With the announcement of the iPhone 6 plus, Apple has officially entered the phablet market space. After seemingly doing everything they could to avoid the large screen format on their phones, Apple has released not one, but two devices that shatter the previous screen size records of the iPhone. While the standard 4.7 inch iPhone 6 is drawing the most comparisons to the Galaxy S5, the iPhone 6 plus is naturally being compared Galaxy Note 4.

This once again begins the eternal question of whose phones are superior.

Display

Of course with these two devices largely being identified by their screen, it only makes sense to start there when comparing them. While Apple's latest comes in at a slightly smaller screen size than the the Note 4--5.5 inches to 5.7 inches to be exact--the sleek nature of the plus cannot be ignored. It's 7.1 mm thickness is thinner than the 8.5mm of the Note 4, but the two are about the same weight. Samsung's AMOLED screen display is as stunning as ever, but the IPS display of the iPhone 6 Plus is definitely easy on the eyes as well.

Where the Note 4 has the iPhone beat is with resolution and pixel density. 1440 x 2560 with 515 ppi simply looks great. That is not to say that the iPhone's Retina HD display is poor by any stretch, and honestly the view between the two is indistinguishable to the naked eye when seen side by side. However, in terms of pure incremental numbers, the Note 4 wins this one.

Camera

The cameras on these new phones are going to be getting a lot of attention. At first glance it appears that Samsung has trumped the iPhone again in this category with 16 megapixel back camera and 3.7 megapixel front-facing camera. While it is true that the iPhone 6 Plus' 8 megapixel sensor comes as somewhat of a disappointment, it's important to also look at the other features that went into this camera.

Sky-high megapixel counts do not matter nearly as much as photo-processing elements such as how well it takes photographs in low light and how it handles noise and focus. Apple seems more intent on getting these aspects down than driving up the megapixel count and that makes a lot of sense, so they deserve the edge here. 

Internal Hardware

Spec wise, it is not likely that consumers are going to notice that drastic of a difference. The A8 chip in the iPhone 6 Plus comes with 2 billion transistors allowing it to be 25 percent faster for ordinary computing and 50 percent faster for graphics and gaming (something Apple is making a big push for this generation).  Apple never divulges the RAM specs for its devices, but they also never slouch on this department either. 

Samsung has equipped the Note 4 with the latest Snapdragon 805 processor clocked at 2.57GHz. It also won't have any problem handling efficient apps since it includes a whopping 3GB of RAM. 

Other Features

Finally, Apple is notorious for having software bells and whistles on its devices, and that is exactly what it is doing again with Apple Pay and HealthKit. This gives Apple an intangible advantage that it has made a name on since it first created the iPhone.

If Apple actually does revolutionize mobile payments and health tracking, then they might earn back some of the consumer goodwill and momentum that it has lost recently. And then it would be up to Samsung to play catch up for a while.

Only time will tell if consumers will respond to Apple's latest products or if the public continues to go to Samsung for their phablets of choice.

The iPhone 6 Plus will retail beginning at $299 beginning on Sept. 19. The Galaxy Note 4's price has not been revealed, but will likely retail for the same price as last years Note 3: $249 on-contract on Oct. 14.