You also get an improved selfie camera and low-light performance, a fast Snapgragon 8 Gen 2 chip, excellent battery life and a built-in S Pen. No upgrade in charging speed iPhone 14 Pro Max $27.78 at AT&T Mobility $889 at Newegg $1,099.99 at Verizon Wireless The iPhone 14 Pro Max takes Apple’s photography to the next level with a main 48MP camera that can shoot in ProRAW format and an impressive Action mode for video.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra vs iPhone 14 Pro Max face-off is here, and it’s easily one of the most epic smartphone battles yet. The iPhone’s new 48MP main camera, Dynamic Island-equipped display and super-powered but efficient A16 Bionic chipset make one of the top phones we’ve tested.
Our detailed Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra vs. iPhone 14 Pro Max comparison will help you decide and crown an overall winner. Swipe to scroll horizontally Galaxy S23 Ultra iPhone 14 Pro Max Price $1,199 / £1,249 / AU$1,949 $1,099 / £1,199 / AU$1,899 Display 6.8-inch AMOLED (3088 x 1440) 6.7-inch OLED (2796 x 1290) Refresh rate 1 – 120Hz adaptive 1 – 120Hz adaptive Rear cameras 200MP main (f/1.7), 12MP ultrawide (f/2.2), 10MP 3x telephoto (f/2.4), 10MP 10x telephoto (f/4.9) 48MP main (f/1.78), 12MP ultrawide (f/2.2), 12MP telephoto (f/2.8) with 3x optical zoom Front camera 12MP (f/2.2) 12MP (f/1.9) Chipset Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy A16 Bionic RAM 8GB/12GB 6GB Storage 256GB, 512GB, 1TB 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB Battery 5,000 mAh 4,323 mAh Charging 45W wired/10W wireless 25W wired/15W MagSafe Water/dust resistance IP68 IP68 Size 163.4 x 78.1 x 8.9mm (6.4 x 3.0 x 0.35 inches) 160.7 x 77.6 x 7.85 mm (6.3 x 3.1 x 0.31 inches) Weight 233g (8.2 ounces) 240g (8.5 ounces) Colors Phantom Black, Cotton Flower, Botanic Green and Mystic Lilac Space Black, Silver, Gold, Deep Purple
The iPhone 14 Pro Max features squared off sides and a flat display, which we prefer to the curved panel on the Galaxy S23 Ultra. The Galaxy S23 Ultra also features larger cameras than last time but its design is largely the same, including an S Pen slot and a SIM card tray. Both the Galaxy S23 Ultra and iPhone 14 Pro Max claim to be durable, but Samsung says it has the first phone with Gorilla Glass Victus 2, which promises to better protect against scrapes and drops. You can get the iPhone 14 Pro Max in a refreshed set of colors, consisting of Space Black, Deep Purple, Silver and Gold.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max features a 6.7-inch AMOLED display, with a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate and a Super Retina XDR resolution (between FHD and QHD). The Galaxy S23 Ultra packs a slightly larger 6.8-inch panel with an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate and the same QHD resolution as before.
There’s a faster autofocus here, and Samsung has also improved night photo and video capture features, so it’s actually an upgrade. In this portrait comparison, the Galaxy S23 Ultra delivers crisp detail in my blue jacket and hair.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max delivers better detail in the brick building but I’d rather share the Galaxy pic. In this photo of a fish market at night, the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s image is brighter overall, from the walkway and parking lot to the car to the right. In this ultra-wide photo, the Galaxy S23 Ultra wins at first glance because of the more vibrant colors in the gtass and sky, but the iPhone’s shot delivers more gradation in the clouds and more detailed ripples in the water. Turning to some fruit, I think the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s shot is too bright here, especially in the apples, though the pears in the background look a bit better.
Both photos of a colorful bouquet of flowers here look inviting, but upon closer inspection I like how the S23 Ultra pulls out more detail in the petals on the left hand side, and the center of the sunflower is a bit brighter. In this selfie I give the edge to the iPhone because the S23 Ultra underexposes the shot a bit and my face gets a little lost.
