iPhone 12 vs Galaxy S21: don’t make a mistake! By Jon Rettinger

Make my day, what do you do? Nothing so versus videos aren't always that dramatic. Usually when I do verses, I like to take all of my personal opinions out and try to look at these totally objectively OS preferences, not a factor. We've got two really heavy hitters here. We've got Samsung's galaxy, s21, apple's, iPhone, 12, two phones that are priced almost identically and are clearly competing head-to-head. So I'm going to go through and give you guys my thoughts and opinions on all of these and at the end I will declare a winner. So obviously these phones are competing against each other uh.

But it's one of the rare generations where you get new design languages for each uh and that's awesome. I got a lot of stuff to say about the design and build, but I do want to start with what I think is the biggest reason people are getting smartphones now or at least upgrading them and is cameras, and I love to start these versus videos by just doing completely blind tests, putting up a bunch of pictures that were at exactly the same time. You guys see if you can decide which one was which I was actually blown away by, how eerily similar these looked sort of the old way of Samsung processing, where things were like extra contrast and poppy aren't really here and sort of with the iPhone used to be a little more muted isn't really the same as it used to be here either. I was shocked actually just how similar all of these pictures looked and like. If you take a look at the sample shots here, each is treating the highlights and shadows pretty.

Similarly, right like the colors are poppy, but for the first time like not overly so and night mode continues. That theme things look really similar and generally impressive between the two uh portrait mode is also like bananas, fantastic on both devices. Skin tone we can see a little of difference in the two um might be the only giveaway as to which phone took which shot so just leave in the comments which one you think is first before you keep watching the video, but the s21 was a and the iPhone 12 was b. This was astounding. I think I still had some preconceived notions about Samsung cameras in my head, because that's how they've always been right, like I said before, the pictures from Samsung phones are always really contrast they're bright colors.

I tend to like those, but it's always what I expected Samsung photos to look like, and that wasn't the case here, and I was actually very pleasantly surprised with how good the pictures looked and the photos in general were now so similar between the two. If all you're caring about sort of the main shooter, the wide angle part, I mean honestly close your eyes pick a phone, and it's going to be great for you. But the story behind the cameras is a lot more. I think than just that wide angle. So I know I'm in the minority, but I really like having telephotos why, when I went for the iPhone I went for the pro max, so I could get the most telephoto possible.

The iPhone 12 doesn't have any telephoto at all. So, if that's something that matters to you, then the s21 like just get the s21 you're going to be good to go, and not only has you know a regular telephoto, it is 30 times, zoom feature it's 10 times optical and the rest is kind of some digital magic. That's being done, it's got amazing stabilization feature to help you capture a really clear picture, and it's not always like super usable. I wouldn't, you know, print out pictures from a 30 time zoom, but there are times when it's helpful. It kind of reminded me that not every photo that I take on any phone has to be a masterpiece like sometimes a camera's utility like a great zoom feature that has stabilization built in is just generally in the more useful in situations than taking.

You know a photo of something an example that I actually had was wanting to take a picture of a sign that was really far away. If you didn't know it's about me as a kid, I was actually legally blind in my left eye. My eyesight is not very good, so I do often times use my phone to put out the camera and kind of zoom in to see things. The s21 was really helpful to have that, and if that's something that you want to use, you take pictures of kids playing, or you take a lot of nature shots you'd like to zoom in then the s21 is really a no-brainer decision, but sort of on the flip side of that, with not every picture needing to be a masterpiece, not every piece of video you take, you know, needs to be cinematic quality, but there is a much clearer difference between these two phones. Video is generally better on the iPhone and Samsung has come a really long way with video, especially with this pro snapdragon 888.

That's in here um, but still there are some issues that plague Samsung phones and tend to play android in general, not not to say this is bad at all. In fact, I think the snapdragon 888 does really admirable job video. It's just that where zoom was something that the s21 did great video is something that apple really excels. On camera, for me, is one of the two biggest reasons that I look to buy. Phones upgrade phone screen being the second.

