iPhone 12 Pro Max vs Galaxy S21 Ultra Full Comparison! By Nick Ackerman

So, what is up guys nick here, helping you to master your technology, iPhone 12 Pro max versus galaxy s21, ultra full comparison. Now I've had the galaxy s21 ultra for nearing two weeks now, actually like a week and a half, or so I haven't had it that long, but definitely I made the switch to this one from the 12 mini, but how does it compare to its rival the iPhone 12 max? Well, let's just begin by talking about their price points. First, the iPhone 12 Pro max. If you want to pick this phone up, it's going to run you right around 10.99 to start that's 128 gigs. However, you can do a trade-in from apple, but it's not going to be as high as the one on the galaxy. The galaxy does come in at a hundred dollars more to start at 11.99, but they're offering trade-ins up to 700 off now they both come in different colors. So you can get this thing in silver gold.

Like a space gray, it's called graphite pacific blue over here with the galaxy s21 ultra. You can get it in their all new phantom black color, which is very clean. You could get in phantom silver, phantom, titanium, phantom navy or phantom brown, but those other ones that I mentioned the titanium the navy and the brown are going to be a longer wait like four to five weeks. So keep that in mind phantom silver and black are the colors. You can get really quickly, okay, guys.

So let's talk about their bodies and the build of both of these devices right here, I'm going to begin by talking about the 12 pro max now the 12 pro max is the thinner phone. This thing is only seven point mill, four millimeters thin, but it does have stainless steel, which is also a little of a better material than the aluminum used on the galaxy s21 ultra. However, there is a con to this. This stainless steel does scratch a little easier. In my experience you can see.

I got a little chip right there, and I've been babying this one, and it's still getting nicked up and scratched up. So I don't really like that aspect of it, but definitely feels ultra premium here on the back apple did decide to go with that. Textured glass, just like you, see on the galaxy s21 ultra, so it's very premium feeling, although there's one thing, I don't really like about this build and that's how you know right here on the camera. This stuff just gets filthy because they put like a glass material in here, and it just gets really. It gets nasty around the on the cameras.

I'm constantly cleaning this thing up over here. So overall I just find that the 12 pro max gets a little dirtier than the galaxy s21 ultra. However, with them squared size, the flat edges, it feels like a million bucks in your hand, super high quality, ip68 gorilla glass on both front and rear. That thing is a beast in terms of overall build talk about the galaxy s21 ultra here, so you can see right off the bat, the camera right there is going to stay much cleaner, just because they decided to use this texture glass, really great choice. Here.

The whole back of this phone is going to say spotless. Now around the edges. You will get some smudges and fingerprints here on this phantom black, but I haven't been seeing it scratch up too easily on that aluminum and there's not a huge use of it, because it's a curved display, so the display does wrap a little here around the edge. So there's not a huge use of aluminum here just enough to give it that little shine in the corners, so overall gorilla glass, Vitus on the front and rear of this phone. This device just feels ultra durable.

So definitely I think this one might hold up being cleaner over time a little better than the 12 pro max now in terms of weight, this one weighs 227 grams. This one weighs 228 grams, so weight of these phones they're both heavy bricks. So you're going to have to get used to that, but which one feels more comfortable. I think, because the iPhone 12 Pro max uses the square sides. It feels a little wider, a little less comfortable to hold than the galaxy s 21 ultra other than that they're pretty similar.

If I can only pick one, I'm probably going to go with the s21 ultra just because I like that it stays cleaner, that's really the only reason but other than that you're not going to go wrong with either they're both definitely feeling the price you paid for them, okay, guys! So let's talk about the displays because they're very similar in what they offer up. However, there are some key differences. Now the iPhone 12 Pro max is a flat display. So it's more similar to the galaxy s 21 plus in terms of its overall display. There is a notch here, and that is really starting to look long and the tools are starting to look old here, but we do have 458 PPI on this display, and you definitely notice it.

It puts it in a really high resolution right off the start, but you can't really change that now. You have 800 nits of usable brightness, and it's insanely bright. The usable brightness is crazy on this phone. It's like the highest you're going to get on a phone, and it's very addictive to be honest over here. We do have true tone, night shift and dark mode.

Now the cool thing about the galaxy s21 ultra is their new comfort shield kind of matches. That of true tone here for the iPhone they didn't use to have a feature, the same way that Blu-ray filter, but now it adapts, just like true tone- does on this phone. This does have Dolby Vision, support as well, but I have to say if I go over here into YouTube and I punch in the only thing- that's just feeling a little outdated here is this notch. We just want to see it slim way down or kind of go away, and I don't really bother most people, but when you use a galaxy phone- and you see this difference, you'll definitely feel it now. It does have a 60 hertz refresh rate as well.

