Galaxy S21 Ultra vs iPhone 12 Pro Max: Don't make a mistake! By Jon Rettinger

Thanks to malware bytes for sponsoring this video, this is the galaxy s21 ultra 5g, and this is the iPhone 12 Pro max. So both of these phones have kind of long nonsensical names, but they're meant to tell you that these are the best version of the phones these manufacturers make, and so that leads us to the video. It's the epic battle, putting these things head to head and there's a lot on paper that is very similar, but there's also a lot. That's different, even taking out the operating system that they are running and at the end of the video, as we always do, none of this whatever's best for you, cop out. We will declare a winner, but let's start and see if these phones live up to their very long names. I want to start with cameras and cameras is usually the area where you can see the biggest difference from phones generation to generation and like looking at even just like camera sensors, but on paper.

This is the biggest difference between the two phones. But when you look at the actual pictures that are coming out of them, differences is almost non-existent. So let me start this with a blind test. I'm to take a look at these pictures. Look at shadows.

Look at details, contrasts color reproductions. Can you and your eye see a difference between these two pictures? So, in the results, a way the iPhone 12 Pro max b was a galaxy s21 ultra, and I would imagine that for most people it's going to be hard pressing. The differences between these two camera setups, but that's not to say differences, aren't there. You just have to know where to look so Samsung kind of true to Samsung form likes to go a little brighter and keep the shadows in their pictures. Apple has taken a different approach this year, especially and really gone for, like crushing uh those shadows here, that's sort of very apparent, but for most pictures and just normal picture taking you know without really any zoom going on.

They look almost identical uh, and I was really surprised at how similar these two pictures looked. I mean look at these photos of the succulent. They were taking it exactly the same time and I could not tell which phone took, which but either way both pictures look perfect and like stupid, similar, but where things do start to differ is in the cameras themselves, the options that you have the physical lenses that are there. So on the iPhone side, uh you've got your wide ultra-wide and two and a half-time telephoto, all of which are 12 megapixels. On the Samsung side, uh, the main camera is a 108 megapixel.

It's got an ultrawide, of course, with 12 megapixels. This time, though, there are two telephoto cameras, both 10 megapixel one at 3x and one at 10x and Samsung is using a combination of the hardware and software to give you their space zoom and only available on the ultra. It gives you a hundred times digital zoom. The space zoom this year is much improved. I think it was pretty maligned uh when it debuted on the regular galaxy s20.

Ultra Samsung has done a lot of work with stabilization uh this time around on space, soon you're not going to want to print any pictures out. It's great for like reading text on signs, far away, it still looks like a hundred times. Digital zoom like there's some obviously some cropping going on there, but it is much more useful this year, when you talk about the cameras and the stills, it's sort of two different paths to get you to the same point, if you're, just taking sort of standard pictures from you know, the regular wide angle sensor, you're gonna, be hard-pressed to see much of a difference between these two. Despite again a very drastic megapixel account difference. Both photos will look some version of awesome, but if Zoom is what you need or more flexibility to have that option, Samsung gives you more choice and more flexibility with the cameras and for me, that's worth it so from a just a still picture standpoint, I'm going to take the Samsung path, almost 10 out of 10 times when it comes to pick up a phone.

So video is a big deal with both phones, and I know a lot of people have the thought that android is just not as good as the iPhone when it comes to video and about two years ago. That was very, very true, but since we had the snapdragon 865 last year and what the new 888 chipsets enables uh, that gap has been almost completely bridged, so the galaxy s21 can do 8k. But the big story on video, I think, is 4k and the fact that really every sensor on the back can shoot 4k at 60 frames per second, so the iPhone does not have 8k uh shoots for k60, but the video that it shoots still looks amazing and awesome. You just again have more flexibility with the sensors on the Samsung, but video fidelity on both look again. The same story.

Look equally good on both phones. Samsung took a very different design approach, with their entire s21 line, as opposed to having just big fat camera. Hump uh in the back left they've made the design sort of fade and kind of blend into the banding on the side, and it looks really nice. Most importantly, it looks deliberate. It looks like a design that was made but to be aesthetically pleasing instead of just I don't know, we got to put cameras on just throw them on there, because we have to it is a gorgeous phone to use and to hold apple, has also changed.

The design here for the iPhone 12 Pro max and that's not something apple- does all that often we've kind of gotten throwback to the iPhone 4 iPhone 5 squared off design. It feels industrial. It feels purpose driven. I really just enjoy the way the phone has looked. The design super subjective both are good, looking phones, but for me screen is probably the most important factor when deciding what phone I am going to use.

