Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra vs iPhone 16 Pro Max: The best phones right now

Updated: Jan 28, 2025, 3:20 AM 

Intro

The new Galaxy flagship comes with a pretty serious design revamp, a much faster chipset, lots of new AI-powered software goodies, and sensible upgrades to one of the best camera systems around. 

However, as the Galaxy S25 Ultra is showcasing Samsung’s most advanced hardware and software innovations, this premium powerhouse is naturally bound to be compared to Apple’s best flagship, the iPhone 16 Pro Max, continuing the long-standing rivalry between the tech industry’s most prominent actors.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max boasts some pretty capable hardware and design as premium as they come, with a suite of new Apple Intelligence features that raise the bar for smartphone AI capabilities. From Genmoji avatars and the creative Image Playground to a tighter integration of ChatGPT within Siri, Apple’s now fully entangled in the AI war. However, Samsung is arguably winning it, as it churned out more AI tools at a faster pace. 

Once again, it’s a tale of two titans. Samsung and Apple are bringing their A-game, each aiming to outshine the other in this perennial battle for smartphone supremacy. Who will come out on top? 

Let’s dive into what makes each device stand out in this clash of tech giants.

Design and Size

The new Galaxy S25 Ultra scores a pretty substantial redesign, ditching the flat frames at the bottom and top for a rounded titanium frame, which makes it that much more similar in terms of appearance to the Galaxy S24/Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S24 Plus/Galaxy S25 Plus. 

Sure, the Galaxy S25 Ultra loses some of its posh, business-like design uniqueness, but this newfangled synergy makes the Galaxy S25 range that much more cohesive. The Galaxy S25 Ultra, in essence, now feels like a proper part of the range. 

Despite the design change, signature staples like the large and lovely display and integrated S Pen remain on board. The Galaxy S25 Ultra doesn't feature any custom buttons aside from the standard volume rocker and power button, so nothing too fancy, but it has scored some pretty thin bezels at the front, which have actually enabled Samsung to enlarge the screen from 6.8 inches to 6.9 inches across, which is just as much as the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Speaking of Apple's latest flagship, it has also scored some pretty decent design upgrades of its own as well. Apple has not only minimized the bezels in contrast with the previous generations, but has also increased the screen size from 6.7 to 6.9 inches. At the same time, the titanium body of the iPhone 16 Pro Max has only grown a little, so it's a win-win-win, a triple-win situation.

Aside from the slightly larger screen and the thinner bezels, the iPhone 16 Pro Max rocks the same old design language that is universally recognized known. If you've seen any iPhone Pro Max ever, you've essentially seen all of them. 

New about the iPhone 16 Pro Max is a whole new multi-function button on the right-hand side of the phone. Called Camera Control, this new button lets you interact with the iPhone's camera without ever touching the display of the phone itself. It's an okay addition to the iPhone formula, but not something we'd call a "must-have"; quite the contrary, you'll either love or hate the Camera Control button.

Now, size-wise, the Galaxy S25 Ultra is actually shorter and thinner, as well as significantly lighter than the iPhone 16 Pro Max. However, the differences are minimal. Still, a pretty massive win for Samsung, which has successfully crammed in a quad-camera setup and an S Pen inside a device that has a similar display size, and yet, in a more compact form factor! That's truly something to behold.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max is available in Desert Titanium, Natural Titanium, Black Titanium, and White Titanium colors, which is a slightly more interesting selection than last year's iPhone 15 Pro Max hues. The Galaxy S25 Ultra comes in Titanium Silver Blue, Titanium White Silver, Titanium Black, and Titanium Gray, as well as some more intriguing ones, exclusively sold on Samsung.com. 

Display Differences

As we mentioned, the Galaxy S25 Ultra scores a small but important bump to 6.9 inches in size, up from 6.8 inches on most previous Galaxies. That's a small increase in display real estate, but given how rare these are these days, we'll take it with gusto. And just like the Galaxy S24 Ultra, we have anti-reflective coating which passively improves the display legibility.

