Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “iPhone 14 Pro vs Galaxy S23 Ultra: Camera, Battery, Display Comparison”.
Foreign, I want to see how my iPhone 14 pro compares to the Samsung Galaxy s23. Ultra a few months ago, I went from being a Die, Hard Galaxy owner to a sellout iPhone owner, but when Samsung announced the Galaxy s23 Ultra, I knew I had to get my hands on it and try out everything from the camera to the battery life and See how the design of it compares to my iPhone. So, let’s see if I have any regrets about switching over to the dark side, [ Applause ]. Thank you now. I’D love to say that I’m the kind of person who wakes up at dawn gets her morning.
Coffee and then reads the news, but in reality I wake up reach for my phone and then scroll through Tick Tock for 20 minutes. So that’s where the display comes in now. I love the display on the s23 ultra it’s bright and it’s vibrant and the colors really pop on the iPhone. I do like the sharpness of the images and the best comparison, the best way that I can get the iPhone to match up to what the s23 ultra offers is, when I turn off true tone on the iPhone, so that true tone is really kind of what Kind of matches your environment, so it’s not super bright in your face, but I kind of like that brightness, but I like that you have the option on the iPhone to kind of turn, that on and off and even on on the s23 ultra you can play With like the blue light settings and kind of tone down that brightness, if you need so when it comes to brightness and vibrancy, I do like that on the s23 ultra a little bit more, it makes those videos pop a little bit more as I’m scrolling through Tick, Tock and Instagram. One of the things I really miss on Galaxy phones is the keyboard, because when you’re typing on there, you have the numbers and the letters all in one spot. So you don’t have to jump between like the numbers and letters like you do. On the iPhone, it sounds like a really small thing, but honestly it’s something it’s like a learning curve for me to have to be like all right Got ta Type A number now I got ta type the time. Let me go hit that number button and then type it in so it’s it’s been really nice to have that all in one place again now I have the iPhone 14 pro and not the pro Max, so I’m not going to compare screen size.
Obviously, that would be comparing apples to oranges, but you know one of the downsides to having such a massive screen here is that you have to figure out how to fit it in your pocket having the iPhone 14 pro. It fits a lot better in my hand and then also a lot better in my pocket, which is really nice. So if you want that nice big display, which is great for videos, you’re going to pay the price of having to figure out where to put it, it fits well in jacket, pockets and in my purse and in my backpack.
Obviously. But I do kind of worry when I just put it in, like my pants pocket that it might fall out, so that’s the one downside to having that larger display. Now the battery is also a really big deal to me, because I hate carrying an external charger.
They’Re heavy they’re annoying very convenient, but very annoying, so I I really want to make sure I have a film that will last me throughout the day when I’m taking pictures and videos and again scrolling through Tick Tock. So I have had this iPhone 14 pro. For probably about five months now and obviously when you get a new phone, the battery is, you know, top performance at that point and as you use it, the battery wears down.
But I don’t feel like I’ve seen. You know a huge degradation in the battery on my iPhone 14 pro over these few months, but s23 Ultra this battery blows my mind honestly. I can spend a full day of taking pictures and videos and scrolling through social media, and I will still have juice left over at the end of the day.
Again, this is not surprising. Considering this is Samsung’s top-of-the-line phone. It has a 5 000 milliamp hour. Battery Apple doesn’t share it’s battery capacity for the iPhone 14 pro or any of its phones really. But it says that it has up to 23 hours of video playback and I fix it which did a tear down of the iPhone 14 pro says it has a 3200 milliamp hour battery, so obviously different capacities there, but the iPhone will still last me a full Day of use, this is just going to take you a little bit further and I’ve. I’Ve really been my mind – has been blown by this.
To be honest, foreign now, the most important thing to me, because I am a millennial who takes way too many pictures and is a little too obsessed with social media – is the camera I’ve always sworn by the quality of the Galaxy cameras. I love that they really bring out the color in photos and they’re, very vibrant and honestly. I have fooled many, an iPhone user into thinking that my really nice pictures were taken with my iPhone when in reality they were taken with a Galaxy phone.
So we need to dispel the rumor that iPhones are the best at everything. So I do love that, on the Galaxy s23 Ultra colors are a lot more saturated and vibrant and in most cases that works like I took some pictures of teacups and they really like brought out the color of the design and the flowers really pop and Outdoors. I honestly think it really shines in nature because it really just brings out the colors of plants and the sky always looks so much more beautiful and blue on the iPhone.
