The Ultimate Smartphone Battle: iPhone 14 Pro Max vs. Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra – Which One is the Better Device?

Credit: Future / Tom's Guide

Ladies and gents, boys and girls, it’s time to find out which is the better deal: buying an iPhone 14 Pro Max or a Galaxy S22 Ultra? Both gadgets represent the pinnacle of what Apple and Samsung, respectively, have to offer best. The iPhone 14 Pro Max came out last month, while the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra was launched in February.

If you’re not swimming through money or making cigars out of dollar bills, surely you must take into account the prices of the two flagships from Apple and Samsung, which are anything but cheap. If you’re aiming for the iPhone, you’ll have to dig pretty deep in your pocket and pull out about $1,479. On the other hand, the price of the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is about half: $728.98.

But if we take the price out of the picture, the clash becomes pretty intense. It’s a bit difficult to say which one of the two phones is better, but that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible.

iPhone 14 Pro Max has the better processor

iPhone 14 Pro Max is sporting the A16 Bionic chipset made by Apple itself, while Samsung’s S22 Ultra has been equipped with the Exynos 2200 chipset. Geekbench 5 tests reveal that even the previous A15 Bionic chipset, which was released last year for iPhone 13, is better than Exynos 2200 when it comes to total scores. A16 Bionic is better than the A15, which means that it’s automatically better than the Exynos 2200 of the S22 Ultra as well. Therefore, iPhone 14 Pro Max wins this round.

S22 Ultra has a slightly better display than iPhone 14 Pro Max

Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Ultra is equipped with a Dynamic AMOLED display of 120Hz, a resolution of 1440 x 3088 pixels, and which peaks at 1750 nits. On the other hand, Apple’s phone is also not doing bad in this area, as the display of its iPhone 14 Pro Max is of the LTPO Super Retina XDR OLED type, it features a refresh rate of 120Hz, a resolution of 1290 x 2796 pixels, and 1,000 nits. It’s clear that S22 Ultra has a slight advantage in the display area.

More RAM memory for Galaxy S22 Ultra

RAM memory isn’t so important on a smartphone as long as you have enough of it. But just for the sake of comparison and because there are plenty of folks out there who care about such details, we’ll analyze the phones by this criterion as well.

The iPhone 14 Pro Max is equipped with 6GB of RAM, while S33 Ultra comes in versions of 8GB and 12GB. Obviously, Samsung is the winner this time.

Better cameras and recording capabilities for Galaxy S22 Ultra

When it comes to the cameras, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra wins in pretty much all areas. The flagship from Samsung has a 108MP main wide snapper, a 10MP periscope telephoto snapper, a 10MP telephoto sensor, and a 12MP ultrawide sensor. The phone can also record video up to 8K@24fps using the main camera. The selfie camera is also impressive, as it can capture photos of 40MP and record videos up to 4K@30/60fps.

The iPhone 14 Pro Max has a triple camera setup that consists of a wide snapper of 48MP and also telephoto and ultrawide sensors of 12MP each. The camera setup can record video up to 4K@24/25/30/60fps. As for the selfie camera, it can snap photos in 12MP and record video up to 4K@24/25/30/60fps.

Conclusion

When it comes to general hardware specs, Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra has the upper hand. But you might still choose the iPhone 14 Pro Max due to a few key features such as the faster processor, the higher smoothness of navigating through the menu that makes Apple such a beloved company when it comes to smartphones, or the new iPhone 14-exclusive features such as the crash detection system or the Dynamic Island.

Tesla will also release a smartphone in the upcoming months, which is known as Tesla Phone Pi, and you can also check out a comparison with the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra based on the rumored specs of Tesla’s phone and the confirmed specs of the South Korean giant’s device.

Feel free to also check out our previous article called ‘iPhone 14 Pro Max vs. Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Drop Test: Which One Will Win?.’

Cristian Antonescu
Cristian is in love with technology, as are many of us. He has a vast experience as a content writer in the field. He's involved especially in the hardware area, where he covers the latest news regarding smartphones, laptops, PC components, and so on.