The 100x zoom let me take this pretty amazing photo of the moon (albeit one heavily altered by AI), while the iPhone couldn’t even get me close. A Galaxy S23 Ultra vs. iPhone 14 Pro Max photo face-off is as close as can be, but in the end, Samsung’s superior zoom and the flexibility of its 200MP sensor carry the day. The Galaxy S23 noticeably gets close to the iPhone 14 Pro Max on multicore performance but the A16 Bionic is still dominant on the single-core test. Swipe to scroll horizontally Adobe Premiere Rush (video transcoding) Row 0 – Cell 0 Time to complete (Mins:Secs) Galaxy S23 Ultra 0:40 iPhone 14 Pro Max 0:30
You can customize the lock screen with widgets, photos and more, and what you choose will also show up on your always-on display. Other highlights include the ability to unsend texts and edit them, and (finally) a battery percentage indicator.
The best special feature is Dynamic Island, which replaces the notch with an area that shows alerts and Live Activities, including sports scores and the real-time progress of your food order or ride share. For the Galaxy S23 Ultra, the S Pen remains the most unique special feature, letting you take notes, draw and sketch.
Running on top of Android 13, the new One UI 5.1 software for Galaxy S23 Ultra offers a number of handy improvements. There’s also a new Modes option that lets you create customized settings for different aspects of your life, whether it’s sleep, exercise, driving or work.
There’s also more personalization features in One UI 5.1, such as an improved stacked widget system and recommended apps and actions for different times of the day. On the Tom’s Guide battery test, which involves continuous 5G web surfing at 150 nits of screen brightness, the iPhone 14 Pro Max endured for 13 hours and 39 minutes.
If you look at the scorecard for this roundup, the Galaxy S23 Ultra and iPhone 14 Pro Max fight basically ends in a draw. Samsung’s cameras simply let you do more, from 200MP of resolution to frame your shots to much more powerful zoom and astrophotography features. The Galaxy S23 Ultra also benefits from a richer and slightly bigger display (even if we could do without the curve) and a narrower design. The iPhone 14 Pro Max wins on price and value, starting at $100 less, and it continues to deliver the best overall performance with its A16 Bionic chip.
Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max vs. Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra
This article is part of a new series where we’ll try to give you a quick overview of how some of the most popular smartphones compare head-to-head based on our review findings. Long-time readers won’t find new tests here, but nevertheless, it’s an original piece of content that would hopefully bring value to those looking for their next smartphone. If you are looking for a big, high-end smartphone in 2023, arguably the most popular dilemma would be between the iPhone 14 Pro Max vs. the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. The difference is within a few millimeters, though, while giving you a little bit of extra screen real estate due to the higher screen-to-body ratio and bigger display in absolute terms.
The blocky iPhone design and the sharp steel edges make up for a more secure grip, albeit not the most comfortable one. When it comes to the display hardware, Samsung’s phone offers higher resolution, a larger diagonal and is curved to the sides, allowing for a more comfortable grip and gesture execution. The Pro Max boasts considerably higher brightness in both modes – manual and auto. It also tops the S23 Ultra’s HDR video standard with Dolby Vision, whereas the Galaxy “settles” for HDR10+.
What’s important is that in both cases, you get a sufficiently bright display providing an excellent outdoor viewing experience. Even though the iPhone 14 Pro Max has a considerably smaller battery pack, the phone demonstrates exceptional endurance.
Apple achieves this through numerous hardware and software optimizations, squeezing impressive screen-on runtimes out of the rather small 4,323 mAh battery. Alternatively, the Galaxy S23 Ultra posts a slightly better overall score due to its longer standby and phone call runtimes.
Both devices sport a pair of stereo loudspeakers each, and they are pretty close when it comes to overall quality and loudness. You will hardly find any significant difference as the two handsets offer a great listening experience – and honestly, these are among the best speakers you can get on a phone. The iPhone 14 Pro Max, on the other hand, provides a bit extra bass but muffles the vocals and makes everything sound deeper.
The two smartphones run on entirely different chipsets, even if they are both built using a similarly power-efficient 4nm manufacturing node.
The new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 shows superior GPU performance and also takes the lead in combined scenarios like AnTuTu 9. At the end of the day, though, the two devices are good enough to run smoothly pretty much everything you find on their respective app stores.
