iPhone 12 Pro Max vs Note 20 Ultra - Full Comparison! By Max Tech

Hey guys its max, we just got in the brand new iPhone 12 Pro max. It's been a long wait, and today we are going to put it up head to head against its biggest competitor. By far the Galaxy Note 20 ultra now, you guys probably know that I love the note 20 ultra. It is better than the 11 pro max awesome phone, and we're going to find out did apple, do enough with the new iPhone to make it compete. Let's start out with the exteriors, and I want to talk about comfort now believe it or not. The 12 pro max is actually more comfortable to hold in the hand than the 11 pro max, even though it's slightly bigger because of the squared off edges.

Now, comparing it to the note 20 ultra, it really is a hit or miss in some ways. The note 20 is more comfortable. The rounded edges here um there they make it feel slimmer in the hand it doesn't feel as thick, even though it's actually thicker, but this little square edge at the bottom kind of digs into your palm, whereas the iPhone it has. These nice rounded edges over here, and it just fits really nicely in the hand. Let's go ahead and stack these side by side, and you can see that the iPhone is actually slightly wider than the Samsung.

But the note 20 is actually slightly taller because it has a 6.9 inch display with a wider aspect ratio and then, if we take a look at the camera bump, so we have a pretty big difference. Apple has this etched glass design, and it's completely square with three separate lenses inside it, where Samsung has just gone from one massive rectangular slate. Of course the Samsung sticks out quite a bit. More apple actually has a three-tier system. Like a pyramid, we have the glass first, then we have the rings, the gold ones, and then we have the lenses that stick out even more.

It seems like they're trying to hide the little camera bump, trying to make it smaller, where Samsung is just embracing it. Now. You may also notice a couple other differences here in the actual camera modules, and I'm going to talk about that in a little. When we talk about cameras, you also probably noticed the difference in color this year, the gold on the iPhone 12 Pro max for the gold model looks more like gold, but the back looks less like gold. It almost looks whitish, especially next to the bronze on the note 20.

Now I definitely would have to say that I wish I could have this bronze on the back of the iPhone. I really like that deep nice color one thing I don't like is that we still have to have this little IMEI note code and manufacturing on there. I love the clean look of the iPhone looking at the bottom. The note uses USB type c compared to lightning on the iPhone. I do wish the iPhone would use USB type c, and you'll also notice that we have the s pen on the note which we're going to talk about in just a little flipping over to the sides.

This is a massive difference in design. The note goes for this tiny slim frame, because all this glass is curved, whereas the iPhone has this massive frame and the iPhone just has one button for the screen on the right side, and it is huge, it's very click. It feels really great. The note actually has the volume buttons on the same side which I do like, but you have to reach all the way up. You have to shift your hand to be able to reach them.

The iPhone has the volume buttons on the left, hand, side and also a mute switch which I do really like, whereas the note is absolutely clean on the left overall, I'm surprised to say that the iPhone both feels nicer in the hand a little more premium and more comfortable at the same time- and I wasn't expecting that and comparing the fronts you guys see, there's a big difference in bezels and camera cutouts and notches. So the bezel on the note 20 is tiny, because that glass is curved over the edge it hides. The bezel makes it almost disappear, whereas in the iPhone it's completely flat, no hiding it. So you see it much more now it is completely even all around which is nice instead of having a different forehead and chin and sides, and then, of course, we have that notch, which does stick out a lot compared to that cutout. I have to say that the note 20 does look more futuristic because those bezels are so slim, and we don't have the notch, but because the glass is curved, it's a lot more prone to shattering.

If you drop it, the iPhone's flat glass in the frame is more protective and with that apple is using the new ceramic shield glass. That is a lot stronger in terms of drop protection. The other thing I noticed is the off axis shift. The note 20 is using older, OLED technologies. So when you look from the side even slightly, it turns blue, and it loses more brightness than the iPhone and the new 12s they're, the first OLED screens that don't shift blue when you're looking from the side, and now, let's compare the brightness I'm going to max both of these out and I do have them set to manual brightness, and here you guys can see the difference.

The iPhone is much brighter. It's at about 900 nits, compared to maybe about 600 or 500 on the note 20, and that is just because Samsung limits the brightness in manual mode. If we were to go outside in a very sunny day, they would look identical as they have in the past. You just don't have the extra option to boost it yourself. We also have a difference in screen reflectivity.

The note 20 doesn't have as good of coatings. So it's a little more reflective and, along with that, because of the rounded curved edges, you get a lot more reflections there as well. Now I want to point something out right now, while I have a chance, I love the always on display on the Samsung. I don't know why Apple is still not giving us that option just to be able to glance over and see your notifications. The time it's really nice you'll also be able to notice this little fingerprint here.