However, some way somehow apple makes this thing feel like a 90 hertz. It almost feels the same way as the Samsung device, even though it's on a 60hz display. So I can only imagine what the promotion is going to feel like on this device. However, they did kind of downgrade when they got rid of 3d touch, because their haptic presses are a lot slower than they used to be now over here for the galaxy phone right off the bat. If you go into display settings you'll see that there is adaptive brightness, but over here you can change between the 60, hertz or 120 hertz.

You do have the icon for shield, which you can have it adapt like true tone does, or you can set it the way you want and then over here you have vivid and natural mode, so you know you're going to get more customization, and it doesn't change here within display. You can go to who mode, and this is going to bump it past the iPhone 12 Pro max into 515 PPI, pixel density. So it's a sharper display it's a smoother display and overall Samsung is definitely not going to. Let apple have a better display, as they are one of the biggest display manufacturers, and I do think this phone does have the better display over the 12 pro max. This thing can hit 1500 in its peak.

This one can hit 1200 in its peak, and you can even see right here, punch hole display. It feels closer to an all screen and their curves have come way down over the past year. So it almost feels flat here. It doesn't really have a lot of accidental prices, but if you do want the fully flat one go with the s21 plus, although you won't get the super high resolution, if you want it, this one does also support, always on display and s pen capabilities, unlike the 12 pro max. So I'm not trying to make the 12 pro maxim bad.

It's an excellent display, and you're not going to be disappointed, they're, both OLED, but there's just a few more things that push the Samsung past it. So Samsung does get the win here in display. Now, when it comes to software, this iPhone, you know it's going to get updates more frequently than the Samsung device. However, Samsung is the best android manufacturer lately as of pushing out these updates very quickly to your device, and they download pretty quick as well. They don't take that long to download either.

This one does also have s pen support with that s. Pen software built in similar to the Samsung Galaxy note here. But what is the real differences between them? It's just down to the ecosystem. Do you like the Samsung ecosystem, or do you like the apple one? You know you get a lot more control over here with Samsung, you get the edge screens with the split views, and you can do split, screens and stuff. Like that pop view, you can also do a lot of theming right from the settings menu itself, so we go to themes.

Take you right to the galaxy themes, in addition to that they do have their own watches, computers and stuff, like that, it's just a lot more customizable, but if you just use them simply, they kind of feel very similar over here on the left. You do have an app library which apple kind of organizes for you for the Samsung. You do have an app drawer, so this device, you know simple, like you're, used to with android your own little app drawer in here, and you can make your own folders within here, more customizable. Everything about the Samsung is just more customizable. Does that make it better? Not necessarily do you want simple? Do you want it the way it is, and you're used to it, you'll, probably like the Apple device better, but if you're like person who wants smooth, you want great hardware, but you also want to make it your own you'll? Still like the Samsung phone better here, one UI 3.1, they found a way to mesh all their features with a nice cleaner, look, the settings menu looks cleaner. The notifications' area, where you check out your quick toggles, looks a lot cleaner on this phone.

Everything about one UI 3.1 just has a better animation. You don't have that lag when you open up a game, and you come home, there's just no lag so if I was to say which one to get in terms of software, if you want to play around with your phone a lot, you want to customize it a lot. You want a ton of features and great hardware get the Samsung. If you want polished software, that just works, and it works great every time, and you just want it simple, you don't want your phone. You know you want your phone to just kind of meld in with your life and not really have to think about how to customize and all that stuff.

You'll love the iPhone experience. Now we talked about the storage, they both offer 128 gigs of start, but I do have to say that the iPhone seems to do a little better when it comes to ram management. As of the recording of this video, meaning that even with six gigs of ram, if I go ahead and reopen stuff, the Samsung device after a lot of applications will reload something versus the iPhone which seems to be holding everything in place. So we might need a couple updates here or there, but I find the ram management to be a little better for the iPhone but which one has the better performance. Technically speaking, the a14 is the powerhouse here.

It does have five nanometer chips, so does the Samsung, but the a14 just has better geek bench scores better benchmarks. It opens some games a little faster. Furthermore, it can rip through rendering a little faster. So I do think that, because apple's controlling the whole experience, it's giving them a slight edge still over Samsung and performance, but you will not notice this unless you're really pushing these to the core. This phone right here is the fastest android.

I've ever felt to use it's extremely quick, it'll blow the doors off, most android phones out there and uh. The only thing I think you can keep up is stuff like an OnePlus 8 pro. Maybe you know the upcoming OnePlus 9 should definitely keep up with this, but there's not many phones that keep up with this galaxy s21 ultra, so performance top-notch on here, as well, with a snapdragon 888, five nanometer chip coupled with 12 gigs of ram. If you go with the 512 gig model, you'll get 16 gigs of ram and the part everyone probably came here to learn about, and that is the cameras of these phones. Well, first, Samsung wins in terms of the sheer number of cameras.