Some users may find iOS more optimized and fluent than Samsung’s Android-based One UI, and we tend to agree – especially a year or two down the line when the storage starts to fill. Sharpness, detail, dynamic range, contrast, noise – all that seems to be in check, which is what you’d expect from a modern flagship phone.
Let’s say that Samsung’s processing style will likely appeal to the majority due to its vibrant aesthetics.
The same goes for the low-light photos, which, in Samsung’s case, look like they have been rendered on a computer due to the artificially added sharpness during processing. In this case, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is the more “natural” choice, literally and figuratively speaking. The Expert RAW app is tailored towards people who like to do post-processing on their own and take full advantage of the S23 Ultra’s camera hardware.
The two phones are neck and neck in most aspects, with the S23 Ultra standing out with an S Pen, one extra zoom camera, and faster charging, while the iPhone relies on an advanced Face ID for unlocking (preferred by some), a mature software ecosystem that’s compatible with dozens of other devices and arguably the best video recording capabilities on a smartphone right now. If you are either a user wanting to switch to Android, the S23 Ultra should definitely be on top of your list and vice versa – if you’d like to try out iOS, there’s no better way to experience it on the 14 Pro Max’s big screen. Both companies have come a long way, and personal preference will be the deciding factor, especially seeing how price tags are pretty close to each other.
Samsung Galaxy S23 vs iPhone 14 comparison: Which is better?
Not to be outdone, Samsung responded with a stunner of its own, the Galaxy S23, launched in February 2023 and priced at ₹79,999. Both have flat backplates but the S23 opts for a triple camera set up versus iPhone’s dual. The Galaxy S23 offers a more versatile camera setup with 50MP main, 12MP ultrawide, and 10MP telephoto lenses. Both deliver great images, but for video, the iPhone 14 shines with more stable and balanced footage. Both phones come with stereo speakers, but the S23 edges ahead with a wider soundstage and slightly more bass. The S23 excels in design, display, and audio, while the iPhone 14 leads in battery life and video recording.
iPhone 14 Pro Max vs Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra: Which flagship phone wins?
Our iPhone 14 Pro Max vs Galaxy S22 Ultra face-off is here to crown a flagship king and also help you decide which device is best for you. While both the iPhone 14 Pro Max and Galaxy S22 Ultra have earned a spot on our best phones list, there’s plenty of differences between the two devices.
As you’ll see in our Phone 14 Pro Max review (starting at $1,099), Apple’s big-screen flagship offers a superb 6.7-inch screen with always-on display functionality (a first for an iPhone) and a new Dynamic Island that replaces the notch.
The S22 Ultra packs a 108MP camera with a powerful 10x telephoto zoom, a vibrant 6.8-inch display and faster charging.
About our expert About our expert Mark Spoonauer Global Editor in Chief Mark Spoonauer is the Tom’s Guide global editor in chief and has been reviewing phones since the original iPhone and Galaxy S series. Swipe to scroll horizontally Row 0 – Cell 0 iPhone 14 Pro Max Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Price from $1,099 from $1,199 Screen size 6.7 inches (2796 x 1290, 1-120Hz) 6.8 inches (3088 x 1440, 1-120Hz) CPU Apple A16 Bionic Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Storage 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB Cameras 48MP (f/1.78) main, 12MP (f/2.2) ultrawide, 12MP (f/2.8) 3x telephoto, 12MP (f/1.78) 2x telephoto 108MP (f/2.2) main, 12MP (f/2.2 ultrawide), 10MP (f/2.4) 10x telephoto, 10MP (f/2.4) 3x telephoto Front camera 12MP (f/1.9) 40MP (f/2.2) Video 4K up to 60 fps 8K up to 24 fps Dust/Water resistance IP68 IP68 Colors Purple, gold, silver and space black Phantom Black, Phantom White, Burgundy, Green Rated battery life 13 hours 39 minutes 10 hours and 18 minutes Size 6.33 x 3.05 x 0.31 inches 6.43 x 3.07 x 0.35 inches Weight 8.47 ounces 8 ounces The Galaxy S22 Ultra starts with an edge both in terms of size and resolution, offering a 6.8-inch display with 3088 x 1440 pixels. You can see not just the time and battery life but also notifications and widgets, and that’s because the always-on display is basically just a dimmer version of the customizable lock screen Apple added to iOS 16.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max and Galaxy S22 Ultra both sit high on our best camera phone list, and that’s due to a powerful combination of hardware and computational photography capabilities.
