Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus vs Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max

They both start at similar prices, lack periscope zoom (not that any iPhone will have it soon), and sport the same screen diagonals. Will the Galaxy S21+ be a fine match for the iPhone 12 Pro Max that is proving more and more popular on the market by the day? Let's find out...

Samsung Galaxy S21+

$449 ⁹⁹ $999 ⁹⁹ Expired

View price Buy at Amazon $0 $999 ⁹⁹ Buy at Verizon

$199 ⁹⁹ $999 ⁹⁹ Buy at AT&T $299 ⁹⁹ $999 ⁹⁹ Buy at T-Mobile $999 ⁹⁹ Buy at BestBuy

Fair is fair - the Galaxy S21+ offers more features, like a display with high 120Hz refresh rate, at a tad lower price. Its fused camera island corner design is also more interesting than what the cartoonish matte/gloss undertaking that the iPhone 12 Pro Max offers.

The iPhone 12 Pro Max, however, offers the toughest Ceramic Shield display cover glass of any phone out there, and is the most water-resistant general purpose handset as well, being able to withstand submergence in up to the whopping twenty feet of water. Still, we like how Samsung blends the camera corner with the sides better, making for one elegant and uninterrupted look.

While Apple has a leg up when it comes to raw single core power of its A14 chipset in the iPhone 12 Pro Max, the Galaxy S21+ has one undeniable advantage in the chipset realm - it sports an integrated 5G modem. 

Both Snapdragon 888 and the Qualcomm X60 modem are made on the latest 5nm process, ensuring frugal battery draw compared to tack-on 5G modem solutions like the one found in the 12 Pro Max. 

Check out the S21+ (SM-G996B) vs iPhone 12 Pro Max benchmark scores below - as usual, Apple kills it in the single core results, but let's not forget that this particular S21+ version is the global one with Exynos 2100 at 2.2GHz, not the Snapdragon 888 model that the US is getting. Moreover, the A14 runs at its top 3GHz clock speeds, too. When comparing the Snapdragon model of the S21+ against the 12 Pro Max, the difference in single-core performance is equally startling, yet it runs on even lower core clocks than the Exynos model. 

Moving on to the display quality, while the iPhone has a slightly more pixel-dense 6.7" OLED screen, it gives way in one of the hottest metrics these days - screen refresh rate. It is only able to pull off 60Hz refresh, circa 2019, while being only slightly better than Samsung's phone in white balance and color gamut presentation, at a higher price than the S21+. Here Apple definitely dropped the ball. 

• 12 MP main sensors
• 64MP crop vs 12 MP telephoto zoom cameras
• 12MP ultrawide-angle cameras

The iPhone 12 Pro Max ships with the largest camera sensor that Apple has ever put in a phone, yet its pixels are still a tad smaller than those in, say, the S20+ main sensoir which found its way into the S21+ as well. Did Apple drop the ball in the camera department as in the display panel refresh rate metric? Not really, as you can see from the Galaxy S21+ vs iPhone 12 Pro Max camera samples.

As usual, more often than not one could tell when a picture is from an iPhone by simply comparing the warm yellow cast over the photo with whatever other phone is thrown at it, and here in the comparison with the S21+ the 12 Pro Max doesn't disappoint. While Samsung also used to love warm, yellowish overtones, and they sometimes rear their heads agains the iPhone, Apple on the whole uses much warmer and crowdpleasing white balance for its shots. 

The iPhone returns a slightly better dynamic range during daytime, able to capture the highlights like shining sun and bright objects with a tad less halo, while lightening up the shadows. At night, however, the roles are reversed, as the improved Night Mode on the Galaxy S21+ captures lights and colors better, and its photos are a tad brighter to boot.

We already noted this in our Galaxy S21 vs iPhone 12 Pro comparison, but the high megapixel count of the Galaxy S21+ zoom camera is nothing to admire, as it's the iPhone 12 Pro Max with the true telephoto zoom range of 2.5x. The Galaxy S21+, just like the S20+ before it, doesn't have a periscope or telephoto zoom camera. 

It simply crops from the high-res 64MP secondary sensor, and Samsung itself admits that what it calls a "telephoto camera" actually sports a lens that is very much wide-angle, almost as wide as the lens on the main camera. The "telephoto" lens only provides a 1.06 zoom compared to the regular camera, so all the zooming is actually almost entirely based on software - cropping and merging with the information from the main and/or ultrawide sensors. The end results are pretty good anyway, but it's not a true telephoto, and no amount of 30x zoom gimmick can change that.

When it comes to video recording, the iPhone 12 Pro Max has a powerful image processor that lets it record the whopping 60fps Dolby Vision 4K HDR video, and display it on the the iPhone's big 6.7"screen in most of its glory. It is 10-bit HDR footage, not 12-bit Dolby Vision that the S21+ is capable of, but nevertheless an impressive feat to achieve, and a heretofore prerogative of expensive standalone cameras.

On the other hand, the Galaxy S21+ 5nm chipsets are able to pull off 8K video for the rare occassion you need high-def video to watch on your 8K TV. Of course, this one is a pain to upload, watch or edit, but the the same can be said for the iPhone 12 Pro Max's Dolby Vision output, too.

Samsung took a note of the surpisignly robust sales of the middle child in the S20 series, and paid special attention to the S21+, equipping it with a battery nearly as large as the one in the S21 Ultra. At 4800mAh, with the help of the integrated 5nm chipset and 5G modem that is now using a new, more frugal antenna isolation, the pack promises long hours of battery life even at 120Hz display refresh, and it delivers. 

The overall rating of the three test components - browsing, gaming, and YouTube streaming - is commensurate with the iPhone 12 Pro Max endurance at 60Hz, yet the S21+ battery advantage is in charging, too. Samsung provides very fast fill-up for the 4800mAh battery, at about an hour and change with the stock 25W charger, compared to the iPhone's nearly two hours.

Perhaps we should no longer say stock, as the charger won't be available in the Galaxy S21+ box at launch but the fact that it charges twice faster than the iPhone 12 Pro Max with a battery life about as long. The 12 Pro Max doesn't ship with a charger in the box, and you'd have to shell out for Apple's new 20W charger if you don't have an old 18W brick chilling around, but Samsung is pulling the same trick with the S21 series now. Sad times.