supports fast charging via the included 200-watt power adapter, which can charge the PC to 50 percent in 45 minutes. And don’t forget that you could also opt for a low-power Full HD display panel if battery life is a big concern.

Software

The HP Envy 15 ships with Windows 10 Home and the metric ton of crapware that Microsoft now includes in that system. But HP has been adding more and more of its own custom software to its PCs in recent years as well, leading to worries about the proliferation of even more unnecessary crapware. I certainly have my concerns. That said, some of the software that HP provides with the Envy 15 is truly unique and useful.

Most obviously, since I’ve mentioned it several times already, is the HP Command Center, which lets you optimize system performance to meet your needs on the fly. You can choose between default, performance, cool, and quiet modes, and each comes with its own performance, temperature, and fan noise profiles. In performance mode, for example, you need to be connected to power, and CPU and GPU performance is pumped up along with corresponding increases in fan noise and temperature. But if you’re working on less demanding tasks, perhaps in a public space, you might opt for quiet mode, which minimizes the fan noise and temperature by reducing CPU and GPU performance.

HP’s Display Control is also interesting and can have similar benefits when the Envy 15 is used on the go. This software optimizes the display for various tasks—web browsing, photo editing and viewing, moving editing and viewing, or native (no optimization)—and it lets you separately enable a power-saving mode that could also help with battery life.

HP also provides an alternative to Apple’s useful but Apple-centric AirDrop solution called QuickDrop. Basically, it’s a software application you install on the PC and on your smartphone, and it lets you move files between the two devices over-the-air, bypassing the usual workflow of backing up to the cloud on one and then manually downloading on the other.

Pricing and configurations

The HP Envy 15 starts at $1150 for a configuration that includes an Intel Core i7 H-series processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti graphics, a 300-nit Full HD display panel, 16 GB of RAM, and 256 GB of PCIe NVME SSD storage. I assume it’s obvious, but that’s a tremendous value for that amount of power.

There are several other configurations as well. For $1400, you can upgrade to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics with Max-Q and 512 GB of storage. The review configuration, with its 4K/UHD display and 32 GB of Intel Optane, comes in at $1500. And a high-end $1900 configuration lands with 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. In most cases, you can personalize your purchase with additional components, including the Core i9 processor choice.

Recommendations and conclusions

The HP Envy 15 hits a fascinating sweet spot for creators and I’m not aware of any laptops that are exactly in this class, with most viable alternatives costing hundreds more. More to the point, most laptops that are this powerful are either gaming laptops with boy-racer looks and plastic bodies or elite business class offerings with very high price tags.

Sure, there are some minor nits. I’m not a fan of the error-prone touchpad, and I wish HP would rein in its custom software, much of which is redundant and unwanted. But it’s hard to argue with the value here, and when I think about moving forward with just a single PC—instead of using a desktop PC in my office and a laptop on the go—I can’t think of a better choice. The HP Envy 15 is amazing.

Indeed, this is a PC I’d buy with my own money and would use happily for years to come. If you’re a creator, a developer, or even a standard productivity worker who needs a bigger display and wouldn’t mind a little video gaming on the side, this is a terrific choice.

As such, the HP Envy 15 is highly recommended.

At-a-glance

Pros

Minimalist design

Powerful and modern components

RAM and storage are upgradeable

Gorgeous 4K/UHD display

Great value for the performance

Cons

Iffy touchpad

Too much crapware

Middling battery life in the 4K configuration

Now we know what the latest iPhone looks like, we can ask how it compares with its market rival: the Samsung Galaxy S20. 

Apple’s virtual iPhone launch – the first of its kind thanks to Covid-19 restrictions – was filled with technical terms and phrases like “Lidar”, “Ultra-Wide Band” and “nano ceramic crystals”. 

It announced a £699 iPhone 12 mini, one of four 5G-enabled phones unveiled by the tech giant and the most affordable flagship-series phone the company has announced in several years, alongside the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max. 

Both the Apple and Samsung phones come in various size and price points, so we have compared the standard model iPhone 12 with the Galaxy S20. 

iPhone 12 vs Samsung S20 price

Samsung and Apple are neck and neck with the S20’s 5G version beginning at £799 compared to the iPhone 12’s price of £799. 

The iPhone 12 can cost as much as £949 for a model with more storage.

iPhone 12 vs Samsung S20 camera and storage

The iPhone 12 comes with 64GB extending up to 256GB for an additional price, while the Galaxy S20 comes with 128GB storage 

The iPhone 12 has a dual lens 12MP camera system and 4K video recording. It can support 2x optical zoom and 5x digital, meaning less blur from far away. 