Apple’s flagship starts with a new 48MP wide camera with a quad-pixel sensor that delivers brighter and more detailed photos. The Galaxy S22 Ultra has an even sharper 108MP main sensor, and it boasts dual telephoto lenses at 3x at 10x zoom. The purple and yellow pops more through the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, but the iPhone 14 Pro Max brings out more details on the petals.
As for the portrait mode, the iPhone 14 Pro Max and S22 Ultra both deliver a solid image. Turning to this photo of peppers, the iPhone 14 Pro Max offers more contrast and depth as you zoom in, and the colors from the S22 Ultra are a bit too oversaturated.
However, when I viewed the videos on an HDR display the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s clip was significantly brighter, especially in the grass and blue sky. The CPU is rated to be only 10% faster than the A15 Bionic, but it offers 50% more memory bandwidth, which aids gameplay and graphics.
On Geekbench 5, which measures overall performance, the iPhone 14 Pro Max hit 1,882 in single-core and 5,333 in multicore. On the graphics front, the iPhone 14 Pro Max notched 12,363 or 74 frames per second on the 3DMark Wild Life Unlimited benchmark.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max has a number of special features, including the Dynamic Island, always-on on display and and Action mode video. Coming this fall are two safety features in Emergency SOS vis Satellite and crash detection.
Other special features include Director’s View for recording with the front and back cameras at once (the iPhone requires a third-party app), object eraser for removing unwanted stuff from your images and the ability to charge other devices with Wireless PowerShare.
On our web surfing battery test, which is over a 5G connection at 150 nits of screen brightness, this handset lasted an average 13 hours and 39 minutes. The Galaxy S22 Ultra lasted 10:18 on the same test, so the iPhone 14 Pro Max offers better endurance. While the Galaxy S22 Ultra has some key strengths in this area, such as its longer zoom, the iPhone 14 Pro Max generally delivered better image quality.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max also offers stronger overall performance and longer battery life, which are important advantages. It offers a sleeker and more portable design, a bigger and more colorful display and an integrated S Pen for those who find that useful. Overall, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is our top pick, but Android fans willing to splurge will love the S22 Ultra.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra vs iPhone 14 Pro Max speed test: And the winner is…
One of the toughest competitors to Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max is the recently launched Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. This simply means that it has been a long time since any smartphone has defeated an iPhone in terms of speed in the first lap.
“Today its historic run may just come to an end with the S23 Ultra not only featuring a custom version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Chip which has been topping the iPhone in certain benchmarks but it’s also using faster storage in UFS 4.0,” PhoneBuff explained in a YouTube video.
Camera Comparison: Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra vs. Apple iPhone 14 Pro
With its superior telephoto capabilities and an interesting 200-megapixel main camera, I wanted Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra to teach Apple a lesson in how a flagship phone should handle digital photography. If telephoto reach is important to you, the $1,200 Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is the better camera, as you can tell from the photo below, and it handles night shots better. No matter your phone, chances are good that you’ll spend most of your time using the main, wide-angle camera, the best one for photographing nearby people. Both phones’ cameras can capture abundant detail and, with today’s computational photography technology, a reasonable range of bright and dark tones.
The Galaxy phone sharpens edges so tree leaves, blades of grass and other areas with lots of detail are a crispy, jittery mess. In the photo of the boats below, the S23 Ultra suffers from artificial-looking edges around the palm trees and jittery road details in the foreground.
Apple shoots only 12-megapixel shots that are easier on your iPhone and iCloud storage limits but that don’t offer as much detail. In this courtyard photo, it’s nice to have a wide field of view, but Apple offered a more realistic rendering of the scene. The Apple shots suffered more from muddiness in dark areas, and Samsung generally did better preserving details and boosting shadows that might have been lost to shaky hands. Both phones failed at the challenging task of shooting at night toward a bright streetlight, with enormous, multicolored lens flare artifacts distracting from anything in the photo. Telephoto shots can tightly frame distant objects, spotlighting details and perspectives that can be more surprising and engaging. Over and over I got shots of my dog off the beaten track in deep snow, my kid running away from waves on the beach and other subjects I couldn’t just walk closer to photograph, like this speaker at a conference.
