Watch the iPhone 8 Plus and Google's Pixel 2 XL battle it out in a speed test (GOOG, AAPL)

The iPhone 8 Plus was faster than the Pixel 2 XL in a speed test made by David Rahimi, a popular YouTuber and owner of the channel PhoneBuff.
Speed tests are non-scientific tests that make two devices complete a set of tasks in the shortest amount of time possible.
The iPhone performed better in this particular test but is still not the fastest device in PhoneBuff's ranking.

The iPhone 8 Plus beat the Google Pixel 2 XL in a timed speed test, albeit only by a slight margin.

David Rahimi is the owner of the YouTube channel PhoneBuff, which routinely publishes speed test results every time a new flagship smartphone is released.

Speed tests pit two devices against each other, make them complete a set of identical tasks, and measure how much each takes to arrive to the finish line, in order to see which one is faster.

The difference is usually by the seconds, which means real life differences in actual speed will likely be unnoticeable, but these tests still give good insight on how different devices handle different tasks.

In this case, the iPhone 8 Plus only beat Google's flagship smartphone by an overall five seconds, after finishing the first lap seven seconds ahead.

PhoneBuff's test is made of two distinct laps — run multiple times for results' consistency — that measure both how fast the CPU and GPU are in a given task as well as the handsets' RAM management.

There are both light and heavy tasks, from opening apps such as calculator and camera to more intensive games and video-processing programmes.

The iPhone's tight integration of hardware and software allowed it to be PhoneBuff's smartphone champion for years, although recently it lost both to the OnePlus 5 as well as Samsung's Galaxy Note 8.

The iPhone 8 Plus in particular seemed not to perform particularly well against the Note 8, and part of the blame could be attributed to the version of iOS 11 it shipped with.

It took the phone almost 2.08 minutes to arrive at the finish line, whereas the latest software update shortened that time by about three seconds.

You can watch PhoneBuff's full video down below.

Google Pixel 2 XL vs. iPhone 8 Plus Speed Test