It is a bit more toned down, but I do think that there are a lot of pictures that look a lot more natural on the iPhone. So sometimes the saturation on the Galaxy is a bit too much and it looks a little unrealistic. But on the iPhone you know you do get that more natural look at the expense of having sometimes harsher Shadows. Like there’s a picture, I took of the sky, where the clouds are a little bit too contrasted with with the sky, and I, like the look better on the Galaxy s23 Ultra.
The one thing that I will give iPhone is it really knows how to take the best portrait mode photos. In my opinion, I took a portrait photo of my friend using the s23 ultra and then the iPhone 14 pro, and I noticed that on the iPhone there were parts, so she had sunglasses at the top of her head and there were some parts of the sunglasses That were blurred, so the bridge of the nose was blurred and the side of the glasses were blurred. And it’s really hard to pick out those details, especially when they’re tiny. Then I looked at the picture that was taken on the ultra and every part of the sunglasses was in focus, and I was kind of surprised by that.
Because Apple was a very early Pioneer of portrait mode and I kind of expected to have him have that figured out. I was kind of surprised that the Galaxy actually won over. In that case again, that picture was a little bit more saturated than I would have liked. I did like the colors more on the iPhone, but the detail is what made the ultra win in that case.
I take a lot of photos and videos not just for work, but also for my personal social media accounts, including my very Niche. Tea account follow Al GT, get it it’s like tea, and so I want to make sure I have a camera that makes my content pop, and one of the things that I had to play with on the s23 ultra is that new 200 megapixel sensor. So I took a picture of a teacup that has gold trim around it. I took a regular 12 megapixel photo and then I took the 200 megapixel photo and I really loved the amount of detail that popped with a 200 megapixel sensor. You can see like every little bit of that gold trim. The colors are more vibrant.
It automatically kind of blurs out the background a little bit more, so you’re focused on what you need to be focused on. So in that case I did like the photo. That was taken with the 200 megapixel sensor more, but there are some instances where I actually prefer just the regular 12 megapixel. It depends on the lighting. So I was outdoors and I took a picture from Twin Peaks in San Francisco and I took a regular 12 megapixel photo and then the 200 megapixel, and what that did. Is it kind of eliminated a little too many highlights.
So I look at the grass. It’S a little bit darker you’re missing. Some of that contrast and that detail, and even in the background some of those highlights are gone so you’re missing some of the detail there too. So in that case I would have gone with a 12 megapixel option.
Of course, all these photos are customizable you can play around with the settings, but I am just the everyday user. I just want to be able to take that picture, push a couple buttons and be ready to go. We have to talk about the ridiculous 10x zoom on the ultra. This is something that I had to play with up at Twin Peaks in San Francisco, and what I did is I took a regular 1X, 3x and then 10x zoom and from all the way back there. I could zoom in on Salesforce Tower and then even see the ferry building out, and you know in the way distance. But even when I punched in really close, I didn’t lose that crispness or that Clarity in the photo, which was really really cool. The iPhone has 3x Zoom, that’s pretty good too, but I I really was very impressed with that 10x zoom and that’s something that these phones are are known for and I get why foreign I miss taking selfies on the Galaxy phones because they just smooth over your Face you just look nice. Those Shadows are gone on the iPhone.
It has been an adjustment for me to take selfies on there. Again they don’t look bad, but I do wish they were. You know those Shadows were a bit toned down. I do wish it just kind of smooth things over on their own too, but yeah. I I’ve really enjoyed taking selfies on the Galaxy nighttime. Photography is another thing that I have always loved on the Galaxy phones, but it looks like iPhone, has really stepped it up too.
So I took some side by side photos at night and I actually really like the darkness of this guy on the iPhone. It does come at the cost of kind of muting the colors around it a little bit more on the Galaxy. This building has a bit more color and brightness to it, but the sky isn’t as deep black as it is on the iPhone overall. I still prefer the photos on the Galaxy at night, but I’ve been really impressed with how much iPhone has stepped it up. One thing that both companies have really been focused on is that Cinema quality video – it’s not really surprising that companies are focused on video right now I mean you think about how big Tick, Tock and Instagram reels are right now, so it makes sense, and personally, for My own Tick, Tock and Instagram account. I have really enjoyed taking videos on my iPhone.
I do think the videos look a lot better. They, especially with cinematic mode. That’S something that I’ve really loved just the way it blurs out. The background makes that subject stand out and it’s not overly saturated or unnaturally colored, so I do think iPhone takes the prize when it comes to video and I’ve been really happy with that side of things.