We have four cameras here apple. Instead of putting an extra camera, they put a LIDAR sensor for some stuff, you're, probably not even using much right now, but you do have an extra telephoto here for the Samsung device, which will definitely give you a little more zooming capabilities now for the iPhone. What I like about this setup is that it's super consistent. Every camera is a 12 megapixel, so everything you do. It looks like it matches up beautifully.

Even on the front. It's a 12 megapixel, and that means that it's so consistent now I find that the iPhone just produces more natural results that allow you to tweak and edit your photos in post a little more. The way you want it to do so those people who just want to edit everything they want to make it super professional through their own skill, will, like the iPhone results a little better. I find the Samsung phone to produce results that are definitely going to give you a little more punch right off the gate. You don't have to really edit anything, but you do have just so much more versatility with the Samsung.

We could punch this thing all the way in a 10x, 30x 100x, it's just insane. You probably will never need this much zoom unless you're on vacation and something's really far, let's say you're in California, you're far away from the Hollywood sign, you want to punch in 100x, get really close on that thing, maybe you're good to go you're you're in France. You want to punch it on the Eiffel Tower, but you're far away your hotels are ways away. Furthermore, you can definitely punch in on the Eiffel Tower. Furthermore, you see what I'm saying: that's when you'll need the zoom other than that.

I don't think you'll, you'll need to zoom that much, maybe, if you're trying to get a full moon you're. Like oh look at that moon, this phone could hit the moon. That's insane, so definitely lots of versatility there. You also have more pro modes out the gate, so you can do director's view a lot of these things. You can do on the iPhone, but they're going to require third-party apps.

It's built all into the camera here on the Samsung device, porch or video pro video, slow motion, hyperlapse direct review, and I mean honestly how much more features do you need on a camera? They both have the ability to tweak between their video settings right here in the camera, but Samsung offers you 8k something that's definitely ahead of its time. The iPhone doesn't offer 8k, but so this phone definitely just like with the screen. It's got to be a little bigger. It's got to be a little better here for Samsung on basically everything you have a super steady mode here and both of them do have the ability to tweak those aspect ratios right from the camera so over here I could just go up. Let me swipe up a little lag factor right there.

We can go 16 by nine and four by three and yeah very simple over here. You'll just take the camera, and you'll go over 16 by nine. You can go to four. Furthermore, you can go to one, but here's what I'm not a fan of with the Samsung camera. The front-facing camera doesn't match up perfectly with the rear cameras.

It's not consistent with those cameras. They look a little different. The results like a different sensor or something it just doesn't look the same as the rear results, not saying it's bad. It's a very good front-facing camera, very sharp. It can do 4k 60, but I just think the iPhone front-facing camera matches up better with its rear facing camera, but go ahead and take a look at some of these samples.

I did side by side you can decide which one you like the results better from okay guys. So here is a test with the iPhone 12 Pro max run this little bike ride right here you can kind of see how the video does look, and then I'll show you what the galaxy s21 ultra looks like. You can also punch in back it out as well, and that's kind of a take of the 12 pro max in 4k30 all right guys. So here is the galaxy s21 ultra. You can kind of see how the video looks I'm on this little bike ride and as we did with the iPhone 12 Pro max 4k30, we can also punch wide you can punch in while in the video and come back normal, very nice capabilities here, and here is that iPhone 12 Pro max video right here, you can kind of see my arm is fully extended, and again you got to push this out just a little, but it seems to be a little wider than the galaxy s21 ultra, but this is the 12 pro max front facing video okay guys.

So this is what the galaxy s21 ultra looks like from the front. This is kind of how the audio sounds. My arm is fully extended here you can see, and even here it's fully extended, it's kind of close. So if I bring it closer to me, you see it's really close. You kind of got to have something to stick it out kind of far.

This is 4k at 60. Now, when it comes to audio they're, both very exceptional, of course, both of them will have louder speakers at the bottom of the phone. So if you cover this part up, it's gonna, be it's gonna, sound very muffled, but I have to say I really like how full and clear the iPhone 12 Pro max sounds at its highest volume now over here now over here for the Samsung versus iPhone 12, it sounds like it gets a little louder here, especially if you turn on that Dolby Atmos right. There definitely punches up the volume again. The louder speaker does reside on the bottom of the Samsung.