So the ultra is a big boy, 6.8 inches, whereas the 12 pro max still pretty big at 6.7, but the 6.8 inch ultra is narrower and taller. Making the big phone actually feel smaller in the hand than the iPhone does, but the big story- and I think perhaps one of the most glaring things the 12 pro max is missing- is higher refresh rate. I've got 120 hertz on the ultra and I love it and for the first time on a Samsung phone, you can run 120 hertz at max resolution, which claps to that finally being here, you can also have variable refresh rate options. You can pick and choose what you want to have and when it's going to refresh for you, I love Samsung displays. This is clearly the best Samsung display they've ever done with a higher refresh rate at max resolution.

It's beautiful to use it's bright, everything about it is awesome and that's not to say the iPhone 12 Pro max display is bad. It's probably one of the best displays out there, but the lack of a high refresh rate, especially when you compare it to what android is offering at a very competitive price point. Furthermore, it's really clear that it needs that, and it's missing, and you could predict any new feature to be on. I guess this year's new iPhone. It would clearly be 120 hertz.

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The standard- and you could thank apple for that. But beyond that stuff there is so much that is packed into the s21 ultra. I want to start with the in-display fingerprinted, so the whole s21 line is using the latest ultrasonic fingerprint sensor from Qualcomm. It's bigger, and I was incredibly surprised, huge amount of respect to Qualcomm and Samsung for making this so good. On the battery side, you've got a 5 000 William hour battery in the s21 and in my usage, even with max resolution and full 120 hertz of refresh turned on, or at least on variable, and trying to kill the battery.

I could get through a full day, and that is awesome. I can charge my phone at night. Does all the fast charge stuff you'd expect from a modern Samsung phone, but you'll easily get through a full day, if not more, with the ultra, almost regardless of how you use it and where your screen brightness is, and for the first time ever on the galaxy s line. If you have an s pen, or you want to buy one separately, you can actually use it with the galaxy s21 ultra one feature: that's missing. This generation is kind of a theme with the s21 they've taken a lot of things out sort of get to a 200.

That's price point which I'll talk about is MST is missing. Those three letters might not mean much to you, but if you use previous versions of Samsung pay, you were going to miss it. Essentially what it did was it created the magnetic field where you could use tap to pay functionality in terminals that didn't support NFC payments. It was awesome and for me, it was the biggest reason that I use Samsung pay and for years reasons that I chose to use a Samsung device. It was awesome bummer that it's not here so Samsung added a lot and took away a lot from this gen um.

I guess. Fortunately, the iPhone didn't have that much takeaway in the first place, the same stuff that you know from iPhones are here just bigger versions of most of it face ID is obviously here it works incredibly well, assuming you are not wearing a mask.5G is here across all the iPhones. It's got a pretty decently sized 3600 amp hour battery. Obviously 5 000 William hours is better, but I have no battery life issues at all with the 12 pro max. It's software optimization here, I guess, with apple kind of being vertically integrated easily again a full day phone, almost no matter what you are doing on it and obviously iOS and Apple's ecosystem, which for a lot of people, is the reason to pick up an iPhone there's.

A lot of other specs to talk about processor is an interesting one. This year, the s21 line across the board, it's the first mass market phone to use the latest chip from Qualcomm uh, the snapdragon 888, whereas obviously the iPhone is using the latest a14 chip. Now, if you're going just purely on benchmarks, the iPhone is going to win 888 still benchmarks very well, but what matters at least to me is end user experience and the 888 and the iPhone with its a14 are very fast. I never felt myself waiting or thinking this was a slow phone by any stretch of the imagination, so both phones are obviously packing a lot of things, and it's a question on which features? Are you going to pick and choose and want to use so here's? The conclusion both of these phones are expensive phones at their lowest price points. The s21 ultra is still a hundred dollars more than the lowest iPhone 12 Pro max.

Both phones do things really well that you would expect so both of these phones are sitting on a table in early 2021, I'm realizing more that my needs at the phone have changed. I'm not traveling, I'm not going many places like I used, so I need a phone that can work for me, mostly when I'm at home, I'm going to pick up the Samsung not only because it lives up to its name of being ultra, but the features that it has and what it adds are more useful to me. I'm taking way more pictures than I used to have my kids as they're growing up and having that zoom is really nice when I'm out and about I'm always wearing a mask so having the in-screen fingerprint reader is a very welcome addition. Furthermore, I've got a phone that looks good, it feels good performs well, and it's somebody who cares tremendously about screens. Furthermore, I have 120 hertz on a max 1440 resolution, which is amazing.

Furthermore, I can go down the list and check off the features that the Samsung has, but I'm willing to step out for MacBook's ecosystem to at least for one device break the chain to get those features that just suit my life better. You.

Source : Jon Rettinger