According to a new Korean report this morning, "Samsung Electronics' latest top-of-the-line smartphones swept the smartphone rankings list of the U.S.-based Consumer Reports magazine."

The Korean Times further noted that "In the latest evaluation of the magazine that came out on April 13, the Korean tech giant's Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus received 81 overall points each to make it the top of the list.

The handset maker's Galaxy S8 ranked third with 80 overall points, followed by Samsung Galaxy S8 Active (79 points) and Galaxy S8 Plus (79). Its rival Apple's iPhone X placed eighth with 78 points while the iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone 8 took sixth and seventh places with 79 points each."

The Consumer Reports (CR) report published last Friday requires that you be a member to get the actual rankings lists. If that interests you, then you could join here. I'll take it that the Korean report presented the rankings accurately.

Of course the CR report still noted that the cameras on Apple's iPhone 8, 8-Plus and X outperformed those on the S9 and S9-Plus. A separate CR report on best smartphone cameras in March cemented that fact.

Friday's CR report stated that the Galaxy S9's speed was impressive overall. Yet in late February AnandTech reported the results of Apple's A11 vs the Galaxy's S9 9810 processor and the A11 was clearly more powerful in a number of tests. In fact AnandTech noted that they were surprised at just how poorly the 9810 processor actually performed. In many cases the performance was less than last year's Galaxy S8 and yet CR stated that the S9's "overall speed was impressive." The obvious question becomes, impressive compared to what, a snail?

Apple's iPhone X intelligently introduced the 3D Face ID to market as part of their TrueDepth camera which is clearly superior to Samsung's 2D face recognition feature. Apple was also first to market with Animojis and yet Samsung's copied features got praise from CR. Hey, why not praise the copycat over the original, right?

On battery life, we posted a report earlier this month titled "Apple's iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X have Superior Battery Life over Samsung's new Galaxy S9." CR was surprised how the S9 battery offered less overall power than the S8.

With so many negatives noted about the S9 it's hard to understand how CR ranked it as #1 over the iPhone X. They praised it for "durability and great speakers." Really? That's why it's clearly superior over the iPhone X's superior camera, 3D Face ID, superior processor specs and battery life? How strange. You could view the CR report here so that you could judge it for yourself.

As a matter of fairness, reviews for the new Galaxy S9 have generally been decent with a 4 out of 5 star ratings from Techradar, Trusted Reviews, Digital Trends and CNet.

On the flip side, the very same reviewers gave Apple's iPhone X 4.5 stars (Techradar, Trusted Reviews, CNet, Digital Trends). In the real world, four of the top reviewers had the iPhone X inch out the Galaxy S9.

In the end, the CR review, while acknowledging the negatives of the S9, still inched it out over the iPhone X. While I'll trust the reviews of the four tech sites reviewing both phones, it's understandable that Galaxy fans will grab the win wherever they can get it.

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