Given how hard Apple promotes its products as creative tools, the lack of a big telephoto camera on iPhones is embarrassing at this point. Samsung, like Google and other rivals, gets the long reach with a “periscope” lens approach that uses a prism to angle light 90 degrees inside the phone body. Both phones struggled with my shadowed face in the example below, but the Samsung turned the sky a weird, flat gray. I give the edge to Apple here for its more natural rendering of colors and for considerably better sharpness toward the periphery of the frame, but mostly the cameras are a close match.
As usual, the Galaxy S23 Ultra made the skies too blue and the grass too green, though, and both phones struggled with extreme lens flare shooting toward the sun. I’m glad macro photography has arrived on smartphones, but on both cameras, image quality degrades significantly beyond the central portion of the photo, so don’t get your hopes up.
Shooting raw sidesteps most of my problems with conventional Apple and Samsung photos, especially oversaturation, plasticky skin and too much clarity — the contrast boost to a shot’s middle brightness tones. You can set Expert Raw to save both JPEG and raw versions of your photos, but the JPEG’s rudimentary processing is far worse than the shots from the regular camera app, with tear-inducing oversaturation and obvious halos ringing subjects in contrasting bright and dark areas.
The phone processes the accompanying JPEG images crudely, as shown by the extreme halo glow around the dog in this shot.
The Galaxy S23 Ultra’s telephoto cameras are expensive components, but worth it if you want to express yourself creatively. Either smartphone is a capable photographic tool, but neither is such a clear leader that it’s worth moving from Android to iOS or vice versa.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra vs. iPhone 14 Pro Max
This article is part of our series Battle of the Brands, in which we compare category-leading products to their counterparts to determine which are actually worth your money. The S23 Ultra has a long list of tricks up its sleeve, with a massive 200-megapixel camera strapped to the back, 100x Space Zoom, an S Pen and a huge battery. Meanwhile, the iPhone 14 Pro offers a gorgeous screen, the fastest processor in any smartphone and top-notch video quality. It’s quite unwieldy for anyone with smaller-than-average hands, and it’s pretty heavy (even heavier than the S23 Ultra at 8.46 ounces versus 8.25 grams). You’ll have to live with shorter battery life, but for a phone that doesn’t feel like a brick, I imagine there are quite a few people who would be just fine with that. Apple’s Super Retina XDR screens offer some of the best color accuracy, contrast and clarity on the entire market.
It’s smooth, thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate; it makes everything from movies to ebooks look awesome; and it’s the brightest smartphone screen you can get at up to 2,000 nits in direct sunlight. I think a big part of that is Samsung’s excellent Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel, which offers some of the very best contrasts and black levels you’ll find on a phone. And at the end of the day, who doesn’t like a big, bright and colorful AMOLED display to watch movies and scroll Instagram on? TL;DR: While the iPhone 14 Pro has a spectacular display, the S23 Ultra feels a lot more fun to use, thanks to its vibrant colors and sheer magnitude. The sensor uses pixel binning to artificially form fewer megapixels that are much larger in size — outputting 12-megapixel images by default — with far more light and detail than a traditional camera. The S23 Ultra, meanwhile, lets you dial in the exact settings you want before hitting the shutter button, thanks to its Expert RAW app.
I’ve also found Samsung’s ultrawide and telephoto cameras take more pleasing photos than the iPhone’s lens equivalents. Granted, the S23 Ultra comes very close to matching Apple’s video quality, but it still can’t quite deal with oversharpening on certain subjects like plants and structures with intricate detail.
The S23 Ultra has a lot more RAM than the iPhone does at 12GB versus 6GB, but that doesn’t stop the 14 Pro from continuing to outperform its spec sheet, all thanks to that monster of a processor inside. Samsung has done an excellent job at optimizing its One UI software to be more responsive and fluid than ever before, while iOS on Apple’s device remains as smooth as ever.
