The S24 Ultra and the 15 Pro Max are packed with features, and I’ve had enough time to put them head-to-head and see which one is the best. So first off, we have to talk about the biggest new addition to these two, and that is AI. AI is basically being added to pretty much anything and everything now, especially the S24 Ultra. It has AI on its keyboard that helps rewrite your message into a couple different styles. Its Note app has a bunch of different AI features, like auto-formatting and summarizing.
It has AI in its photo editor that helps with generative editing, and it has live translate for phone calls, which translates what the other person is saying from their language into yours, which is nuts. But as cool as all this AI is, Samsung did mention it might only be free until 2025, which is a little concerning, but I guess we’re just going to have to wait and see what happens. The iPhone also has a few AI features, but unlike Samsung, Apple’s approach to AI is different. Instead of making AI that generates things like text, the iPhone’s AI helps a lot more in the background. For example, its new journal app has AI that helps with suggestions on what you did throughout your day and what to write about, which is useful. And there’s also a personal voice that uses AI to create a copy of your voice, which you can then use to chat with people around you. A pretty nifty feature. And although those are pretty cool to have, the AI on the Ultra is just way more functional for now, so I gotta give it the points. While we’re on the topic of AI, if you head into the Ultra’s wallpaper section, it also has this really unique AI generation option. So here you can use AI to generate different wallpapers, which is something really cool to have directly on your phone, but the only problem is that it doesn’t actually save images in your gallery, which kind of stinks. Overall, though, the customization between the Samsung and the iPhone is, to no surprise, pretty similar. They both have almost identical lock screen customization, so you can’t customize them to look almost exactly the same, just like you can customize your iPhone or Ultra to look like mine using a sick wallpaper from hailsworld.com.
But the Samsung does come with a lot of extra customization features, like installing different clock fonts for the lock screen, of which the iPhone is limited to just a few. And then, if you dig a little deeper into certain settings, there are a few other things you can do to customize the Ultra even further, like alarm backgrounds, lock screens, video wallpapers, video call screen backgrounds, and, let’s not forget, edge lighting notifications, which I know you guys love. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The Ultra can also use Good Lock for way more customization, like customizing the S Pen design and even different bar styles. So, although the iPhone does have some slick customization, it doesn’t have anything particularly unique to it like the Samsung, which you can basically customize to look like anything you want, so it definitely gets the point. Okay, so when it comes to sheer performance and speed, these two are powerhouses. The iPhone with its A17 Pro chip has really surprised me with how powerful it is, and the Ultra with its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 made-for-galaxy chip is also equally impressive. And for general use, of course, they are both super snappy. It’s only when I pushed them that I started to see some differences. Like when testing them with video editing, this is where I particularly saw a big difference. The iPhone was usually extremely fast when rendering, and even though the Ultra was slower, it wasn’t too far behind. And as for gaming, the only difference I saw was that the iPhone usually started up a few split seconds ahead of the Ultra, so not that big of a difference. and when it came to actually playing the game, they were basically identical. So although the Ultra is slightly slower overall, a major plus is that it has 12 gigs of RAM compared to the 8 on the iPhone, which means that it can have more apps open in the background and still perform super smoothly. But even with only 8 gigs of RAM on the iPhone, I didn’t actually ever see it slow down thanks to its super efficient and snappy A17 Pro chip.
So for speed, the iPhone definitely gets the point. Now, it’s pretty crazy at just how important cell phone screens have become, especially since they’re like the number one thing we all look at. And just looking at these two displays, you wouldn’t see there’s that much of a difference, but there’s actually two big things that set them apart. And first is the brightness. The screen on the iPhone is so bright that you can probably use it as a flashlight. And as for the Ultra, it’s even brighter than that, up to 2600 nits. And the second reason is reflection. This is something not a lot of people have thought about up until now. Because the Ultra screen has had a bit of an upgrade. It’s now quite a bit less reflective than before, which you can’t really see on camera. But you’ve got to take my word for it. It actually makes a pretty big difference in comparison to the iPhone’s super-reflective screen. So because of those two differences and because Apple is still buying their screens from Samsung, the Ultra takes the point.
