Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max vs Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra

We're soaring into high-end flagship land, so don't expect affordable pricing. The new top-end iPhone start at $1100 for the 128GB version, and charge you $1199 and $1399 for the 256 and 512GB versions, respectively, whereas the Note 20 Ultra will cost you $1,299 for the 128GB and $1,449 for the 512GB version. 

Of course, the latter has been on the shelves for a few months so you could occasionally get the Note 20 Ultra cheaper thanks to Black Friday Samsung deals,Amazon Prime Day sales, and other types of bargains. Granted, there are some iPhone 12 Pro Max Black Friday discounts as well, albeit mainly with carrier plans attached.

Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max

$1099 ⁹⁹ Buy at Apple $1099 ⁹⁹ Buy at BestBuy $1099 Buy at Verizon

$1049 $1099 Buy at Sam's Club $1099 Buy at AT&T

$899 $1099 Expired

Hearing that this is the first 6.7" iPhone release, you might be forgiven to worry how it would affect your palm, pocket or purse, but the 12 Pro Max is still a good deal more compact than the true juggernauts out there like the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. It's just less comfortable to hold and handle thanks to the flat iPhone 4-esque sides, and the wider body. 

If you can forgive it that, it will reward you with the best water-resistance on a general purpose phone - up to 20 feet - a well as with an improved version of the Note 20 Ultra's Gorilla Glass Victus, called Ceramic Shield which seems to be able to withstand higher drops in controlled tests.

There's no high refresh rate on the iPhone 12 Pro Max, and that might be a bummer for tech geeks and regular users alike, and a missed opportunity for Apple, but that's how it is. Aside from its standard 60Hz refresh rate, the display ticks with a resolution of 2778 by 1284 pixels, which is sufficiently sharp. 

At the same time, the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is coming with a Dynamic AMOLED 120Hz display that comes along with a resolution of 1,440 by 3,088 pixels, a bit sharper than the iPhone 12 Pro Max's display. The 12 Pro Max comes out slightly on top in peak brightness and color credibility, as well as in display toughness thanks to the Ceramic Shield cover, but lacks the all-important high refresh rate so we are giving the display round to Samsung. Ultimately, though, neither device will disappoint when it comes to its overall display qualities.

Inside the iPhone 12 Pro Max, Apple's A14 Bionic chipset that debuted on the Apple iPad Air 4 hums with superb performance thanks to the 5nm manufacturing process and optimized iOS 14. The latter also ensures better performance at a higher power efficiency, so there's that. The largest iPhone comes with 6GB RAM and either 128, 256, or 512GB storage variants.

In the meantime, the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra comes with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ in the US and Korea, or Exynos 990 elsewhere. An octa-core beast, built on a 7 nm process — the 865+ is a slightly improved version of the regular Snapdragon 865 that powers the Galaxy S20 series. The Note 20 Ultra has variants with 8 GB of RAM and 12 GB of RAM, as well as storage tiers from 128 GB to 512 GB. Unfortunately, the base versions of both these phones start at "only" 128GB storage.

Both phones came with triple camera setups, consisting of a regular, ultra-wide angle, and telephoto snappers. The differences are in the megapixels and sensor sizes as well as the software features. It's too early to say which one has the better camera, but one thing is for sure: they'll be neck to neck. One thing that will likely be missing on either device is an advanced depth measuring sensor. 

The iPhone 12 Pro Max comes with LiDAR on board, which allows for precise environment mapping and improved AR and XR capabilities. At the same time, the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra has no ToF sensor like the S20 Ultra, so it's a bit gimped in that regard and doesn't have advanced depth-sensing capabilities.

Another win exclusive for the iPhone 12 Pro Max amongst the 2020 crop is the sensor-shift image stabilization which is reportedly much better than conventional OIS solutions and would provide stable footage even when severe movement or vibrations are present. In general, the iPhone 12 Pro Max samples exhibit a tad truer colors than the warmish tones of the Note 20 Ultra, and lower exposure hence they don't overblow highlights. The dynamic range is also slightly better from the iPhone, while the Note 20 Ultra manages to capture a bit more detail which, however, is smeared by the higher default exposure settings. 



The iPhone 12 Pro Max will definitely catch the attention of avid photographers and videographers with ProRAW support and is also the first smartphone to support Dolby Vision HDR capture. That means they can capture over 700 million colors, up to 60X times more than before. You also get a live preview of HDR as you shoot it, and you can edit Dolby Vision videos right in the Photos app. This is truly impressive stuff, possible thanks to the powerful A14 chip. For all else, the cameras on the Pro and Pro Max are identical: you have the new Smart HDR 3 on both, which brings out detail in faces when the sun is bright behind the person and captures better HDR shots overall. Night Mode on both also gets better: it is now available on all cameras, including the ultra-wide and front cameras.