TL;DR: While performance between the Galaxy S23 Ultra and iPhone 14 Pro is basically the same, battery life is a lot better on Samsung’s device. Samsung’s One UI 5.1 — based on Android 13 — offers tons of customization options, multitasking tools like split-screen and floating windows, and a simplistic interface that’s fast and fluid. It’s also guaranteed to get four major Android version upgrades and five years’ worth of security patches, which is important for the long run. Meanwhile, Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro ships with iOS 16, which offers new customization tools for the lock screen, new Focus settings, updates to the Messages app and more. You also get the Dynamic Island, which gives you quick access to apps running in the background, as well as Live Activities to track things concurrently happening. TL;DR: At the end of the day, you might pick the iPhone or Galaxy strictly because it runs iOS or Android. I’ve played a lot of music on both devices, from hip-hop to classic jazz, as well as a handful of movie trailers and podcasts. TL;DR: With Apple’s exclusive use of eSIMs on the iPhone 14 series, the phone to get if you prefer having a physical SIM is the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
The Galaxy S23 Ultra is by and large the best premium smartphone you can currently buy, but the iPhone 14 Pro series gives it a run for its money. With either device, you get a great design, OLED screen, fantastic cameras, fast software and performance, and good battery life.
The same goes for battery life and display quality — Samsung manages to defeat Apple in both of these areas, which makes the S23 Ultra quite an attractive package. Personally, I think the Galaxy S23 Ultra is a more complete package, thanks to those camera and battery life strengths, but the iPhone 14 Pro is a killer handset as well.
Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max vs. Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra
This article is part of a new series where we’ll try to give you a quick overview of how some of the most popular smartphones compare head-to-head based on our review findings. Long-time readers won’t find new tests here, but nevertheless, it’s an original piece of content that would hopefully bring value to those looking for their next smartphone.
If you are looking for a big, high-end smartphone in 2023, arguably the most popular dilemma would be between the iPhone 14 Pro Max vs. the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. The difference is within a few millimeters, though, while giving you a little bit of extra screen real estate due to the higher screen-to-body ratio and bigger display in absolute terms.
The blocky iPhone design and the sharp steel edges make up for a more secure grip, albeit not the most comfortable one. When it comes to the display hardware, Samsung’s phone offers higher resolution, a larger diagonal and is curved to the sides, allowing for a more comfortable grip and gesture execution.
The Pro Max boasts considerably higher brightness in both modes – manual and auto. It also tops the S23 Ultra’s HDR video standard with Dolby Vision, whereas the Galaxy “settles” for HDR10+.
What’s important is that in both cases, you get a sufficiently bright display providing an excellent outdoor viewing experience. Even though the iPhone 14 Pro Max has a considerably smaller battery pack, the phone demonstrates exceptional endurance.
Apple achieves this through numerous hardware and software optimizations, squeezing impressive screen-on runtimes out of the rather small 4,323 mAh battery. Alternatively, the Galaxy S23 Ultra posts a slightly better overall score due to its longer standby and phone call runtimes.
Both devices sport a pair of stereo loudspeakers each, and they are pretty close when it comes to overall quality and loudness. You will hardly find any significant difference as the two handsets offer a great listening experience – and honestly, these are among the best speakers you can get on a phone.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max, on the other hand, provides a bit extra bass but muffles the vocals and makes everything sound deeper. The two smartphones run on entirely different chipsets, even if they are both built using a similarly power-efficient 4nm manufacturing node. The new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 shows superior GPU performance and also takes the lead in combined scenarios like AnTuTu 9. At the end of the day, though, the two devices are good enough to run smoothly pretty much everything you find on their respective app stores. Some users may find iOS more optimized and fluent than Samsung’s Android-based One UI, and we tend to agree – especially a year or two down the line when the storage starts to fill. Sharpness, detail, dynamic range, contrast, noise – all that seems to be in check, which is what you’d expect from a modern flagship phone.
Let’s say that Samsung’s processing style will likely appeal to the majority due to its vibrant aesthetics. The same goes for the low-light photos, which, in Samsung’s case, look like they have been rendered on a computer due to the artificially added sharpness during processing. In this case, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is the more “natural” choice, literally and figuratively speaking. The Expert RAW app is tailored towards people who like to do post-processing on their own and take full advantage of the S23 Ultra’s camera hardware.
