For starters it's smoother on my phone. I don't think connect supports a faster refresh rate. You can set individual default sort for basically any feed or community. I can have the home feed set for new and all feed set for hot. Way more and I mean WAY MORE customization options. Better working gestures for liking or disliking or bookmarking. Easier to access subscribed communities. Also if you tap on the search bar you'll see commonly browsed communities. For example I check memes but I don't want them on my home feed so I just go to the community. And that's just stuff off the top of my head. I would find more if I installed connect again to do a side by side. Don't get me wrong connect is a great app but sync has been polished through the years and it's shows.