So if you cover that up, you're going to get a little of muffled sound with the adobe Atmos on the Samsung sounds a little louder to me, but you know it has a very clear, rich, full sound for the iPhone, so both of them great with the stereo speakers. Neither do you have the headphone jack. So what about face ID and touch ID? Well right now with wearing masks. You know, I don't know how long I'm going to say that I hope. Hopefully we don't have to wear masks forever, but right now we're still wearing masks in society, and you know sometimes you just you got to always use your pin code with this iPhone.

Hopefully you know apple does some. I know they did some with the Apple Watch in a recent update, but that's not going to cut it. I just don't I'm not always wearing my Apple Watch. They got to find a way to get like touch ID on there or something a little quicker than of right now, the Samsung does have a face unlock as well as an in-display fingerprint sensor. I kind of like the in-display fingerprint sensor a little better right now.

I might even like it better, even if there's no mask wearing but sometimes the face ID just seems more convenient. You don't really have to do anything but swipe right there, but other than that. You know unlocking biometrics they're both very secure in this respect and in terms of battery life, both of these phones are pushing pretty large batteries. iPhone does have a much smaller 36 87 and the Samsung does have a much larger, 5000 William hour battery. Remember this thing is pushing a little more resolution.

It's also pushing you know slightly bigger display, and it's not quite as well optimized as iOS experience, so I find that the iPhone sometimes can last longer than this device in usage. It's the best iPhone of the iPhone 12 bunch of devices, but they both charge very fast and fast charging, and they both easily can stretch through a day no problem light users will be able to get two days of battery life on both of these devices right here so definitely awesome, but the Samsung does feature its tried and true reverse wireless charging, something you won't get from the iPhone one thing you'll like a lot about the iPhone. Is it has better standby drain? So if you just put the phone in your pocket, you're not using it, that standby is great, it sips battery the Samsung phone. If you put it in your pocket, it's still going to drain a little of battery, and it seems to do this thing from like 100 to 90. It still does it to this day it drains really quick and then after 90 it slowly creeps down all the way to zero, so very good battery life on both I'm not upset with either.

But again, if you want the better standby go here, if you want probably the better battery consumption when you're using all the power features, I think you'll, like the Samsung more and both these phones do rock different ways of charging. You do have lightning port here, and then you have the universal standard USB for the Samsung. So I do like the USB better, because you probably have that cable for other devices around the house. If you only have lightning, then you can only use this lightning charger with this. So you know a lot of people have lighting cables, but I just want apple to move to USB c they've done it on the iPad.

They still haven't done it here on the iPhone. Both these phones do feature 5g performance and they both have Qualcomm modems, so they're, both very good in overall reception you're, not going to have an issue with either of these devices so which one is the winner. No one likes to see them be equal, so which one is the winner here. For me, it's the Samsung Galaxy s21 ultra. The reason why it is this phone is that it's giving you almost every piece of hardware you get with the iPhone, but giving you a little more, an extra camera.

You have that same kind of feeling back it stays cleaner. It doesn't scratch it's easy. It has 5g a slightly bigger screen, more features on board a smoother display, a bigger battery for longer longevity in terms of it holding up with battery health because more William hour, you should last a little longer. Yes, it has a hundred dollar price tag more, but most people are not going to pay that full price with those trade-in programs and incentives that Samsung is offering. So for me, I think the galaxy s 21 ultra slightly edges the iPhone 12 Pro max, but when it comes to which one you should choose, that's going to come down to your ecosystem.

If you prefer the polish of iPhone you're, getting 90 of what the Samsung Galaxy s21 ultra is here without the s pen, if you want to use Apple Watch mac, this phone is still a better option than this device. If you want, if you want to use the galaxy wearables, you can use that on iPhone, but it's going to be a better experience here, the galaxy but pros you can use the air pod pros here. If you're, a Windows user you'll, probably like the Samsung a little more, if you don't have a computer- and you want to use DEX plug this into a monitoring keyboard, you don't even need to buy a laptop or a computer, just get a monitor and a keyboard. An USB cable plug this thing in, and you'll have a full-blown computer experience with the Samsung phone, so the iPhone 12 Pro max. While it is definitely a pro experience, the only thing about it is the software doesn't seem to take that much advantage of it.

Like the Samsung. Does at this price point, it feels like you're getting the same experience as the 400 cheaper, iPhone, 12, just blown up if Apple went ahead, and they were like okay, we're gonna, give you four cameras versus the three on the smaller pro we're going to give you a split screen mode on this, because it's a bigger phone. Those are advantages over the other phones, but this just feels, like any other iPhone, just bigger so thumbs up. If you found this video helpful entertaining informing- and let me know which one you would pick down below in the comments section of this video, I will catch you all in the next episode. Thank you very much for watching nick here and peace.

Source : Nick Ackerman