Of course, the note 20 ultra has an under display fingerprint sensor and that one is ultrasonic, and it works really well, most of the time we're seeing a little of lag there. Overall, it's way better than when these first came out back then face ID was way better. Now, if you're wearing a mask, it's really nice to have that in other cases, face ID is more convenient. For example, if you have an application open, and it wants to authenticate, you don't have to do anything. It'll just be automatic.

You don't have to move your finger or shift your hand, so in general I do prefer face ID a little more, and the other difference in displays is the fact that, with the note 20, you can switch it to 120 hertz. Now, if you do that, you lower the screen uh resolution, it goes down to a 1080p screen and with that you do get much smoother motion. So here's the side by side, for you guys we're gonna, shoot 4k, 120 fps slow motion, so you guys can see the differences. The note 20 is definitely a lot smoother, but with that said, when I did use the note 20, I would switch it to the high-res mode, because text just didn't look as crisp there's a little of blurriness, and I just like the higher resolution. I will say I do wish that the iPhone the next one comes with that, I'm pretty sure they're going to add it as long as they don't make.

You drop the resolution and also compare the quality of HDR video, since both of these have bright displays. One interesting difference is that the iPhone can now play back 4k video, even the iPhone SE, whereas the note is limited to 1440p and then, if you have it in the 120, hertz mode, you're actually limited to 1080p. So I love being able to oversimple. I have to be honest and say: wow the iPhone's HDR really stands out and that's interesting because the previous iPhones were always beaten out by the Samsung. The highlights just look so much brighter.

They pop so much more. We adjusted the top camera, so we're not blowing those out. You guys can see the difference there. As far as the contrast, the iPhone looks better as well. It has a little more color and the image is sharper as well, because we're streaming 4k compared to 1440p and then, of course, like I said, 120 hertz, you can always do 1080.

Now. If we stretch these out, you will see that the note 20 is a lot more immersive. The edges are square which fits video better, and we have a small hole punch instead of that large notch that is taking. You know a chunk out of that screen there. With that said, the note 20 still has perfect HDR better than most phones, but it can't compete with the new OLED screen in the iPhone, and with that, let's compare the speakers now.

I'm excited for this comparison. Apple didn't say that the iPhone 12s are any better, but they definitely are, and the note 20 is the best sounding smartphone in terms of speakers. I have ever heard so go ahead and put on your best pair of headphones or maybe, if you just have one pair the only pair you have and let's take a listen. Let me know your thoughts down in the comment section below, and this was a very interesting one. First off I do want to say that we did have Dolby Atmos turned on the note 20, and I'm surprised to see that the iPhone does sound just as loud now we also use the decibel meter on my Apple Watch and the iPhone actually peaked.

One decibel louder both were very loud, and that is actually because the high frequencies are much more prominent. They are sharper they're a little more clear, whereas the note the mid are actually the loudest point. The mid are louder than on the iPhone. Now. To be honest, I would prefer something right in the middle, in some cases like with this song, the vocal sound excellent on the iPhone for some other type of audio some podcasts.

The heist could be a little too much where the opposite goes. For the note 20. Now another area where the iPhone does win at is the bass. It definitely has a deeper, more bass sound. So can I say that the iPhone smokes? The note now but apple, definitely made some big improvements, and I wonder why they didn't mention it and now, let's get into performance, and we're going to start out by testing out the 5g speeds.

Finally, Apple is in the modern world with 5g. Now in our city, we just have subbed 6, we don't have mid-band or millimeter wave, but we are going to compare him now. If one very interesting thing is that the note right now is showing full bars, and we're inside a concrete building, the iPhone is showing only two out of four bars, and before I hit start, I want to say that these have the same exact, snapdragon x55 modem, so that didn't change at all, and that is the best modem on the market, we're connected to the same server. Let's go ahead and start the test, and I know some people say don't run them both at the same time, but there are thousands of people connected to the same tower using it right now- and this is interesting very interesting, even though the note 20 shows five bars compared to now, just one bar on the iPhone look at that the iPhone got more than twice the speed. That is very weird now, as far as the upload, they are practically identical right now, so that's weird that the iPhone is faster, even though it has fewer bars.

Maybe the antennas are better. Now I actually went outside right now, and I tested both without being in a concrete building and for some reason, the iPhone. It was only connecting to LTE, not 5g, but the download speed was actually a good amount faster and then, when we switched to upload, as you know, 5g uploading is much faster and so the speed difference there is pretty big and now, as soon as I come inside, it's back to 5g, that's very odd. Maybe it chose LTE because it was faster for download outside now. The last difference is that the new iPhones they have this a cutout for the millimeter wave antenna, whereas the note 20 doesn't have it anywhere so, based on these results, it might seem like the iPhone might have better antennas.