The rest of the Dynamic AMOLED 2X display's hardware specs are similar to last year: QHD+ resolution, 1-120Hz smooth refresh rate, and 2600-nit peak brightness. Samsung has also collaborated with its TV division to bring a ProScaler functionality for the display, which lets you eliminate up to 40% artifacts when viewing low-res content. Nice! 

As we mentioned, the iPhone 16 Pro Max also scored a display size increase to 6.9 inches, which is usually a rarity with iPhones. The jump in size here was slightly bigger, 0.2 inches in comparison with the 0.1-inch bump on the Galaxy S25 Ultra. As far as the rest of the specs go, we still get a 120Hz ProMotion XDR OLED display, giving us a smooth experience, as well as the now signature Dynamic Island punch-hole.

And in our in-display tests, the Galaxy S25 Ultra reigns supreme with a significantly higher peak brightness, as well as a smidgen lower minimum brightness. The Galaxy S25 Ultra also reigns supreme in terms of color accuracy, with both a default color temperature closer to the 6500K target (measured at the default Natural mode), and a better color accuracy as measured across the standard RGB chart.  

Biometrics are pretty different on both phones. With the Galaxy S25 Ultra, we get both a fast and accurate ultrasonic fingerprint scanner embedded into the display, as well as picture-based face unlock, which isn't very secure, but usually unlocks the phone instantaneously. 

The iPhone 16 Pro Max, on the other hand, arrives with the now standard Face ID biometric solution, which is fast, accurate, and convenient.

Performance and Software

The Galaxy S25 Ultra features the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, the first 3nm chip on a Galaxy phone. This chip will be used everywhere the Galaxy S25 Ultra is sold, with no whiff of an Exynos version, which is great to see. This will bring a feature and performance parity across the range regardless of the region. 

As per Samsung, the Snapdragon 8 Elite delivers a pretty serious 37% faster CPU performance, 30% better graphics performance, and 40% faster NPU for significantly improved on-device AI calculations. 

Such a significant increase in performance which will inevitably strain the phone's thermal management, but Samsung has thought of that as well, delivering a 40% larger vapor chamber which will greatly help dissipate heat.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max comes with the latest Apple 3nm chip, the A18 Pro. It's a pretty capable chip, as we've come to expect from Apple. The insides of the iPhone 16 Pro Max have been redesigned in order to improve the thermal management and drive away the excessive heat.

Okay, okay, but how do these two phones measure up against one another? Well, in the benchmark tests we ran, the Galaxy S25 Ultra dominates in the multi-core Geekbench 6 test, but the iPhone takes the lead in the single-core test. This difference in synthetic benchmarks probably wouldn't be felt in regular use, though the Galaxy S25 Ultra should have an upper hand with those rare apps and tasks that get accurately scaled up across multiple chip cores. 

In our 3DMark Extreme stress test results, it's the Galaxy S25 Ultra that takes the cake. It beats the iPhone in the "high" test, which showcases the initial burst of performance, and delivers a significantly higher result. At the same time, the two devices are on even grounds when it comes to throttled performance, showcased by the "low" 3DMark test. This means you can expect a consistent long-term gaming performance by either of these two devices, but the Galaxy S25 Ultra delivers a significantly better initial performance. 

Memory-wise, Apple has had to resort to putting 8GB of RAM inside the iPhone 16 Pro Max because of artificial intelligence. The Galaxy S25 Ultra comes with 12GB of RAM in all storage versions, which are similar on both phones: 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. 

In terms of software, we get Android 15 with One UI 7 running the show. The latter introduces many visual changes and enhancements to the interface. Meanwhile, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is currently running on iOS 18.2 with many Apple Intelligence features, and we should also get a much more capable Siri assistant later in 2025. 

Galaxy AI vs Apple Intelligence

Artificial intelligence plays and will play a major part on both devices. Samsung has a vast suite of Galaxy AI features, which are processed both on-device and in the cloud. The One UI 7 beta didn't come with any new AI features, but the rumor mill says we can expect some exclusive AI features on the Galaxy S25 Ultra, like AI-assisted object eraser and audio-isolating post-processing feature.