I mentioned cinematic mode on the iPhone on the Galaxy. It’S called portrait video and this basically has the same effect. So the subject stands out and then the background is a bit more blurred and you can take that more kind of cinematic Style video. What absolutely blew me away on the Galaxy is video stabilization, so we took some videos of walking down the stairs and on the iPhone you can still kind of tell that you’re taking some steps and the camera is shaking a little bit on the Galaxy.
It looks like you’re using a gimbal, it is so smooth. You can’t really see all those little shaky movements. This isn’t really anything new. I had a Galaxy S9 a few years ago and I was in a helicopter taking videos and I was worried that everything would be incredibly shaky and just not look good, but it was very smooth when I checked the footage later.
So it’s cool to see that Samsung has had this figured out for a while and just to see how smooth that entire walking and stepping motion was on the Galaxy foreign. I have loved the experience of having an iPhone. I think the design is great, but I was kind of taken aback by how much I loved the design of the s23 ultra as well. One of the things that I really appreciate is that, even though you have all these cameras, when you set it on a table, they don’t stick out as much so it doesn’t wobble. I think I think these iPhone cameras are doing a little too much. I think they’re sticking out too much so when you set it on a table.
It definitely wobbles even with my case, because a lot of the cases kind of stick out to protect the cameras too, and it just wobbles. The downside again to having a larger screen is not just having that bigger space to have to fit into Pockets, but also it’s kind of thick. It’S a bit thicker and chunkier than I would like to carry all the time. This is even without a case, so once you put a case on it, it’s going to become even more bulky, so I like that the iPhone fits better into my hands and also just fits better wherever I need to put it and it’s a little bit a Little bit easier to handle the s23 ultra also has that really nice S Pen? To be honest, I think it’s more of a nice to have versus a need to have. I never really find myself reaching for it because a I don’t really ever feel compelled to write anything by hand, especially not on a phone and then be. I can just tap things with my fingers, it’s what I’m used to. I don’t necessarily need that stylus, but I do think that it’s really nice that the legacy of the note can live on in the s23 ultra and I hope they continue to add that S Pen, because I know that there are people who are really big fans Of it, and would be really sad if that went away. One feature that I think has significantly improved on. The Galaxy phones is face recognition. So on my old Galaxy phones, I used to have a really hard time, unlocking them if I was wearing glasses or in a dark room.
But I’ve had much better luck on this guy. It’S been much better at recognizing me with glasses, without glasses, in bright light. Not, and so I’m pleasantly surprised by that, the other really nice thing is that there is a fingerprint sensor in the screen.
So if you don’t want to deal with face recognition, you can do that and also the fingerprint sensor is actually a more secure way to unlock your phone. So it’s nice to have that option. I did miss having that fingerprint reader when I got the iPhone, but I kind of quickly got over it because face ID is really really solid and I do think it is a little bit more of a seamless process and I think, face ID really has that Figured out, if price is your determining factor for which phone to get you are going to pay a little bit more for the s23 ultra, which is to be expected, because this is Samsung’s top of the line phone, so you’re going to pay 1200 for 256 gigabytes Of storage on the s23 ultra and then on the iPhone 14 pro you’re going to pay eleven hundred dollars for the same amount of storage. I do want to note that the s23 ultra is the same price as iPhone’s top of the line iPhone 14 pro Max. So that’s the bigger version of my phone overall, it has been really fun to revisit a world that I’ve abandoned and see what kind of phone I might have had if I hadn’t switched teams and switched over to the iPhone at the end of the day.
I think there are aspects to having an iPhone that go beyond things like battery life. That will keep me in the Apple ecosystem for a long time, and those are things like iMessage and airdrop that have really made that user experience more seamless. It’S been a lot easier to communicate with my friends. It’S been a lot easier to send things to my MacBook, so I think I’m going to stay team Apple for a while and also the iPhone suits my needs.
The battery life is perfect. For me, the camera is really great, even if there are some slight trade-offs like less flattering selfies or some really harsh shadows in some pictures. I think overall, it really does fit what I need and I don’t really have any regrets just yet, but at the same time I do find myself wishing that I could just kind of keep this handy for when I want to take a picture that really makes People’S jaws drop and then blow their minds that it was not taken with an iPhone now, after after a full day of testing out these phones. It’S time to end my day, the way I started it by scrolling through Tick Tock, but which phone will I reach for. Let us know in the comments which phone you’re more impressed with and which specs are most important to you and, if you’re into that whole iPhone versus Android War, be sure to check out my other video on what made me switch from a Galaxy to an iPhone. Don’T forget to give this video a thumbs up and subscribe for more videos from CNET.
Thank you for watching .