We have 3 flagship phones here today!
We have the iPhone 14 Pro Max, the S22 Ultra and the Galaxy Z Fold 4.
Yes we will be comparing them side by side, but more important than the specs and how
much they cost, is the quality of the images and the videos that we get at the end.
I am Alex and I do down to earth tech videos.
Let’s go for a walk
I just want to preface this video with a note that when it comes to this level of smartphones,
it’s really hard to go wrong with your choice.
I did find some issues and some key differences between them….that could tip the balance
for you if you care about some of these features specifically.
I haven’t tried every single aspect but I spent the last month working on this video
so there’s a lot in here for us to go through in a single video, so today we will focus
on key aspects of the camera.
Starting with Panorama shots which is not something I do a lot, but it’s a good example
of the sort of differences I found.
In this case, I have to say…
I much prefer the warmer tones that the iPhone captured here.
And in general when it comes to WHITE BALANCE and colour temperature, I haven’t manually
changed anything here but the iPhone in general produces A LOT warmer shots than the other
phones, out of the box.
This never used be the case on every single shot, but it’s definitely noticeable now.
When photographing people sometimes, those iPhone warmer tones didn’t look as good
to me.
It’s funny because the Samsung phones are TRADITIONALLY the ones that used to be over
saturated and… almost unnatural and if you go back to my S21 Ultra review we started
to see that shift…
And in this case again, I actually prefer the Samsung image here from a skin tone perspective.
Which brings me to an important point which is, there is a lot of flexibility when it
comes to the style of images you can take.
As I said, I used the default settings for this video which… on the iPhone seem very
warm.
But you CAN go in and change the style for a cooler tone.
Sometimes…
as you will see in some of the shots here it’s about quality…
but other times is about personal preference.
Coming up I have some very important aspects of using these phones as a camera for photos
and videos….that not many people talk about in these comparisons and reviews.
To avoid any issues with YouTube compression, you can download all of these photos in their
original format so you can take a look yourself and… pixel peep if you want to.
I will share a link in the description for you.
In terms of a general look, I have to say the S22 Ultra has come leaps and bounds since
I first got it…but they still only excellent in certain conditions.
In good lighting, they have an impressive sharpness to it and seem to do a fantastic
job at retaining details in the shadows.
Take this shot here of these shoes, you can see the iPhone crushes the blacks in certain
areas.
I actually prefer how the iPhone didn’t let the purple spill too much over the wall
in the background.
But in terms of detail, the Samsung is doing a better job.
You may have noticed I left a Pixel 7 Pro shot in there…
That’s my next video.
It’s still early days for me on the Pixel.
I am slow to produce these videos, I like taking my time and giving you a decent perspective.
Right…When I shooting in low light conditions, it was trickier for the Fold to Autofocus
but… nothing that a little bit of patience wouldn’t solve it.
The same with S22 Ultra, though the Fold was noticeably slower.
But I am definitely nitpicking there.
The 14 Pro Max didn’t struggle at all with autofocus, in most of the shots I did, maybe
that’s due to Lidar and that new sensor coming into play here.
So if you rely a lot on autofocus… the iPhone seems to be doing a better job for me.
When it comes to detail, the big Apple news this year… was that big jump right?
From 12 megapixels to 48 megapixels on iPhone 14 Pro range - but… is that making a big
difference from the previous 13 and 12 Pro Max?
Bearing in mind that these are all handheld shots, but you can see here that the iPhone
is a little bit better when it comes to detail.
In some cases I did notice that the Digital two times cropping…
does seem to be adding more detail to the iPhone shots, even though it’s using less
of the sensor, which sounds counter intuitive right?
But I did a bit of research and it turns out that the fact that the 2 times cropping uses
less of the sensor… it allows for the iPhone to use more processing power, so we get even
more detailed shots in 2 times crop.
And just as a little side note here…And this is one of the things that I not many
people talk about.
When you are trying to take a quick picture and you want to quickly change the zoom or
the camera mode…
Do you see this lag on the Samsung?
Ultimately it doesn’t impact the quality of the photo, but there is that noticeable
lag.
There’s a wait time there that you don’t get on the iPhone.
Well there is an animation on the iPhone that you could argue… is adding to the wait time…
But you CAN snap the photo even before the animation finished, which you can’t really
do on the Samsung.
I tried to capture that on video here for you, I hope you can see what I mean.
With the Samsung phones you CLEARLY have to wait for it to settle before the shutter button
can be pressed.
Small detail, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
Let’s take a look at some low light shots though….
Remember that there’s a lot at play here.
As some of these shots were done in public places, so there is street lights, you know…
lights from cars moving past and all of these cameras behave differently and react differently
to those.
In general though I thought the iPhone produced those warmer tones again which is not something
I like in every shot.
Like I said you can change the settings for cooler photos, but straight out of the camera,
this is what you get which to me is a little bit too warm.
The S22 Ultra and Fold 4 do retain a lot of detail but have this purple-y tint on the
photo and if you look in the clouds… the iPhone shot does seem to have a more natural
feel to them, at least that’s more like to… how I remember the scene.
On the iPhone, in Night mode just be aware that you’re not using the 48MP sensor so
the difference between this and the 13 Pro Max for example is very minimal.