So if you are like me, which one you want to pick based on, the camera is going to be a priority thing right. If you want a phone that overall just takes great photo and video, you care nothing about telephoto lens, or you just don't care about digital zoom, then the iPhone 12 is an amazing way to go. But if you care about having a telephoto lens, having more camera variety and video, that's still very good. I would go for the s21 for me that you could probably tell which one I would go just on cameras, I'm picking up the s21, so both phones take pretty similar pictures. That is where the similarities tend to end apple and Samsung.

Couldn't have gone in more like divergent directions with the design of these films, how they look uh very happy and clapping that apple changed their design for the first time in three generations, and you can say a lot about apple, their designs tend to look perfect, and then they just drag them out for years until they get stale- and it's been argued by some- sometimes even me- that apple kind of went back to an old design for the iPhone 4 iPhone 5 design for the iPhone 12. I like the flat edges. I think it feels really nice in the hand. Furthermore, I don't mind the aluminum on the sides. Furthermore, I don't mind the glass on the back.

What did feel very strange about the iPhone 12 to me is how light it felt in the hand? It still feels weird to me when I pick the phone up, but I think it's a very good-looking phone overall, I was never the biggest fan, I guess, of the design of the s20 phones. I thought they were more utilitarian than anything else. Samsung pivoted with the s21. I really like the design language of the s21, especially the Thanos purple of the s21 that we've got right here. I think the camera module kind of floating off into the band is a really beautiful design choice.

It has the same issue and the feel that the iPhone 12 does. It feels really light to me and the back material feels less quality than the ultra did both phones, though I think, feel really nice and look nice. This is a total just flip, a coin. Whichever design you prefer, I like that they're both new, so I'm just giving claps to newness, and I'm not having a winner uh when it comes to designing the phones screen, however, is a very, very different thing as important as camera is to me screen, I think, is equally and sometimes even more important. That's what you're! Looking at that's your portal to everything, this phone can.

Do it don't matter, processor, doesn't matter ram, doesn't matter OS if it's got a bad screen, it is going to diminish your experience. Fortunately, though, both these screens are at least at the very base. Very good, so sizes are almost identical. The s21 is 6.2 inches, iPhone, 12, 6.1 inches both have OLED screens and both were actually made by Samsung. Difference, though, comes down to resolution.

Uh s21 feels even weird to say. This, though, is a 1080p display. Uh the iPhone 12 is a little better. Think of it as kind of between you know, 1080p and 2k Samsung apple calibrate the displays differently, it's a preference which one you prefer. I tend to gravitate towards how apple does their calibrations? I will say if you're worried about a 1080p display on the s21.

It hasn't bothered me at all sort of maybe it's a mental thing where like knowing it's only 1080p, but it is a perfect 1080p panel, there's a certain argument to be made that you want to have sort of the lowest resolution where you can't see pixels save battery life, but that's not the only story with the displays Samsung in the s21. Obviously, in particular, has a gorgeous 120 hertz refresh display, whereas the iPhone is living at old school with 60 hertz, and I've said it before. I will say it again: modern flagships need a high refresh rate, or at least give me the option to turn it on and off at my own risk of battery life and all the amazing things that I can say about how Apple's ecosystem is great and how well it works together. Apple really is tended to fall short on giving choice to the users and that's clearly where android has succeeded, and I think, if anything apple should be taking a page out of android's playbook give users the choice: what to do with their screen refresh rate. Do you want it on and sacrifice battery life? Do you want to turn it off and have better battery life? That's a choice that I, as a consumer, would like to make and one I imagine we'll have with the iPhone 12s or iPhone 13 whatever comes next, but for right now, it's here on the Samsung and if I have to pick at least personally between resolution and refresh rate, I'm going to refresh rate almost 100 of the time.

