Samsung S21 ultra And Iphone 13pro max

okay this is a big one iphone 13 pro max
versus galaxy s21 ultra
which is best
although normally i'd actually be
comparing the latest iphone with the
samsung galaxy note because they will be
the sort of two brand spanking new
flagship devices but of course we
haven't had a new note this year which
is a bit disappointing although we have
had the fold three but that's not really
in the same category and also a lot more
expensive speaking of which let's kick
off with pricing and actually the s21

ultra wins and by wins i mean loses

because it's a hundred pounds or a

hundred dollars more expensive than the

equivalent spec 13 pro max

both of these are pretty eye-wateringly

expensive and maybe that difference

isn't particularly significant over the

course of a you know two three-year

contract but the iphone is a bit cheaper

so it points to gryffindor i mean apple

on a side note though iphones do hold

their value for longer so if you come to

trade this in in sort of two three years

then you will get more for your money

but at the same time if you haven't

bought either phone yet and you're

thinking you know which one to get you

might be able to find a better deal on

the s21 ultra because it doesn't hold

its value quite as well and also it has

been out for a good six months now but

after the price what's the next most

important thing to consider when buying

a new phone well i think it's pretty

obvious

color

okay maybe not but still the iphone is

definitely more eye-catching with its

choice of four colors i've got the fancy

sierra blue one here whereas the s21

ultra comes in phantom black or phantom

silver not the most exciting but if

you're gonna put a case on it does it

really matter and actually just quickly

i do have a couple of the 13 pro max

cases here these are the 50 pound

magsafe ones from apple i would

definitely recommend this kind of

rubbery silicon version over this clear

plastic it feels a lot nicer in this

kind of case

okay so colors might not be that

important but the design is a big deal

and straight away i can tell you for me

at least the s21 ultra is a lot more

comfortable to hold and use

it's a little bit lighter but more

importantly it's taller and narrower

than the iphone plus we have these

rounded rather than flat edges so the

s21 just sits more comfortably in your

hand

but what do you reckon which do you

think looks better they're both

dominated by these big camera modules on

the back they're both matte glass so

they don't really pick up fingerprints

or smudges which is great although this

stainless steel frame around the edge of

the iphone is a bit of a smudge magnet

they're both durable with gorilla glass

vectors and ip68 water resistance for

the s21 and apple's ceramic shield on

the iphone plus we also have ip68 but to

a deeper six meters for half an hour

versus 1.5 on the samsung

but more importantly and you guys are

going to pick a side here not android or

ios but hole punch or notch which do you

think is the least worst option

the iphone 13s do now have a 20 smaller

notch compared to last year but that's

only horizontally and the extra space

isn't really used at all but in terms of

how much screen is covered and also how

well the area around it is used for me i

think the s21 ultra's hole punch is the

slightly better option

both phones also have stereo speakers

which sound fantastic the s21 is a

little bit bassier and it does get

louder but the iphone's a touch richer

with clearer vocals not really a reason

to pick one over the other through

i do appreciate you having this little

guy though the alert toggle slider

thingymajig where you can quickly switch

it between silence and ring mode uh

which comes in handy if you go into bed

and just want to you know put it in

silent mode only the oneplus phones will

offer something similar on android but

when it comes to unlocking the phones

without a doubt the iphone's true depth

face unlocking is the best it's

extremely reliable even in low light as

we have an ir sensor but having said

that the s21's face locking still does a

decent job plus we do get an in-screen

fingerprint reader so i guess what's

more important having the best face

unlocking or average face unlocking but

also with an in-screen reader

let's talk about these screens because

they're both oled and they're both

massive they both support hdr 10

although only the iphone gives us dolby

vision hdr which is definitely a nice

bonus for netflix but more importantly

they both also offer adaptive 120hz

refresh rates apple has finally joined

the 120 club and we get ltpo panels on

both which means they can dynamically

adjust between 10 and 120 hertz so

actually this can end up saving you

battery as you don't always need 120

when you're maybe watching a video shot

at 30fps on youtube

the thing is though if i gave this to my

mum and said hey look it's 120 hertz

what do you think she would probably say

what's 120 hertz and i can't see any

difference to the average consumer i

don't know if it's that much of a

selling point but to a more techy

enthusiast person and someone who is

actually accustomed to a high refresh on

an android phone it does make a big

