Galaxy S22 Ultra VS iPHONE 13 PRO MAX

 Samsung’s new Galaxy S22 Ultra is currently breaking the tech internet, not only on the Android side but also for Apple fans, because this is the first time in a while that I think Samsung knocked it out of the park with the design and feature-set.. And it’s giving Apple’s iPhone 13 Pro Max some serious competition! So before I get into comparing all of the specs and new features to see if the new S22 Ultra can actually take the smartphone crown away from Apple, I want to get into Samsung’s clever Master Plan for how they’re marketing this new Ultra smartphone. 

If you didn’t already know, Samsung discontinued the Galaxy Note flagship phone series last year when for the first time in many years, they didn’t update release an updated model. And that really sucked because we absolutely LOVED the previous Galaxy Note 20, which came with a beautiful square-ish design, a built-in S-pen, and an amazing camera bump layout. But last year, Samsung decided to release their two new foldable phones instead, the Z fold 3 and the Z flip 3, so they’ve basically made it apparent that their foldable phones have replaced the Note series as their flagship. Because in reality, they already have two high-end smartphone lineups a year, the S series and the Foldables, so doing all three would be too much. So they made just about the best choice they could’ve made in my opinion, they simply took the Note design and rebranded it as the S22 Ultra, with a design that’s almost identical to the Note 20 Ultra. Now, this is very clever because it sets the Ultra model apart from the lower-end S22 models which have a completely different design, and let me add that I absolutely can’t stand the chunky notch that kind of melts into the frame, it just looks horribly ugly! 

So thankfully, they got rid of it for the Ultra model and gave each camera lens its own separate bump, which I think looks incredibly clean and it’s part of the reason why I think this phone will be so successful, not to mention this great-looking white model. Ah to be honest, the combination of the beautiful camera layout, the matte glass finish, the rounded edges and the super clean and high-quality display with just a single camera bump definitely gives the iPhone 13 Pro Max a run for its money. Because I mean, it still has that ugly notch that I’m honestly getting sick of, and of course, it still has the old USB2.0 lightning port, so the hardware-side is kind of dragging along compared to the new S22 Ultra. Now in my opinion, I still really like the camera bump on the 13 Pro Max better because of the whole 3-step design that looks very clean and professional, but the new one on the Ultra looks great as well. Now the next thing I wanna talk about is the cameras, and Samsung’s honestly doing a great job in that department. 

While Apple has caught up pretty well with the new 13 Pro Max, I’ve gotta hand it to Samsung because they’ve been improving their 108MP main camera over the past couple of years, and now they’re optimizing it for night-time photos and videos, and I’m really exciting to see some comparisons because it was already close with last year’s S21 Ultra. But the major advantage comes down to the additional 10x space zoom lens which pumps out incredibly sharp long-range zoom photos, which is something that’s simply not possible on the iPhone right now, and we’re not rumored to get until the iPhone 15. But I do want to mention that we already ordered an S22 Ultra and we’re gonna be doing our popular Unbiased blind camera comparison so if you’re not already subscribed, do it right now so you don’t miss out! Moving further, I want to get into display quality, and this right here is very impressive. The new S22 Ultra can go down to 1hz refresh rate compared to 10 on the iPhone 13 Pro Max, which allows it to save battery life while using things like always-on display mode. But that’s actually one of the things that’s rumored for the iPhone 14 Pro so hopefully we get that later this year. But in terms of display quality, Samsung has one-upped Apple once again! Not only does the S22 Ultra have a higher 1440P resolution compared to 1284 for the 13 Pro Max, but you can now finally use 120hz at the same time! And that’s probably because it comes with a 5000 mAH battery compared to 4352 on the 13 Pro Max, so it’ll be interesting to see the battery life difference when mwhosetheboss gets that done! But getting back to the display, Samsung is now advertising a massive 1750 peak brightness compared to Apple’s 1200 nits, which is actually a huge difference, and should give you better-looking HDR content! Now moving over to authentication, the S22 Ultra simply has a single-hole punch for the high-quality 40MP selfie camera because they don’t use a sophisticated Face ID system. Instead, they have the under-display ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, and to be honest, this has been improving over the years and it’s very good at what it does. However, it’s still not perfect because it obviously doesn’t work for anyone who wears gloves, and it has issues when your fingers are wet, or if they’re really cold in the winter. And now I know Face ID has caused issues for a lot of people that wear masks, but Apple just FINALLY updated it and fixed every single issue, now allowing FACE ID to work perfectly fine with a mask on, and even with glasses as well, so it’s honestly the best solution out there right now, being so much better than the fingerprint scanner on the S22 Ultra. And making things even better, the S-Pen comes included and it fits into the body, just like it did on the previous Note, so that’s a really nice added bonus. But now getting into some of the specs, I really like how it comes with WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2, compared to only WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5 on the iPhone which honestly was a huge disappointment when Apple released it. And on top of that, the iPhone still has just 6GB of RAM compared to 8GB on the base model S22 Ultra, going all the way up to a massive 16GB, which I honestly think is a bit overkill, but it guarantees that apps simply won’t close on you. But in terms of the performance department, I’m honestly a bit disappointed with the new Snapdragon 8 gen 1 chip because it’s barely improved over the old 888 chip in terms of CPU performance, and it’s miles behind the A15 Bionic. And the same things goes for the GPU performance as well, which actually got a nice improvement, but it’s still way behind Apple’s chip, especially in terms of power usage, which is pretty disappointing as well. But one of the major advantages of Samsung’s phones is that they use much better cooling systems compared to what Apple uses, so they’re able to handle longer gaming sessions without the display dimming, which isn’t as big of a problem on the new 13 Pro Max as it was with the 12 lineup, but it’s still there. 

But if we just break it down and look at the phone for what it is, it’s probably hands-down the best Android phone ever made because it combines some of the best tech hardware out there into one device that honestly looks REALLY nice and clean. But unlike the days of the past, this new flagship is actually $100 more expensive than Apple’s 13 Pro Max, so it’s gonna be a tough decision for people in the middle. And there are actually some really awesome iPhone features that you just can’t get with the Samsung flagship, like MagSafe, which is one of my favorite iPhone features of all time, since it makes mounting it in my car so much easier, and I also love the new MagSafe wallet. And on top of that, Apple’s software has been getting so good recently that it’s really hard to give up, especially with new features coming soon like Tap to Pay and even the digital license feature as well. So all in all, I think it’s gonna be a close one between these two, and it’s really gonna come down to both display and camera performance which we’re gonna be comparing very soon when we get out hands on them!