BLIND TEST - Galaxy S21 Ultra vs iPhone 12 Pro Max

we are gonna have a showdown of the two most popular flagship devices on planet earth this is the brand new s21 ultra from samsung it has ultra in the name so you know it's gotta be good i have three extra ones that's because i'm gonna be having a live giveaway very soon make sure to subscribe so you don't miss it also i should mention we have later cases for both of these devices both flagships fully covered i sent both mo 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 a video right here of an a b of both 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 approach 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 ip rating is the same across both but the samsung device does have a much larger battery at least on paper on the 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 [Applause] 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 flickery 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'm 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 [Music] now now i'm now i'm a bit screwed up 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 huh [Music] wow 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 wow the 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 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] the left is the iphone and the the right is the samsung [Music] are you sure wait a second the iphone is on the left the samsung is on the right [Music] 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 tones 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

Channel: Unbox Therapy

Views: 4,119,787

Keywords: unbox therapy, unboxtherapy, tech, technology, gadgets, gadget, unboxing, review, unbox, therapy, new, youtube

Id: p_vaT0Kn1Qg

Length: 16min 55sec (1015 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/itstheblue]

Overall ultra wins. He preferred the colors the iphone produced on a couple of shots but he was super impressed by the faster than iphone focusing.

[u/Osiris47]

I got it wrong, and I'm glad I did. Samsung definitely crushed it this time around, I was almost certain the Samsung was on the left once I saw that weird exposure strobing thing and the focus issues. That macro function on the main camera is phenomenal.

[u/Reece_Civils]

I was almost certain the Samsung and Iphone were other way round, very nice improvements on the Samsung camera here. Only thing still letting it down was the low light, but only a single image to base that off here. Pleasantly surprised.

[u/20030121J]

Samsung bitch slapped the iphone

[u/btk_alugha]

You made it even harder to make a decision. The LiDAR might be another interesting part but other than that the S21U looks really stable.