difference so they share the same

refresh rate but the s21 ultra is

sharper as it supports the higher res

wqhd plus resolution which gives us 515

pixels per inch versus a mega 458 on the

iphone in the real world unless you have

them right up to your face it's not

something you'd be able to notice

although it is nice to have the option

to watch youtube at 1440p for example so

it points to samsung there although the

iphone does offer true tone which

adjusts the white balance of the screen

based on the ambient lighting around you

so you always have a kind of natural

paper white whereas the s21 just has

this eye comfort shield but that's not

as smart and just gives you warmer

colors although the s21 does give you

more options to play with you can adjust

the resolution and change the screen

mode and white balance yourself manually

there is a slight difference in

brightness though the s21 gets a little

bit darker than the iphone there's only

a couple of nits in it although you can

just see the difference although to its

credit the 13 pro and pro max do get

noticeably dimmer than the cheaper 13

and also the older 12 series

however at the other end of the spectrum

according to my tests at least the

iphone hits 1400 nits versus around 1200

on the s21 ultra and actually when

playing hdr videos this can go up to

1600 and 1450 respectively so the iphone

can get a touch brighter

so both screens are fantastic although

this does get a bit brighter we also

have that dolby vision hdr support and

also true tones a bit more intelligent

whereas on this we have that high

resolution if you want it although you

can drop it down to full hd plus to save

some battery and also it's a bit more

customizable

okay so far so good but here's a

question which is faster well this is

always a tough one to call not least

because ios and android are very

different we're also comparing two or

actually three completely different

chips also six versus twelve gigs of ram

and also iphones are generally better

optimized between the hardware and the

software

but things get even trickier because

there's two versions of this

historically the exynos chip has always

been a bit rubbish although this year

they are very similar within a few

percent of each other in terms of both

performance and battery

but let's kick off with a couple of

benchmarks and taking the average score

between the two samsung phones the

iphone is just simply in another league

57 faster single core 40 faster

multi-core and 72 percent faster

graphics on paper the iphone is much

faster but actually in everyday normal

use i do find the s21 ultra a little bit

more snappy the faster animations the

fact that you can even go into the

developer options and speed them up even

further if you want to it's just a bit

more instant

but then there's games and i think

generally ios games are a bit better

optimized because there's far less

fragmentation of hardware and also i

think the apple arcade while a

subscription does offer some really fun

titles

but right now there aren't really any

games that support this new 120hz on the

iphone but we should see developers

updating their apps over the next few

months so this will change

i was actually going to test adobe

premiere rush to see which phone

exported a video project faster and

while i can get it on the iphone for

some reason right now it is not

supported on the s21 so uh well that was

the end of that

also just how smoothly the iphone can

switch between lenses kind of makes the

s21 and frankly all android phones feel

really quite laggy and actually does

make a difference when you're

transitioning between lenses when you're

filming

so in terms of raw performance the apple

a15 and the iphone is faster i think

because of the quicker animations and

the fact that you can tweak things a

little bit the s21 ultra feels just a

bit nippier in actual practice in real

life but what do you think about in five

years time which one of these will still

be more capable my money will be on the

a15 there's so much untapped potential

in this right now and also we do get

generally better support over a longer

period with apple's products unless they

add a software update to slow them down

like they did a few years ago but i

think this definitely will be more

future proof now this could easily be a

whole video by itself but

which phone has the best camera

while photography is so subjective but

from a technical point of view the s20

ultra does offer more flexibility as we

get four lenses including a 10 times

periscope so we do get much better long

range zoom even up to 30 times is usable

but i wouldn't go much beyond that we

also get 8k video and more pro

photography options and subjectively you

might prefer the more contrasty

sometimes less vibrant look of the

samsung it used to be the other way

around where samsung was too

oversaturated

whereas the iphone now with bigger

sensors and wider apertures across the

board also gets a couple of nifty new

features including photography styles

and this is where you can almost mimic

the style of other phones like samsung's

stronger contrast or say the google

pixel's slightly cooler tone and you can

