Samsung’s latest flagship the Galaxy S21 Ultra is all set to go on sale later this week. With a price tag upwards of $1,000, the Galaxy S21 Ultra packs a number of features and enhancements to justify its price. What about performance though? Does the phone pack enough grunt to beat the iPhone 12 Pro?
Samsung sells the Galaxy S21 Ultra with either the Snapdragon 888 chipset from Qualcomm or its in-house Exynos 2100 chip. Samsung’s previous Exynos chips were not really known for their performance but with the Exynos 2100, the company has managed to up its game.
Read: Samsung Galaxy S21 vs iPhone 12 Pro Comparison: Which One to Buy?
As for the A14 Bionic chip inside the iPhone 12 series, it is in a league of its own in terms of performance as well as efficiency. It is the excellent performance of the A-series chips which allows Apple to offer innovative new features with every new iPhone. While Samsung phones have lagged behind when opening apps, they excel in the multitasking department thanks to having oodles of RAM. Apple has bumped the RAM on the iPhone 12 Pro series to 6GB which should help in this department.
A speed test of the Exynos 2100-powered Galaxy S21 Ultra and the iPhone 12 Pro Max by YouTuber C4ETech yields some interesting results. The iPhone 12 Pro Max was consistently faster in loading most apps and finished the first lap in around 43 seconds while the Galaxy S21 Ultra was about 2 seconds slower. In the multitasking round, the iPhone 12 Pro Max surprised with its performance and kept all the apps and games in its memory — an area where previous iPhones have usually struggled. This allowed the iPhone 12 Pro Max to maintain its 2-second lead at the end of the first round.
In the second round which involved loading more heavy apps and games, the iPhone 12 Pro Max was in a different league altogether. It loaded Call of Duty Mobile notably faster than the Galaxy S21 Ultra and rendered a video in half the time compared to the latter. The iPhone managed to finish the first lap of the second round of the speedtest in 1 minute and 14 seconds while the S21 Ultra took 9 seconds longer. The RAM management on the iPhone 12 Pro Max was also excellent as it kept all the apps and games in its memory thereby finishing the speed test notably faster.
Another speed test between the Galaxy S21 Ultra and the iPhone 12 Pro Max by YouTuber XeeTechCare shows similar results. This time, the YouTuber was performing the tests on the Snapdragon 888 variant of the Galaxy S21 Ultra.
Our Take
iPhones have always managed to beat flagship Samsung phones in the app launching round of a speed test but have trailed them in the RAM management department. With Apple bumping the RAM on the iPhone 12 Pro series to 6GB, this is no longer the case. The Galaxy S21 Ultra might come with 12/16GB of RAM but it’s the iPhone’s combination of the A14 Bionic chip and 6GB RAM which is the ultimate winner.