The two phones are neck and neck in most aspects, with the S23 Ultra standing out with an S Pen, one extra zoom camera, and faster charging, while the iPhone relies on an advanced Face ID for unlocking (preferred by some), a mature software ecosystem that’s compatible with dozens of other devices and arguably the best video recording capabilities on a smartphone right now. If you are either a user wanting to switch to Android, the S23 Ultra should definitely be on top of your list and vice versa – if you’d like to try out iOS, there’s no better way to experience it on the 14 Pro Max’s big screen. Both companies have come a long way, and personal preference will be the deciding factor, especially seeing how price tags are pretty close to each other.
Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max vs Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra: What is the difference?
has camera/microphone privacy options ✔ Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max ( iOS 16 ✔ Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra ( Android 13 You can enable or disable an app’s access to the camera or microphone on your device. has Mail Privacy Protection ✔ Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max ( iOS 16 ✖ Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra Mail Privacy Protection is a feature built into the default email app that blocks senders from using “tracking pixels” to see when you’ve read an email.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra vs Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max
9.0 Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max The Good Exceptional, industry-leading performance Dynamic Island is a fun and useful twist on the punch hole Very good battery life Superb video-recording quality Very bright and beautiful display with Always-On functionality Premium, posh design The Bad Relatively slow charging speed Small evolutionary improvements Lack of physical SIM feels like an inconvenience The steeper curvature radius of the side frame would make it fairly comfortable to hold and operate with one hand, compared to the blocky iPhone, and the S23 Ultra also has an S Pen stylus silo for doodling that Apple can’t or won’t replicate. At the rear, we still have three lens rings protruding from the back independently, rather than being a part of an elevated camera island “plateau” as on most every other major phone out there, including the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
It’s an edgy, heavy phone to deal with, especially with one hand, while the Ultra’s curved screen will probably bring it an ergonomics advantage.The steeper curvature radius of the side frame would make it fairly comfortable to hold and operate with one hand, compared to the blocky iPhone, and the S23 Ultra also has an S Pen stylus silo for doodling that Apple can’t or won’t replicate.At the rear, we still have three lens rings protruding from the back independently, rather than being a part of an elevated camera island “plateau” as on most every other major phone out there, including the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
On the other hand, Apple melted the dynamic refresh rate advantage that the Galaxies had by introducing 1Hz-120Hz range for its iPhone 14 Pro models which previously only dipped to 10Hz, so we can call it a draw in the display quality department. On the other hand, Apple melted the dynamic refresh rate advantage that the Galaxies had by introducing 1Hz-120Hz range for its iPhone 14 Pro models which previously only dipped to 10Hz, so we can call it a draw in the display quality department. The biggest upgrade that arrives with the Galaxy S23 Ultra is the new custom 200MP ISOCELL HP2 main camera sensor with 0.6 micron pixels that Samsung prepared exclusively for its 2023 flagship. The samples also exhibit colder colors and toned down contrast that stay truer to what’s in front of the lens than the jollier but overly warm and yellow overcast of Apple’s iPhones. The samples also exhibit colder colors and toned down contrast that stay truer to what’s in front of the lens than the jollier but overly warm and yellow overcast of Apple’s iPhones. The Galaxy S23 Ultra also softens the background around the main object in the frame a bit more without resorting to a portrait mode switch, while photos from the iPhone 14 Pro Max look sharper and flatter. Zoom into the iPhone samples, however, and detail and sharpness immediately get lost compared to the S23 Ultra photos, indicating that the 200MP sensor offers much more photographic data to play with and enhance if needed. Indoor low-light and night scenes from Samsung’s phone come out with better dynamic range, illuminating both the dark coat of our subject in the sample here, and the lamp on the wall more evenly than what the iPhone 14 Pro Max is able to muster.