I tend to not even talk that much about performance in these versus videos, because all phones are crazy. Fast we've got an a14 in the iPhone 12 and the beastly snapdragon 888 in the galaxy s21 paired with eight gigabytes of ram and if you're wondering uh. The iPhone 12 has six gigabytes of ram that doesn't really tend to impact performance at all. Both phones are absolutely beast. There was no slow down no problem with multitasking.

Both phones were really quick, running cutting edge processors. So whatever you want to do, gaming video is going to be fast. You get it they're fast phones, I'm just going to say it again: they're fast phones, so typically Samsung's been known for packing a ton of things into their flagship phones. The intangible categories of these versus videos used to be really long and sometimes unnecessarily long with the s21, though Samsung is definitely taking a step back and taking features out, but they did at least drop the price around 200 bucks from what the s20 came out at uh. One feature that I was really disappointed to see gone.

Uh is the MST feature of Samsung pay, which is still present in some parts of the world, not here in the US, and that was a tragedy. Samsung pay was absolutely amazing. You could use it in front of any credit card. Even if it wasn't tapped to pay or NFC was simulated a magnetic field like actually swiping a credit card. It was awesome, it was magic, and I loved it, and it gave Samsung the huge edge over any other mobile payment, including Apple Pay, and it's gone here, and they also took away the SD card slot.

That wasn't a big deal to me. Personally. I've stopped using SD cards on phones, but at least know that going in, if you're a type person who has a lot of information on SD cards and needs to have it, then the s21 is probably not going to be for you. Both phones did remove the power brick from the box. I've talked about that at length.

It happens. Hopefully you guys have one, if not they're, both happy to sell you on them. So speaking of removing things sort of the one major thing apple removed from the iPhone 12 from the previous year was the very important William hours on the battery. The iPhone 11 had a pretty nice 3046 million power battery, whereas a 12 has, I think, a relatively anemically sized 2815 battery just on pure William hours, the s21 just grounds the iPhone 12 um into submission with a 4 000 power battery. But it's not just a story of William hours.

In actual usage, the battery life was pretty similar, whether that's iOS battery efficiencies or a14. I can't say for the iPhone 12. It was four to five hours like consistently of screen on time, whereas the s21 was more than the five to six, so not a huge difference. Nothing really noticeable, but slightly better with the Samsung. The same second app obviously have very different approaches to a lot of things.

The big one I think is biometrics face. I'd is technically a more like secure way to lock your phone information, especially compared to the s21's face detection, which is not real face detection. Essentially it's just using the camera uh. However, the s21's fingerprint reader is stupid fast, it's using the latest generation of Qualcomm's technology, and I've talked a lot in previous videos of how I think I've got weird thumbs, but fingerprint readers never work well, for my thumb, whether they're on the side or the back or built into the screen. That was not the case with the s21.

It worked fast worked reliably every single time. I actually had to check to make sure I had the fixture unlock on the s21 turned off, because it was unlocking so fast. It was amazing. It was awesome, makes me excited for touch ID coming back, hopefully to the iPhone and in previous non-pandemic years I would have picked face ID 100 out of 100 times, but seeing how good the in-screen fingerprint reader is and how often times I'm wearing a mask anywhere I go outside when it comes to biometrics. Samsung gets the edge here and, like the last thing, that's similar here, both phones are 5gk full of pretty much every flavor of 5g.

You may want to pick up, so this is a versus of two perfect phones. There's more to love about these phones than there are not even the things that Samsung removed from the s21 so straight up. If OS is your biggest determining factor, then you probably already know which one you're going to pick, and you're not going to be wrong for picking that. But we got to pick a winner if both of these phones are on a table, and you don't have any OS allegiance whatsoever, I'm going to pick up the galaxy s21. It comes down to higher refresh rate.

It comes down to telephoto and the flexibility that I get with those cameras. The build quality is great. I can deal with slightly lower video fidelity than I got with the iPhone delivers an amazing battery life small package. I also really like that. Thanos' purple is a wonderful phone.

I think, will serve anybody well over the next few years.

Source : Jon Rettinger