Galaxy S21 Ultra vs iPhone 12 Pro MAX (Tarik Qazi)

  

                                                          

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earth this is the brand new S21 ultra rom Samsung it has ultra in the name so you know it's got to be good it also I should mention we have later cases for both of these devices both flagships fully covered I sent both and kirk out with one of these rigs one of these things right here and they placed one of each flagship in this unit and went into the wilderness for some reason in order to test each of these two flagship level cameras without me knowing which is which that's why I have both right here of these devices and I'm gonna have to try to tell the difference not knowing which is which I'm going to examine each frame attempting to distinguish the attributes 

that i like 

on each of the two cameras Samsung went for the massive sensor 108 megapixels they also have the periscope style zoom so yes there's some features on this side that are not exactly here however the iPhone approaches is to have a lower megapixel count and to do more work I suppose after the fact with the neural processing and all the rest of it we have tons of ram up to 16 gigabytes inside of the ultra uh the high end model 512 gigs of storage so that's comparable across the two we have a slightly bigger display on the Samsung side 6.8 inches versus 6.7 and it's a slightly better screen to body ratio as well rating is the same across both but the Samsung device does have a much.

larger battery 

iPhone side you have arguably the best 

processor in a smartphone at the moment in apple's latest a14 and then over on the Samsung side we have the latest snapdragon that's the triple-a so without further ado

    let's get into the video you're going to 

watch it along with me and we're going to discover the differences between the S21 ultra and the iPhone 12 pro max or we're at least going to try to see if we can tell the difference first up we have the ultra wide shot and immediately we see a significant difference we have way 

more black on the image on the left 

definitely more contrast and a shift towards blue a cooler tone definitely 

warmer on the right I already have my 

inclination as the witch's witch    I think the important thing about this test since you're playing along is to know that each phone is going to stay on the same side the whole time so whichever way your brain is trending then keep that in mind as you attempt to be a detective here exposure

                   

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I mean 

definitely the right hand side is trying to keep the shadows up to maintain some level of detail both 

images 

are nice I think either is acceptable even in the foreground here on the log on the snow I feel like I'm getting a little more detail on the image on the left I'm gonna keep going here okay all right next up we have the wide image here it's a similar type of frame now the right image has added a little bit of blue in the snow so it has interpreted this frame a little differently i mean if you look at the jacket that kirk is wearing there it's certainly darker and more black and more contrasty on the left hand side here we go with telephoto so this photo is a round 3x zoom it's the first tap on the zoom this white on the left looks more accurate to me and there's more detail in the jacket huh that's quite interesting let's let's proceed now we're into the video 4k 30fps.

    Now here we're going to be looking at a couple things obviously exposure somebody fell that's the second wipeout you took today but that's kind of a good test I guess it looks quite a bit different the right one remains a little smoother through your fall the green is more saturated on the image on the left it's more muted in the image on the right however I've seen this jacket in real life and I feel like the right one is probably a little more accurate than the left but it's subtle it's a subtle difference both are really nice 4k video and even without the extra stabilization turned on okay now the right one is far more stable than the left and this is with just default settings on the video mode i see flickering in the snow a little bit there's an exposure thing happening where the exposure is shifting a little bit it's struggling a little bit 4k 60fps oh wow so what's interesting here is the footprints in the snow on the left-hand side it's tremendously more detail where it's a little bit blown out on the right or at least tougher to pick up all the details in the snow the left one just looks a lot higher resolution i mean i know that they're both 4k but it just seems I don't know if there's some sharpening added there or if it's an exposure choice that's happening automatically in the camera but certainly the left one is resolving a lot more detail but I'm still getting a little weird thing as the pan takes place and the right image still has a greater smoothness to it now this is where I'm starting to figure out which is which because I' seeing what it's doing with kirk's complexion like these are quite a bit different these approaches 

he has a lot more color 

in the image on the left and he's a lot 

more pale in the image on the right 

wow that's a much different approach here

 

now I am a bit screwed up I'm the only one in here by the way that doesn't know which is which but interesting here we get a sense for the depth of field as the focus shifts to 

the bark 

and this is good for an auto focus test as well close focusing test interesting the camera on the right for sure can focus closer they both can focus pretty close but the camera on the right can focus closer we're gonna check out some portrait mode now the skin tone the skin colors it's a there's a little more yellow on the left and a little more pink on the right and the focus fall off around the head and this is not not particularly easy because of all the branches and stuff and i actually noticed a little segment around it the ear on the photo on the right where maybe it didn't grab it and a little section near the jacket as well where. it kind of screwed up the portrait mode ever so slightly yeah i think the left one probably nailed it a little bit better it's uh both both are nice images in different ways here we have MO's version whoa those are.