Some new additions to the Galaxy AI suite debut with the Galaxy S25. One of those is the Gemini-powered cross-app action, which allow the on-device AI to interact with multiple apps and perform tasks across them using a single command. For example, you can ask Gemini to find your favorite sports team's schedule and put in your calendar. 

For example, you can ask it to retrieve your favorite sports team’s schedule and automatically add each game to your calendar. This capability extends to all apps installed on your phone, both native and third-party, drawing comparisons to Apple’s upcoming Siri enhancements.

The Now Brief, another novelty, is a summary of your daily activities that changes depending on the time of day and other factors. Complementing this is the Now Bar, located at the bottom of the lock screen, which offers quick access to live activities, charging stats, media controls, and mini widgets, somewhat similar to Apple's Live Activities, but Android-ified.

Google's Circle to Search feature has been enhanced to provide relevant options based on what you interact with. For instance, circling-to-search a phone number or an address allows you to quickly dial the phone number or navigate to said address via Google Maps.

Apple, late to the party as usual, has teased its Apple Intelligence for the larger part of 2024, but is yet to release it to the public.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max currently boasts iOS 18.2, which comes with Image Playground and Genmoji, allowing you to create custom images and emojis from text prompts. Previously, we got Writing Tools for proofreading and summarizing text, and AI-powered features in Mail, Messages, Photos, and Safari with iOS 18.1. 

Siri now integrates with ChatGPT, and the Mail app has been redesigned with categories. This software update arrived in early December 2024. iOS 18.3, on the other hand, will likely come with the more capable Siri, which will be capable of executing more complex multistep user queries––we expect this one to arrive later in December. 

Here's what came with iOS 18.2:

Image Playground––Allows you to generate custom images based on text description. Read our full Image Playground overview here;

Genmoji––Enables you to create unique emoji based on a text prompt. Genmoji can either use your own photo or a generic emoji. Read more about Genmoji in our dedicated review here; 

ChatGPT integration in Siri––Apple's smart assistant can now tap into ChatGPT's powers when you ask it to, giving you the full array of AI capabilities of the most popular AI chatbot out there (you can also log with your own account information);

Additional Writing Tools options––"Compose" and "Describe your change" have been added to the Writing Tools suite;


Visual Intelligence for iPhone 16 users––By pressing the new Camera Control button, iPhone 16 users can now snap a picture and search the web for information about what's captured;

Image Wand––This new feature lets you turn your rudimentary sketches into complete graphics.

Camera

Samsung has introduced a new 50MP ultrawide on the Galaxy S25 Ultra (up from Galaxy S24 Ultra), but the rest of the camera setup is mostly the same, consisting of a 200MP main, 50MP telephoto with 5X optical zoom, an auxiliary 10MP telephoto with 3X optical zoom.

While the hardware remains mostly the same, Samsung has integrated a brand-new ProVisual Engine inside the chipset, which introduces enhanced and improved image-processing algorithms. As a result, Samsung boasts significantly reduced noise and motion blur when shooting moving or static objects, as well as low-light videos. Samsung has also bumped HDR video-recording from 8 bits to 10 bits, which delivers richer color and a wider dynamic range. 

For an even more flexible video-recording experience, Samsung has introduced Galaxy Log capture, enabling broader post-processing capabilities. Another new feature, called Audio Eraser, utilizes on-device AI to isolate or enhance up to six distinct types of audio in your videos (voices, music, wind, nature, crowd, and noise). 

Samsung has also introduced additional feature improvements to the Expert RAW capture mode, which now supports virtual aperture setting between F1.4 and F14. 

Meanwhile, the iPhone 16 Pro Max arrives with a 48MP main camera and a 12MP telephoto with 5X optical zoom. The 12MP ultrawide usually found on iPhones has been substituted for a 48MP ultrawide camera, but the jump in image quality is more of a hop, a little one at that.