The Samsung S20 also has a 12 MP dual lens and 4K video, but only offers 1.1x optical zoom and 3x digital. Both boast improved night mode and camera stabilising software, which will make your photos look professional even in the most photographer-unfriendly settings. 

Today, however, smartphone photography is about software as much as specs. Both phones apply serious amounts of computational power to improving photos, and it’s difficult to take bad photos with either.

iPhone 12 vs Samsung S20 battery

Apple said its new iPhones delivered 5G speeds of up to 4 gigabits per second and would be able to balance speed with battery life, which early 5G networks have often been tough on. This means that when a phone does not need 5G connections, such as when streaming music, it will rely on the less power-sapping 4G networks.

The iPhone 12 promises up to 17 hours of video playback and up to 11 hours of streamed video playback, while the S20 offers different metrics – 14 hours internet usage at 4G use, and up to 20 hours talk time. 

In both cases, battery life is always a function of what you are doing with your phone. Reviewers have praised the S20’s battery life. It’s too early to tell when it comes to the iPhone, although last year’s iPhone 11 represented a big step forward.

iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S20 quality of image, display and processor

The new iPhones feature a new flatter design that is 11pc thinner, 15pc smaller and 16pc lighter than previous models, which means the iPhone 12 fits the same 6.1-inch screen into a smaller form factor than last year’s iPhone 11. The Galaxy S20 is marginally bigger, but has an incrementally larger 6.2-inch display. 

Both claim to have extra tough screens. The iPhone has a “ceramic shield” protective screen, fusing “nano-ceramic crystals” into the glass makes it 4 times less likely to smash when dropped. 

Apple’s new iPhone 12 range

iPhone 12 – £799-£949

Base model, with 5G and dual-lens camera

6.1in screen; starts at 64GB

Comes in blue, green, black, white, and “product” red

Pre-orders from Oct 16

iPhone 12 Mini – £699-£849

Compact version for a nifty discount

5.4in screen; starts at 64GB

Pre-orders from Nov 6

iPhone 12 Pro – £999-£1,299

High-power model with three rear-facing cameras

6.1n screen; starts at 128GB

Comes in Pacific blue, graphite, gold and silver

LIDAR scanner for augmented reality (AR)

Pre-orders from Oct 16

iPhone 12 Pro Max – £1,099-£1399

Beefed-up behemoth of the range

6.7in screen (Apple’s biggest ever); starts at 128GB

Better camera, with 5x optical zoom and improved low-light snaps

Pre-orders from Nov 6

The S20’s OLED display has been seen as an advantage over Apple but the iPhone maker has upped its game this year with a sharper and brighter display, although when it comes to pure pixels per inch, the Samsung still wins.

Apple has long been seen as holding an advantage when it comes to chips, the iPhone 12 is running on the new A14 bionic processor – which it claims is the “fastest chip ever in a smartphone”. Samsung’s phones use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865. 

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If you think they might be too close to call, perhaps the announcement that Apple would be shipping all iPhones without a charger or headphones anymore might clinch it for you, just remember, it’s for a very good reason. 

Intel may be having difficulty bringing 10nm to desktop processors now, but this isn’t the first time the 10nm process has given the company trouble. Back before Ice Lake, Intel’s first 10nm mobile line was actually the ill-fated Cannon Lake. While it was originally set to be a much bigger deal, with several chips planned for launch, it eventually only saw one processor hit the market, and only in China. That processor, the Core i3-8121U, shipped with disabled internal graphics, and new code today sees Intel essentially admitting that support for the line is dead. As well as slyly hinting at the company’s feelings towards it.

Prior to today, Intel’s Linux graphics drivers had code for Cannon Lake CPUs using 10th Gen iGPUs. But since no Cannon Lake chips were ever released that take advantage of that, Intel’s decided to do some pruning on the drivers’ code. With extreme prejudice.

The latest Intel merge on the drivers says “We don’t need CNL-only code. This series kills it all with fire.”

Well, now we know how Intel’s Linux driver developers feel about Cannon Lake. And since the merge was able to reduce the drivers’ code by just under 11,000 lines, we don’t blame them.

If you ask Intel today, it will say that Ice Lake was its first “mass 10nm shipment.” Cannon Lake, it seems, is something it would rather forget. Many Cannon Lake products were cancelled along with its other chips, and it’s most well-known for being in a low-power education focused Chinese Ideapad. But as much as it tries to erase Cannon Lake- literally, in this case – it still comes to mind given Intel’s current problems bringing 10nm processors to the desktop.