When our goal is to get a high-end mobile, the options are divided between the great offer available on Android, and of course the most powerful of Apple. Taking this premise into account, a key confrontation is found between the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra and the iPhone 12 Pro Max. Both terminals are very different in their conception and that is noticeable in each technical section.
Before seeing the differences between the two terminals, it must be taken into account that each brand plays its own rhythm in this market . Samsung must face all its competition in Android , which makes the pace of progress in the terminals that play with this operating system more frantic. Apple for its part, walks undeterred despite competing in the same market, integrating the technologies it deems necessary only when it believes them mature and useful for its fans.
Screen, weight and thickness
The first thing that strikes us is that we are facing two beasts in terms of screen size. The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra has a 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED panel, with a resolution of 1440 x 3200 pixels and an aspect ratio of 20: 9. In addition, it achieves that 89.8% of the front is a screen , in addition to being protected by Gorilla Glass Victus. The panel has a 120Hz refresh rate and is HDR10 + compliant.
The iPhone 12 Pro Max also has a large 6.7-inch size, but with a smaller resolution of 1284 x 2778 pixels and an aspect ratio of 19.5: 9. The terminal tightens the frames to achieve 87.4% of the usable front, it is also protected by Gorilla Glass, although in an unspecified version as it is made on demand for the device. In this we almost do find compatibility with HDR10 but the refresh rate remains at 60 Hz, in the absence of a jump that is expected to be seen in the next generation.
The Galaxy S21 Ultra is considerably thicker than its rival due to its 8.9 millimeters, compared to the 7.4 millimeters of the iPhone 12 Pro Max. However, we can consider that there is a technical tie in the weights, since the Samsung terminal weighs 227 grams compared to the 228 grams of the iPhone. Nor should we forget a key aesthetic aspect, and it is the eyebrow-shaped notch that the iPhone 12 Pro Max continues to wear at this point, in front of the hole in the screen of the Galaxy S21 Ultra.
Exynos 2100 vs A14 Bionic
Under the hoods we find totally different bets. The Galaxy S21 Ultra integrates the new and powerful Exynos 2100 , which can be accompanied by 128, 256 or 512 GB of non-expandable storage, along with versions of 12 or 16 GB of RAM. The iPhone 12 Pro Max for its part, has the famous A14 Bionic, a processor that can also be accompanied by the same memory variants, but in this case only 6 GB of RAM.
It is difficult to measure the performance of both terminals on paper. Clearly the iPhone could lag behind in aspects such as RAM, but its operating system has been designed on demand from hardware that performs at the highest level. In this sense, and taking into account a performance program such as AnTuTu, we see that the iPhone 12 Pro Max reaches 577,000 points, while the S21 Ultra reaches 647,000. The difference is remarkable, but as we say, they are tests carried out in different ecosystems, although the conclusion is that both can with any task or game, however demanding it may be.
Cameras and video
Likewise, don’t expect to see anything too even at the rear. The Galaxy S21 Ultra has a 108-megapixel main lens, along with two 10-megapixel sensors (periscope and telephoto) and a fourth 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens. The iPhone 12 Pro Max for its part, offers three 12 megapixel sensors, with wide-angle, ultra-wide-angle and telephoto lenses. The selfie sensor is 40 megapixels in the S21 Ultra and 12 megapixels in the Apple terminal.
In this sense, the Samsung terminal achieves greater zoom capabilities in both optical zoom and digital zoom, reaching a 10x optical zoom and digital zoom of up to 100x. In the case of the iPhone 12 Pro Max, we have a 2.5x digital zoom.
If we take video recording into account, the Galaxy S21 Ultra can do it up to 8K at 24 fps , while the iPhone 12 Pro Max records at a maximum of 4k at 60 fps, a capacity that Samsung’s device also has. With the front camera, both terminals can capture high-quality video in 4K at 60 fps, despite the megapixel difference between the two sensors.
Connections and battery
We are facing two devices that are compatible with 5G networks, how could it be otherwise. Neither of them already has a 3.5mm jack for headphones, but they do not lack other types of connectivity such as Bluetooth 5 (Bluetooth 5.2 in the S21 Ultra) or NFC. The fingerprint sensor on the screen is something reserved exclusively for the Samsung terminal, and the iPhone 12 Pro Max continues to conform to FaceID as a biometric method for secure unlocking.
We see quite a difference in battery capacity, with the 5,000 mAh of the Galaxy S21 Ultra, versus the 3,687 mAh of the iPhone 12 Pro Max. Fast charging is also on the side of the Galaxy as it supports 25 ”charging versus the 20W fast charging of the iPhone.
Very remote prices
The cheapest Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is found on Amazon for just over 1,000 euros in its basic 128 GB version. If we look at the same base capacity in iPhone, we see that it exceeds 1,200 euros . The differences in the most powerful versions are even more evident, with a Galaxy S21 Ultra for 1,314 euros , compared to 1,609 euros for an iPhone 12 Pro Max of the same capacity.