The Galaxy S23 Ultra also softens the background around the main object in the frame a bit more without resorting to a portrait mode switch, while photos from the iPhone 14 Pro Max look sharper and flatter. Indoor low-light and night scenes from Samsung’s phone come out with better dynamic range, illuminating both the dark coat of our subject in the sample here, and the lamp on the wall more evenly than what the iPhone 14 Pro Max is able to muster. The iPhone simply went for its usual step higher exposure here, plunging the shadows in darkness and creating a halo in the place of the lamp’s light source compared to the wider dynamic range that the S23 Ultra was able to capture. In the samples with the ultrawide cameras, Apple has again boosted the contrast and color temperature over what Samsung’s algorithms chose on the Galaxy S23 Ultra, creating a more visually striking scene than it needs to be compared to reality. In the samples with the ultrawide cameras, Apple has again boosted the contrast and color temperature over what Samsung’s algorithms chose on the Galaxy S23 Ultra, creating a more visually striking scene than it needs to be compared to reality. Compare that to the iPhone 14 Pro Max which takes almost two hours to top up a smaller unit at a maximum of 27W, and Samsung again comes out ahead of its Apple rival as far as charging times are concerned.
Don’t even get us started about the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s advantage in the optical zoom department before the tired 3x telephoto of the iPhone 14 Pro Max that has been Apple’s modus operandi for years on end now, or its much faster charging abilities with a battery life that is now on par. Don’t even get us started about the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s advantage in the optical zoom department before the tired 3x telephoto of the iPhone 14 Pro Max that has been Apple’s modus operandi for years on end now, or its much faster charging abilities with a battery life that is now on par.
Still, once you get in Apple’s ecosystem grip, it’s hard to break with the company and its product, so it remains to be seen if the slightly more expensive Galaxy S23 Ultra will manage to put a dent in the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s market share.
Galaxy S23 Ultra vs. iPhone 14 Pro Max: Apple better watch out
Despite there being three phones, the most exciting one is definitely the S23 Ultra, which now has a massive 200-megapixel main camera and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor that’s specially tuned “for Galaxy”. But how does Samsung’s latest top-of-the-line flagship Android phone compare to Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro Max? The back of the phone is matte, so it’s not a fingerprint magnet, and the quad-camera system continues to be in the floating lens design since the S22 Ultra did not use the camera island like the regular S22 and S22 Plus.
The bottom is where you’ll find the S Pen stowed away, along with the USB-C charging port, and the side has the volume buttons.
On the Galaxy S23 Ultra, you get a giant 6.8-inch Super Dynamic AMOLED 2X Infinity-O QHD+ always-on display with a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate. The bezels are relatively thin, giving you more screen estate to work with, and the selfie camera and face recognition sensor are housed in a small and simple hole-punch cutout
The front-facing selfie camera and Face ID sensors are housed in the new Dynamic Island, which integrates with iOS 16 software to vary in size and adapt to whatever you’re doing on the device. Though the iPhone 14 Pro Max can go even brighter outdoors than the S23 Ultra, the latter is more impressive due to Samsung’s exceptional Super Dynamic AMOLED 2X display and higher resolution. You’ll find Apple’s own in-house A16 Bionic chip in the iPhone 14 Pro Max, which has a six-core CPU with two performance and four efficiency cores.
Though this all sounds like technical mumbo jumbo for the average person, it basically means that the iPhone 14 Pro Max has blazing-fast performance. With iOS 16, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is responsive, fluid, snappy, and just a joy to use — and even though it has less RAM than the S23 Ultra, that isn’t something that holds it back at all. However, because it has the optimized Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy, the battery should last longer than the previous iteration, despite no change in capacity.
On top of that, the main lens has laser autofocus and optical image stabilization (OIS) for incredibly sharp photos. That’s a big leap in quality, and Samsung’s S23 Ultra remains the only phone range to manage this level of zoom.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max is a little less impressive in terms of raw numbers, despite getting a big upgrade last year. You won’t get anything near the S23 Ultra’s 100x Space Zoom, unfortunately, at least not until Apple incorporates a periscope lens on future generations of the iPhone.
Typically, we should expect at least five years of software upgrades for an iPhone device, though it may vary depending on the actual hardware. The Galaxy S23 Ultra is available for purchase right now directly from Samsung, as well as from carriers and big box retailers like Best Buy. If you order directly from Samsung, there are four additional exclusive colors to pick from: Lime, Graphite, Sky Blue, and Red. The iPhone 14 Pro Max is currently available directly from Apple, carriers, and big box retailers like Best Buy, Target, and Amazon. Samsung does a pretty good job of keeping support for its flagship devices, including the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
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