tinker and play around with each style

so you can get some really unique

looking shots

although for the purpose of this

comparison i have stuck with the

iphone's default mode as that's probably

still what most people will use

then we have cinematic mode aka portrait

video and it's genuinely very good the

s21 ultra also offers something similar

but this is by far the best

implementation i've seen even if it is

limited to 1080p 30 and it's slightly

awkward to edit as it's in hdr being

able to adjust the focus and the bokeh

before during and after shooting is just

incredible and also the automatic focus

racking based on scene and face

detection works pretty well

although i would suggest dialing down

the bokeh a little bit to make it look a

bit less artificial

both phones also have a macro mode this

is new for the 13 pro this year and they

both use the ultra wide lens so you just

simply get closer to your subject the

iphone does have a closer focal range

two versus four centimeters on the s21

but i would give samsung points for

being a bit more detailed

so looking at these camera samples i've

taken there is definitely a pattern of

the iphone giving us brighter more

vibrant shots and pulling up the shadows

a little bit although to a less

aggressive extent than previous iphones

bear in mind though that i am using the

exynos version of the s21 for this test

and there are subtle differences with

the camera on the snapdragon version as

a different isp

both phones shoot great quality video

though this is at 4k30 although the s20

ultra does have the 8k option but i

would say as a whole the iphone does

come out on top in terms of quality and

stabilization and also if you are a keen

videographer then this will eventually

support 4k pros and also you can shoot

in double vision hdr so i think points

to apple for video

neither camera is flawless but between

the two which one do you think came on

top let me know in the comments below

what about battery life which one of

these lasts longer

in my real world use test the iphone had

40 of its battery left by 11 pm versus

30 on the s21 ultra the iphone will last

you an extra hour and a half

both phones also support wireless

charging but in favor of the s21 we do

get this reverse charging so you can top

up other devices albeit slowly but a

bigger deal for me at least is the fact

that we get usb c on here rather than

lightning lightning just feels a bit

prehistoric and actually only the

iphones and the cheapest base ipad still

have this port so i really do hope they

switch to usbc at some point

the thing is though everything we've

talked about so far could be completely

irrelevant because if your friends or

family use imessage or you have all your

files in icloud or maybe use an ipad or

macbook and couldn't go without airdrop

or you just want the best smartwatch

which is the apple watch right now

apple's ecosystem is probably the number

one reason most people don't consider

jumping ship to android to be fair

samsung has their own versions of most

of these including samsung cloud you've

got the galaxy watch and also a few

nifty extras like decks if you want to

use your phone more like a laptop on a

big screen also it is a bit unforgivable

that on a phone as big as the 13 pro max

that we still don't have decent split

screen support for multitasking that's a

big plus in my book for the galaxy as is

all the customization you have on offer

for the display options themes unlocking

the dev menu custom launchers the list

goes on

oh and also don't forget that both this

and the fold three are the only galaxy

phones that support the s pen it's not

as convenient as having it built in like

the notes but for more precise drawing

and designing the yes pen could be a

real selling point

so let's wrap up which one is best well

i've been using the s21 ultra for the

past six months or so since it launched

as my everyday phone but i have

properly switched my personal sim to

this now and i am having a great time

although there are a few things that i

do miss about this there is some element

that this is halfway through its life

cycle now and we should have a s22 in

like four months or something i know

you're going to shout at me though but

honestly i don't think one is better

than the other for me as a package i

think the iphone 13 pro max offers a bit

more of what i want including better

battery a slightly more consistent

all-round camera and also as apps take

advantage of that a15 and the 120 hertz

screen we'll start to see some you know

real gaming advantage to this so for me

my pick right now will be the 13 pro max

but you really can't go wrong with

either and if you do fancy picking one

up for yourself then i'll leave links to

both in the description below but what

do you reckon would you go apple or

samsung or not on the above and maybe

get a sony xperia 3 or a oneplus 9 or

something let me know in the comments

below and also if you did enjoy this

video which hopefully you did because

you watched the whole thing then a

cheeky like and subscribe would be very

much appreciated thank you so much for

watching guys and i'll see you next time

right here on the tech chat