iPhone 13 Pro Max vs Galaxy S21 Ultra

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

 sn'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 though

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