I covered the 14 vs 13 Pro Max in a different video AND THIS is another reason to consider
the 13 Pro Max if you are on the fence…
When it comes to using zoom in low light, the iPhone is comical really.
It’s not the sort of shot you’re likely to be taking but it’s so noisy that it reminds
me the first ever camera phones.
Portrait shots have come a long way in recent phones.
It’s probably my favourite mode on the S22 Ultra, whether its for people or objects.
I use this a lot for product shots and I have to say the S22 Ultra is really hard to beat.
If you look on the edges here you can see that the iPhone still struggles, despite all
the computation photography power that Apple claims to have….
The S22 Ultra is just better at edge detection, even this Exynos version here.
If you take night mode portraits, you might be interested in this but I always find this
a bit of a gimmick and…
I have a bit of a problem with how the marketing shots look, the ones that we see at the product
launches.
And this applies to both Apple and Samsung, their night portrait shots look amazing but
you can almost tell that they are probably on a tripod and most likely using some level
of professional studio lighting, right?
That aside, I think the iPhone managed to get a better photo overall.
It doesn’t feel over processed.
This is a really hard picture to take because we have street light outside, and some weird
shadows to deal with.
Again…
Nothing like those marketing shots right?
Night mode has come a long way on all of these phones really.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max seems to have had the biggest upgrade recently.
And I DID NOTICE that is not even kicking in for some night shots.
Because the sensor is like…
There’s enough light, don’t need it.
I think the Samsung shots just need tune down a little bit the processing to make it more
flattering.
As I mentioned earlier…
there are some key differences between these phones and LENS FLARE is one of them…
All of them produce flares when shooting any light source… kind of front on, but you
can see here that the iPhone flare is way too distracting.
At least I find it.
In some shots like in videos, those flares can add a bit of character to the image but
most of the time it’s a nuisance.
I love taking Ultra-wide shots, I think they add a lot of character to some shots.
You do lose some detail when you do that but being realistic, no one is really cropping
into those images.
99.9% of people will be uploading these to social media anyway… and applying filters
to them so the detail doesn’t really matter too much when we talk about Ultrawide shots.
When it comes to Dynamic range though…
I think they all do a decent job, most of the time.
There are times when the iPhone 14 Pro Max blows out the sky and other times, also crunches
the blacks, losing a lot of the detail.
It’s a shame because from a specs perspective the iPhone has it all, but it seems to be
losing detail in the highlights and shadows.
Something that is slightly inconsistent across all of these phones is macro shots.
You can get very close to the subject but there are times when Macro doesn’t automatically
kick in… and other times when it kicks in when you don’t want to use it…
But it’s easy enough to turn it off on all of them now.
Before we talk about the video quality, just a quick reminder, YouTube can be very tricky
for new channels like this so if you’re enjoying this video a thumbs up goes a long
way.
It really helps YouTube push this video to other people out there.
I am not gonna ask you to subscribe but do take a look around on the channel and… if
you like my stuff, a sub to the channel would be awesome.
I am here at least once a week with a down-to-earth tech video for you…so if you like your tech
gadgets you’re in the right place.
Right...
When it comes to video, I noticed a hugely annoying thing on the iPhone viewfinder.
No one really talks about this but there’s this really annoying jitter which wasn’t
really this pronounced not the 13 Pro Max.
It doesn’t really impact the final image but
I am hoping this can be improved with software.
I hope you can see it here but there’s a very annoying jitter on the display.
I also covered this in more detail on my iPhone reviews.
On the Samsung…
every now and then…you do get what it may look like a drop frame, but nothing like the
jitter on the iPhone.
One mode that I really like to use is slow motion.
I think this is getting better and better on the Samsung phones but to me the iPhone
is just better for video in general, it seems to be able to process the images with a bit
more brightness and contrast.
And for a bit of fun, I tried Action mode vs Samsung Super Steady but again… this
is probably the most underrated feature on the iPhone.
I have many issues with the iPhone, in fact I am not even using it that much these days
apart form syncing my watch and using it for videos but Action mode is impressive….
There’s a lot more to talk about when it comes to video, but I will let you be the
judge of this one.
As is the custom here, let’s have an emoji game.
Purple heart 💜 if you think the iPhone did a better job overall for video, 🖤 Black
heart for the S22 Ultra and 💛 yellow heart if you think the Fold 4 has a more complete
package when it comes to the video.
Let’s have a chat in the comments.
Right…
When it comes to the iPhone, I’ve been very vocal about what I really think about this
upgrade.
And looking at the camera in more detail for this video, it kinda reaffirmed what I already
thought, which is the 13 Pro range is still a better buy for me if you are looking for
an iPhone.
But that’s a discussion for another video.
The Samsung phones continue to impress me, despite the early issues I had with the S22
Ultra, as it matured with software updates, it is now a fantastic device for photos.
For videos, I have to say the iPhone is still amazing and I am really curious to see how
the Pixel 7 Pro stacks up, I haven’t spent a lot of time with the Pixel 7 Pro yet, but
I will share my early impression in the next video!
But also do let me know if that’s something you want to see, or any other phone that you
might want me to compare.
See you soon!