And now, let's compare the CPU and graphics performance, I'm going to go ahead and run the CPU benchmark. You guys may have seen that the note 20 has a massive 12 gigs of ram compared to the iPhone 12 Pro max is six gigs of ram. Now that's a huge difference, but in the real world there actually isn't much difference anymore, the previous iPhones. They did struggle with ram the camera used a lot, so some background apps would shut down and thankfully apple responded gave us six gigs of ram and now in phone buffs, uh speed test the iPhone kept every single app open, and he said that was the first time he's ever seen it. So as far as ram no issues anymore, we have our results here and wow.

That is a big difference. We have 981 compared to 1604. This 1604 is beating out all computers out there, it's incredible, so that is a 65 difference in single core score. Now, as far as multi-core score, we have a 35 difference, still pretty dang big and the reason why the multi-core isn't as big of a difference is because the snapdragon 865 plus in here is an eight core processor. Apple's a14 bionic is only a six core processor.

Now one thing this score doesn't completely quantify. Is machine learning both of these have machine learning cores, but the a14 doubled the machine learning cores and made each core faster. So if we take a look, the iPhone is almost twice as fast in machine learning. You look at speech recognition. All of that is so much better on the a14 bionic and now, let's compare the graphics performance, we're using GFX bench, we're running the Aztec ruins 1440p off-screen to make sure it's completely fair.

That doesn't care about the screen resolutions. Let's get started, and here are the results wow. That is a big difference, and this is the latest apps, and we're trying to make this as fair as possible. The a14 graphics chip is incredible. We got 38.2 frames per second, whereas, with the note 20 ultra, we got 23 frames per second, so um the iPhone is actually more than 65 percent higher frame rate. Now I do have to say that if you're somebody who's gaming right now, both these phones are going to be very similar.

They can handle the latest games. The difference comes in two years from now, three years from now, where the iPhone is still going to be great with the latest games, whereas the note 20 is going to start to struggle, and now, let's talk about battery life, the note 20 ultra has a 4500 William hour battery, whereas the iPhone is now at 3600, so the iPhone actually got smaller. Now, thankfully, the a14 is more optimized as long as you're, not gaming, and in the real world. The battery life difference is about an hour to an hour and a half with the Samsung, if you're not using the 120 hertz, so iPhone did actually get worse and the note is actually the king now and with that we have a difference in chargers. The note 20 comes with a 25 watt charger.

It could charge up in just over an hour, whereas the iPhone doesn't come with a charger at all. You have to buy one of apple's, 20 watt chargers or a third-party one, and with that you can also buy a MagSafe charger and that does promise 15 watt peak charging, but that's only peak. The Samsung can also do 15 watt wireless charging, but I feel like it keeps up the wattage higher than the iPhone now along with that with the max. If you have a bunch of different accessories, there's car mounts coming out a bunch of stuff, and we also have things like wallets, so this can definitely be useful, and I am using this wallet, and I'm liking it, and the note obviously has its own killer feature, and that is the s pen now I have to say I'm not a very big fan of the s pen, but I don't have anything against it. I just don't really use it.

I try to make myself use it for a couple of days, and then I just end up going back to the touchscreen, but for some people the s pen is definitely a really nice feature, especially if you like to draw take notes stuff like that and now let's talk about the cameras both of these have excellent cameras, but we do have some differences now on the back. The Samsung have this: has this massive camera bump? That's because it has that crazy optical telescopic, zoom camera you're going to get some great zoom photos, and then it also has a 108 megapixel camera with an even larger sensor than the new 12 pro max. Now I have to be honest if we start taking photos right now. This video is going to be 10 minutes longer, and we are going to be doing an unbiased camera comparison, taking a look at a ton of different things and putting these really head to head so make sure you guys are subscribed. So you guys catch that that's going to be coming out on Monday.

You don't want to miss it, and now, let's talk about the prices and my final verdict, the iPhone doesn't come with that charging brick, but it also doesn't cost thirteen hundred dollars. It's two hundred dollars less expensive than the note 20 ultra at 1100. Now, as far as the storage, both come with 128 gigabytes of storage, but the Samsung does offer a micro SD card slot, which means you can expand it in the future and for a lot less money with iPhone. It costs more, and you have to do it when you buy it and finally, which one of these phones should you buy. One huge difference we haven't mentioned yet is the fact that we have android compared to iOS a lot of people like iOS.

If you use mac books, you have iPads. If you want to use an Apple Watch, it is really nice to have, and if you want more customization a lot more options, you want 120 hertz right now. The android is really nice. Of course, if you want perfect zoom photos, the note 20 is also good, but a lot of the advantages such as the nice screen, great speakers, HDR um, that part is now gone, or the iPhone at least is very competitive. Now, so you guys, let us know which one of these phones do.

You think is the true flagship which one is the king down in the comments section below make sure you guys click that circle above to subscribe, help us reach 500 000 before the end of this year, and if you guys want to see the camera comparison, you'll want to do that. If you guys want to see the previous camera comparison, the unbiased blind one really fun to watch. We have it over there. Thank you guys for watching. It's been max and I will see you in the next video.

Source : Max Tech