For the past few years, Samsung and Huawei have been duking it out in the premium flagship segment with their Galaxy S series and Mate series respectively. And with each launch of a new phone in the S-series family, comparisons will be made against Huawei’s own offerings.
While the P50 Pro is still a few months away, Huawei’s Mate 40 Pro will be the natural focus of this comparo on Huawei’s side. Between the Galaxy S21 Ultra and the Mate 40 Pro, which is the better offering? let’s take a look:
Design
Both the Galaxy S21 Ultra and Mate 40 Pro use premium materials, with aluminum for the frame and a matte-finish for their glass backs. Both have a distinct and unique way of incorporating their camera bumps: the Galaxy S21 Ultra integrates the aluminum camera bump towards the upper left corner of the back, making it flow with the aluminum frame. The Mate 40 Pro, on the other hand, sticks to the trademark circular camera bump that is placed in the middle.
Display
Both phones rock curved OLED panels: the Mate40 Pro with a 6.76-inch panel that has a 2,772 x 1,344 and 90hz refresh rate, and the Galaxy S21 Ultra with a slightly bigger 6.8-inch WQHD+ panel with a dynamic 120hz refresh rate. On paper, the Galaxy S21 Ultra has a better display since you get a higher resolution and refresh rate compared to the Mate40 Pro.
As for the punch-hole, the Galaxy S21 Ultra uses a typical centrally-placed punch-hole for the 40-megapixel selfie snapper, while the Mate40 Pro has a pill-shaped cutout that holds a 13-megapixel snapper and a ToF sensor. As for added features, the Galaxy S21 Ultra steps it up by having S-Pen support.
Cameras
Both Samsung and Huawei went all-out when it comes to cameras, with the latter utilizing a triple rear camera setup consisting of a 50-megapixel f/1.9 RYYB main camera with OIS, 20-megapixel f/1.8 ultra-wide-angle camera, and a 12-megapixel f/3.4 periscope camera with 5x optical zoom and OIS.
The Galaxy S21 Ultra, on the other hand, has a quad-rear camera setup that consists of a 108-megapixel f/1.8 main camera with OIS and laser AF, 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera with AF, and two 10-megapixel telephoto cameras: a conventional one with 3x optical zoom and OIS and a periscope one with a f/4.9 aperture, OIS, and 10x optical zoom–the latter achieved by just two refractions instead of five.
Internals
Both phones duke it out when it comes to boasting the best in-house processors: Kirin 9000 for the Mate40 Pro, and Exynos 2100 for the Galaxy S21 Ultra. It is hard to determine which is the better processor until we get to do our usual tests, so we’re reserving our judgment on that part for now.
Both phones come with LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage, with the Mate40 Pro having an 8GB/256GB variant while the Galaxy S21 Ultra gets 12GB/256GB and 16GB/512GB variants. Only the 12GB/256GB variant of the Galaxy S20 Ultra will be sold in the Philippines though.
Battery
On the battery front, the Galaxy S21 Ultra theoretically has better longevity as it packs a 5000mAh battery compared to the 4400mAh cell found on the Mate 40 Pro. While both offers wired and wireless charging, the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s wired charging tops off at 25w, while the Mate 40 Pro’s wired charging is faster at 66w. the same goes for its wireless charging, which is at 50w (versus the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s conservative 15w wireless charging).
Aside from that, you get a 66w charger with the Mate 40 Pro–with the Galaxy S21 Ultra, you will need to purchase the 25w charger separately.
Price
While the Mate40 Pro is cheaper at Php 55,999 for the 8GB/256GB model, the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s Php 69,990 price tag gets you more RAM at 12GB, along with a tempting set of pre-order freebies that includes the Galaxy Buds Pro, Galaxy Tab A 8.0, Galaxy Smart Tag, and a 25w wall charger.
