Samsung has finally unveiled the Note8, successor to the notoriously-explodable Note7. We've already gone hands on with the phone, which is launching in Australia next month, but how does it stack up against Apple's iPhone 7 Plus? Is it better? Worse? Prettier? Faster? More powerful? Let's take a good, hard look.

We should note from the outset that the iPhone 7 Plus was released on September 16 2016, so it's been available for almost a full year, giving the Note8 the benefit of time. Technology advances at an alarmingly fast rate so it's no surprise that the Note8's internals are significantly improved over Apple's competing smartphone.

Although Apple is likely to unveil the iPhone 8 in the near future, the Note8's current competitor remains the iPhone 7 Plus. So what are the major differences?

Here's the pure specs for how the two match up: