New gadgets, new clash. And these gadgets have following that no other devices can match. It's also a fight for turf and market share in the cut-throat world of electronics where rivalries are becoming fierce with every passing year - and with every new launches.

This year, too, the titans of the smartphone world will take on each other at Dubai's mega electronics exhibition Gitex Shopper - the region's largest electronics show - yet again.

This traditional rivalry will be witnessed with the latest launches of Cupertino-based Apple with its iPhone 8 and 8 Plus and South Korean giant Samsung's Note 8; which hit the shelves a day after another. The iPhones go on sale today while the Note 8 reached shelves yesterday.

As usual, ever-hot iPhone pre-orders received strong response from its die-hard fans, but the long queues witnessed in the UAE on the eve of pre-order of Samsung Note 8 showed that it won't be a cake walk but a battle to watch out during the Gitex show.

As earlier reported by Khaleej Times, pre-orders for this year's iteration of Note - which ran from August 24 to September 10 - have surpassed its previous generation by more than four times, according to Samsung Gulf Electronics. Even globally, Note 8 pre-orders have hit the highest-ever for the Note series, beating its predecessor, the Note 7, by 2.5 times, reaching 650,000 over five days from 40 countries, Samsung earlier said.

Whoever will wear the victory crown is yet to be seen but it's for sure a neck-to-neck race between the two. Under a general impression and keeping its tradition, Apple may have an edge with the launches of two versions but the Note series of the Korean major is also maintaining its strong following. Unless Apple's new iPhone X had been launched today along with the two other iterations, then the edge over Note 8 had been truly - and very - visible. But now this tug-of-war is - more or less - balanced. Jacky's senior vice-president Mahesh Chotrani says that both the iPhone and Note have different set of customers.

"Both will do well," he added.

Source: Khaleej Times