                 

     T

he question is which is the better image it depends what you're looking for if you really like crushed blacks if you like that really dark black color the camera on the left almost never gives it to you the camera on the right brings you there immediately it's tough it's a lot of this is is personal taste the left does have more detail it does have more detail in the skin low light wow i mean the image on the 

left 

for sure look at the noise and stuff on the image on the right 

i mean this is so noisy the image on the 

right the image on the left wins slow motion 

so it's 240 fps 1080 

there's interesting things that are happening to the exposure here in the indoor environment 

especially around color temperature 

oh this is an interesting clip the clip on the left 

is really struggling with exposure it 

has blown out his thumb and the wall 

is nowhere near black it's very gray so 

it's a there's some guesswork 

going on there the right hand side is a 

lot more true to life here 

wow this this is a tough challenge right 

here close focus 

oh so the one on the right has like basically macro 

that's on the main camera the dollar 

bill is touching the phone wow super close focus 

tremendous detail i guess the photo on 

the left is the same range 

but it's picking up the grass in the 

background because it can't 

focus quite so close 

auto focus now this was kind of the 

there was an auto focus issue 

sort of plaguing the previous generation 

ultra looks like it's not there.                                                                                                                                             I anymore the autofocus is acceptable on 

both of these at this point the 

obviously the left one the approach is a 

slower transition 

between focus points which some may 

prefer it's a 

more action-like type of footage on the 

on the right hand side 

it snaps into focus faster 

it's hard i mean in certain 

circumstances i preferred what was 

happening on the left 

in certain circumstances i preferred was 

happening on the right oh this is harder 

than i expected it to be to be honest 

i it went back and forth 

I'm gonna go ahead and guess that 

the left is the Samsung and the right is 

the iPhone 

the left is the iPhone and the the right

is the Samsung 

are you sure wait a second the iPhone is 

on the left the Samsung is on the right 

wow interesting 

wow this is really interesting i feel 

one thing that kind of surprised me is 

how close 

these have become and the fact that it 

wasn't as easy as i thought it would be 

to tell the difference between the two 

at least 

immediately the portrait mode maybe 

should have 

been the giveaway for me that i when 

once i saw the complexions and i saw 

that sort of 

yellowish more yellowish hue in the skin 

tone 

i probably should have said okay that's 

got to be the iPhone but the thing that 

threw me off was the struggling the 

exposure struggling on the snow i was 

like that's got to be the new phone 

with the new software and because i had 

auto focus issues 

with the last generation of the ultra i 

was like maybe that 

maybe there's some sort of software 

problem or update necessary because that 

looked really 

bad to me but yeah it's a little bit of 

this and a little bit of that i guess 

maybe that's to be expected when you're 

talking about two leaders 

in the segment at this you know at this 

type of price point 

but i guess i kind of expected the 

iPhone to do a little better 

maybe if i had to post this picture 

immediately i would pick the one on the 

left 

the wide here i think i still take the 

iPhone photo 

that one is tough only reason I'm gonna 

give it to the iPhone again 

is because of the snow 

being what I perceive to be the color of 

the snow and the Samsung going blue.

           Our first video that was weird man 

because here he 

falls and Samsung device 

is super stable now maybe it's just the 

way you fell and then you look at this 

frame here with him uh laughing and 

the face is just so much more detailed 

on the right hand side 

I'm gonna take in this video clip I'm 

gonna take the Samsung 

this one really surprises me in this 

case the iPhone 

looks a little less natural in the coat 

color which I've seen in real life so 

i 'm going to take the Samsung one here 

as well 

this 4k 30. now the running one is 

really what screwed me up 

the iPhone is just going nuts trying to 

figure out 

exposure and so much so that it would be 

distracting to have that in your clip 

and also in the default stabilization 

mode the there 

there are more stabilization modes on 

the Samsung the right 

is just a more pleasing smoother 

movement 

4k 60fps we have blue snow from the 

Samsung device again 

but i can't accept the flickering I'm 

taking the Samsung again yeah I'm taking 

the Samsung again 

it feels like photo mode is going to the 

iPhone in video mode as going to the 

Samsung 

because now I'm into portrait mode and i 

remember 

that the iPhone was the superior one 

there as well so i give portrait to the 

iPhone 

night mode iPhone wins slow motion 

the hand is blown out it's not just not 

good looking yeah i mean the Samsung 

slo-mo here looks 

way better close focus we already 

covered this it's not even close 

it goes to the to the ultra model and 

then autofocus where i 

expected the iPhone to kill the Samsung 

is tight now

                           i think most people can appreciate just 

fast find the focus fast so i give that 

to 

Samsung as well in that exact 

circumstance and then Samsung gets the 

bonus 

because it has the extra cameras 

a 10x i mean that's ridiculous that is a 

really usable 10x that's optical 10x 

100x is obviously the software coming 

into play here 

you have it if you want to i don't know 

be a weirdo but and then and then it can 

shoot an 8k whoa 

it can shoot in 8k 24 frames and that is 

cinematic 

the snow is still blue but yeah Samsung 

wins 

i think the iPhone won the photo 

compartment 

just as an overall package for what i do 

and how i use my camera 

I'm gonna go with the s21 ultra they are 

both 

fantastic though like they'd just be 

shooting this caliber of content off of 

a smartphone 

but yeah i mean tough choice you saw i 

even 

had the two devices wrong it is a tough 

match it's a tough battle

                 it's a split decision so there you have 

it camera showdown complete s21 ultra 

versus iPhone 12 pro max 

i thought this was kind of a fun way to 

do it really test yourself 

what you see and what you're looking for 

and even 

to just figure out what you like in an 

image or 

inside of video so hopefully you had fun 

taking part and 

guessing yourself remember i do have an 

s21 ultra giveaway coming up 

very soon so make sure to subscribe for 

that we're gonna do it live 

like i did for that iPhone giveaway 

previously i have 

one silver s21 ultra and two phantom 

black s21 ultras 

and i also need to remind you of the 

later case launch 

for the new devices as well as some of 

your favorites like the new blue 

for the variety of iPhone 12s so 

go check out later case link will be 

down in the description and pick up what 

is 

i mean i think one of the best 

accessories you can throw on your 

smartphone 

so go click the link in the description 

and check that out too stay tuned 

for the giveaway 

you