iPhone 14 Pro Max Vs. Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra: Flagship Showdown

Can Apple’s newest flagship smartphone take down Samsung’s feature-rich Galaxy S22 Ultra? CRN takes a look at this head-to-head matchup.

While there are plenty of worthy competitors in the arena, the smartphone battle of the modern age really comes down to two mammoth companies: Apple and Samsung. These two have been duking it out for supremacy for many years and both remain at their top of their games.

Apple’s latest release, the iPhone 14 comes on the heels of a tough year for the global economy. Inflation has been soaring across the board in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Adding to the mix, Apple’s suppliers were impacted by COVID lockdowns in China this past spring. Still, Apple managed to beat expectations in its latest earnings report.

Still, the Cupertino, Calif.-based tech giant’s recent Far Out event came as a welcome respite from any sour economic news. Apple introduced the new iPhone 14 series along with several other devices. “People love iPhone and it’s become an important part of our daily lives,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the event, calling the new mobile lineup “the most innovated pro lineup yet.

Apple had plenty of time to come up with something to match Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Ultra, which was announced in February at the South Korean IT behemoth’s Unpacked 2022 event showcasing its latest mobile lineup. Samsung President TM Roh said the S22 Ultra was “the ultimate smartphone.” Ultimately, there are plenty of differences between these two mega-phones for that will make for a tough decision.

Click through the sldieshow to see how both phones compare.

Dimensions and weigh-in

Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro Max is no lightweight when it comes to size. The phone has a width of 3.05 inches, a height of 6.33 inches (measured diagonally) and depth of .31 inches. The substantial phone weighs 8.47 ounces. The display shows off a full 6.7 inches of OLED screen. The Pro Max has rounded corners that follow a curved design.

Samsung’s S22 Ultra weighs in a little lighter with a slightly larger frame at 8.04 ounces with a width of 3.07 inches, a height of 6.43 inches and depth of .35 inches. The AMOLED display measures 6.8 inches (measured diagonally).

As you’ll see in the following slides, both phones make good use of this extra real estate, offering top-of-line display technology and groundbreaking features.

Network support/ Connectivity

Samsung S22 Ultra features Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/63, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct and hotspot functionality. It utilizes Bluetooth 5.2, has GPC and also supports USB Type-C 3.2 and USB on-the-Go. The S22 Ultra also supports 5G.

iPhone 14 Pro Max features 5G (sub-6 GHZ and mmWave) with 4.4 MIMO, Gigabit LTE with 4x4 MIMO and LAA, Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) with 2.2 MIMO and Bluetooth 5.3. The new Ultra Wideband chip for the phone’s spatial awareness technology gives Apple a very interesting new connectivity angle.

Processing, RAM, and Storage

The iPhone Pro Max offers up to 1 TB of capacity and features the Apples proprietary new A16 Bionic chip, 6-core CPU with two performance cores and four efficiency cores, a 5-core GPU and 16-core Neural Engine. Samsung’s S22 features up to 1 TB with up to 12 GB of RAM using the Qualcomm SM8450 Snapdragon Gen 1 4 nanometer chipset. Ultra 22 also has an Octa-core CPU and Adreno 730 GPU.

Camera Specs

Samsung really banked on its ability to deliver the most advanced camera system of any smartphone and it delivered with a quad camera setup featuring a 108-megapixel main camera with f1.8 aperture for low light capture and Samsung’s latest image stabilization technology, 10-megapixel periscope telephone lens, 10 megapixel telephoto lens, and 12 megapixel ultrawide lense featuring “Super Steady” Video.

The iPhone 14 Pro Max added to its photography game with its new TrueDepth camera system featuring a 12-megapixel camera with f1.9 aperture opening, autofocus with focus pixels, night mode, lens correction, auto image stabilization, burst mode to capture fast moving action, 4K video recording with Cinematic Mode at up to 30 fps. Both camera systems have too many features to mention without writing a small novel.

These are both excellent systems, but Samsung still has the edge here with so many accessible and useful features and superior nighttime photo capabilities thanks to its main lens’ unusually large sensor.

Battery Life

Battery life has become the new “space race” among tech companies, with each new release besting the last. Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max boasts up to 29 hours of video playback on a single charge (25 hours streaming) and audio playback of up to 95 hours. The unit is fast-charge capable with up to 50 percent charge in about 30 minutes with the separately sold 20W adapter.

Samsung’s S22 Ultra features a monster lithion ion 5000 mAh battery capable of fast charging at 45W. This quick charging system allows for a full charge in just an hour (Apple’s charge time is nearly double).

Apple’s iOS platform is a great power-saver and efficiently doles out power savings when needed, so the iPhone will quite likely have longer run times than the S22 Ultra. But this one remains a toss-up as both systems are winners in the battery department compared to competitors.

Price, Release Date, and Availability

iPhone 14 Pro Max is priced starting at $1,099.99 and is now available for preorder.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is priced starting at $1,199.99 and is now available at stores.

Final Verdict:

It’s a close one, but we give the edge to iPhone 14 Pro Max for overall usability, blazing speed and fantastic battery life. The Samsung Galaxy S22 sure does have its strong points as well, including superior camera abilities and S-pen functionality. But iPhone brought the heat with its latest release – so it will be interesting to see how Samsung responds with its next flagship entry.

You can find more information about each phone’s tech specs on Apple.com and Samsung.com.