The Samsung Galaxy S21 series specs leaked a while back, but that's only half the story. If you want to know about the phone's performance, especially photography, you need hands-on time.

YouTube channel Random Stuff 2 got their hands on a Galaxy S21 Plus and tested its camera against the iPhone 12 Pro Max. The results were not even close.

Random Stuff 2 has a more general impression of the Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus, but we're really concentrating on the camera at this point. After all, it is one of the features that make or break a phone, and poor performance is not a good look when a competitor's older phone does a better job.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what seems to be happening with the Random Stuff 2 photos; the Galaxy S21 Pro's photos aren't terrible, but Apple's top-class camera does a much better job. The S21 Plus is set to the same camera spec as the standard S21 The S21 Plus is set to the same camera specs as the standard S21, which means that the base-level model will probably have similar performance.

The main issue is that the S21 Plus photos look more washed out in comparison. The images appear brighter than the iPhone 12 Pro Max, but the actual content looks little better.

It's as if Samsung artificially boosted the brightness in post-shoot processing or didn't even compensate for the excessive California sunshine (where these images were supposedly taken).

In some shots, such as the giant metal hand, the background also appears much more blurry in the S21 Plus. There are also similar issues with contrast and poor coloration.

Video quality is also noticeably worse in comparison; it is more choppy and everything in the distance appears blurred and pixelated when compared to the iPhone 12 Pro Max. In other words, it is not a particularly favorable comparison for Samsung.

The camera quality of the Galaxy S21 Plus is not bad on its own, but when compared to the iPhone 12 Pro Max, it is clear which is the winner. The only question is why: what does the iPhone do and what doesn't Samsung do, a question that can't be answered in a five-minute YouTube video.

Of course, as Random Stuff 2 points out, this is still a pre-release version of the Galaxy S21 Plus. The phone is not scheduled to go on sale until January 14 and will not be released until the end of that month. Assuming the Galaxy S21 Plus photo issue is software-related, there is still time for Samsung to roll out an update and fix the problem. Alternatively, it could close the gap with the iPhone.

But everything else about the S21 Plus sounded positive, and Random Stuff 2 was very excited about how the phone is performing. Of particular note was the battery, which he said lasted well all day; it seems to take advantage of the Snapdragon 888's optimizations. He also liked the small bezels and the toughness of the rear camera lens this time around.

In other words, it doesn't look good for Samsung at the moment, especially since it hasn't been able to beat its biggest rival in the camera game. Hopefully the situation will improve in the weeks leading up to launch, or at least the Galaxy S21 Ultra with its different camera setup will do a better job of taking great photos.