But what about their cameras? Now I know a lot of us make our decisions on which phone to get based on how good the cameras are. And these take almost equally amazing photos and videos, but there are a few differences between the two that you’ve got to know. Firstly, the Samsung comes with this new slo-mo mode that can shoot real 4K video at 120 frames per second, which the iPhone is still stuck at doing in HD. The Samsung also has 8K video that has slightly more detail than the 4K on the iPhone and looks slightly more natural, but can be a bit shaky at times. The 200-megapixel sensor on the Samsung is also slightly better than the 48-megapixel sensor on the iPhone. But the iPhone is not far behind, especially when you zoom in and see some more of that detail. And speaking about zooming in, the new 50 megapixel 5x zoom lens on the Ultra still takes better zoom photos than the iPhone’s new 12 megapixel 5x zoom. But the iPhone still does some things better than the Ultra, like taking portrait photos, which just have better edge detection. It also takes amazing pro video that looks really natural, which on the Ultra just looks overly sharpened and really shaky sometimes. And it also shoots in ProRes Log like a cinema camera, which the Ultra can’t do. So as you can see, they both have a lot of pros and cons, so for the first time ever, I have to give them both a point because their cameras have never felt this identical. Now onto some special features that make these two stand apart, starting with the most obvious one, the S Pen on the Ultra. Most of us know it; it’s basically been the same pen for decades now, and a lot of us love to use it. But besides that, the Ultra also comes with a huge special feature that a lot more people are starting to use, and that is DeX. It basically turns your Ultra into a fully functioning computer so that you can have multiple windows and apps open, browse everything on your Ultra, like files, videos, and photos, and even play games with it. The iPhone also has a bunch of special features, like its action button, which can be customized to open up the camera app or anything else. It also has that super snappy airdrop and handoff that a lot of people can’t live without, especially if you use a Mac. And a few others, like a name drop, a LiDAR sensor for depth mapping, emergency SOS and car crash detection, and even the Dynamic Island.
But it’s also possible that the Ultra might soon get car crash detection, which is pretty cool. Overall, though, as cool as all the iPhone’s special features are, I gotta give the point to the Samsung, because again, as always, its special features are just more functional for day-to-day use. Okay, chatting about the batteries now, which are also so important, and straight a bat, the battery on the Ultra is slightly larger than the iPhones. So for general browsing on the internet, social media, and YouTube, the Ultra outperformed the iPhone by around an hour or so, usually getting around 13 hours before shutdown compared to 12 on the iPhone. It’s also worth mentioning that during my camera test of these two, I actually had to recharge the iPhone, whereas with the Samsung, I didn’t have to recharge at once. And speaking about charging, using the same charging brick and USB-C cable, the Ultra recharged around 40 minutes faster than the iPhone, which by today’s standards just needs to be better. So the Ultra definitely takes the point for this one, and if we look at the score, things really aren’t looking so good for the iPhone. So something brand new to the S24 Ultra and 15 Pro Max is that they now both have titanium frames, which basically means they use a way more expensive material for the frames on the phones but makes them slightly more durable and less heavy. The iPhone, however, does use slightly higher-grade titanium than the Ultra, which, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t make that big of a difference but does make it a little more durable. The Ultra also got rid of its rounded edge display for that standard flat screen, which I do prefer, and it is just nice to see Samsung bring a bit of change compared to the iPhone that has looked the same for a long time now. Other than that, they’re basically the same quality, just with different designs, so this really is more of a subjective choice, and because of that, I’ve got to give them both a point. With AI being such a big topic, safety and security on our phones are also super important. And it’s safe to say that even with the AI on these, they’re both super safe. For example, Samsung implemented a switch inside its AI settings that specifically tells the Ultra to process AI directly on the phone instead of a server. And Apple has also said that all the AI is processed on the phone, so that’s also good to know. But besides AI, both the Ultra and iPhone also have their own tracking apps called Find on the Ultra and Find My on the iPhone, in case you ever lose or need to track your items. They both also have their standard security features, like the fingerprint sensor, face unlock on the Ultra, and face ID on the iPhone. The iPhone also has a special lockdown mode in case you feel like you’re busy being hacked, but that’s really only for emergencies.
So overall, I’d have to say they’re both equally secure, and I especially like how secure they’ve made the AI, so again, I’ve got to give them both the point. So with all these cool features, there’s definitely a price to pay, and it’s a pretty big price. The S34 Ultra can be picked up for 1249 pounds, or 1299 dollars, and the iPhone 15 Pro Max for 1199 pounds, or 1199 dollars. However, these prices can change, especially when it comes to trade-ins. Samsung usually gives you better trade-in value than Apple, so although the iPhone is slightly cheaper, you might actually end up paying more for it when you trade in. Samsung also gives some sweet purchase gifts depending on where you are in the world, which is unheard of from Apple. But Samsung’s do tend to lose their value faster than iPhones. So if you plan on reselling your Samsung as opposed to trading it in, you would actually get a lower value for it than you would if you were reselling an iPhone. So for price, because they’re both relatively the same and you get basically the same value for money, I’ll give them both a point. But that does not change the fact that the iPhone got completely crushed by the Ultra, making the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra the winner. And it leaves me wondering what Apple will do to catch up to the Ultra with the 16 Pro Max. So make sure to sub and stick around to find out, but I’ll see you guys in the next one. Toodles!