New on the iPhone 16 Pro Max are the enhanced Photographic Styles, which let you fine-tune the appearance of your photos by giving you way more control over tones, undertones, contrast, etc. 

The new Camera Control button is also an important addition to the iPhone mix, though we wouldn't call it groundbreaking: it's useful in certain scenarios, but requires some getting used to, and we wouldn't call its position terribly ergonomic either.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra has a better main camera than the iPhone, with superior exposure and better dynamic range. Colors are very realistic with both phones, but the Galaxy delivers a small but tasteful amount of extra saturation that makes a big difference in the overall aesthetics. Details are great on both devices, and unlike previous Galaxies, Samsung's newest doesn't come with any oversharpening, which is excellent news! 

At 3X, there aren't very significant differences between the two devices, though the Galaxy has sharper and better-defined detail thanks to its dedicated 3X telephoto (which the iPhone 16 Pro Max lacks).  

Zooming in to 5X, where both phones have dedicated periscope cameras. The Galaxy does a better job at this zoom level as well, with cleaner details and better dynamic range, as well as a more accurate exposure.

At 10X, the Galaxy S25 Ultra triumphs again with significantly cleaner details. The iPhone 16 Pro Max, while still good, starts applying some oversharpening, and as a result, we get artifacts, which is not ideal.  

The ultrawide camera on the Galaxy S25 Ultra isn't perfect, as it's a bit too soft, especially in the corners. The iPhone delivers more sharpness in the corners of the scene. Exposure and colors are good on both, with the Galaxy once again slightly on the more saturated and eye-pleasing side. 

However, when the lights go down, the Galaxy S25 Ultra pulls off a magic trick and picks the joker from its sleeve, delivering significantly better exposure and dynamics. The iPhone struggles in this scene, and it's not because it's trying to preserve the soul of a nighttime image; it just can't soak in as much light as the Galaxy S25 Ultra. 

Selfies

Selfies are great on both, but the iPhone does a better job with the dynamics of the image. Brightly lit parts of your face with extreme highlights won't get burnt with the iPhone, while the Galaxy is on the cusp of doing so. The same applies to group selfies with multiple subjects. Detail is more natural and pleasing to the eye on the Galaxy S25 Ultra, though.  

Audio and Haptics 

Both phones deliver a pretty decent audio experience, with the iPhone delivering a wider sound stage, but the Galaxy S25 Ultra delivering slightly louder maximum volume. Still, the audio quickly loses its quality when you turn up the volume, so it's not advisable to do so.

In terms of vibration feedback, both are excellent and deliver a crisp and accurate feedback that is an integral part of the user experience and feels extremely rewarding to interact with. 

Battery Life and Charging

The Galaxy S25 Ultra comes with a 5,000mAh battery, which has been the case with all of its predecessors. There's light in the tunnel––lithium-silicon batteries are here, providing much greater energy density. This tech could probably be used in a future Galaxy S Ultra flagship, but the Galaxy S25 Ultra isn't it. 

At the same time, the iPhone 16 Pro Max actually comes with the largest battery on an iPhone so far, a large 4,685mAh one. The iPhone performs well in our custom battery tests, beating the Galaxy S24 Ultra in our web browsing and video-streaming test, but losing in the 3D gaming test.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max achieves a battery life estimate of 8 hours and 30 minutes, which is a higher result than the 8-hour battery estimate achieved by the Galaxy S25 Ultra. 

Broken-down, those results are made up of a nearly two-hour lead in our web browsing test, in which the iPhone 16 Pro Max triumphs, as well as an hour and a half lead in our video playback test. The Galaxy S25 Ultra does win one of our tests, the 3D gaming one, in which it lasts for nearly two and a half hours extra in comparison with Apple's finest.

Charging-wise, the Galaxy S25 Ultra comes with 45W wired charging and 15W wireless charging, which is the same hardware that has been used since the Galaxy S22 Ultra. Meanwhile, the iPhone 16 Pro Max officially supports up to 20W of wired charging, but faster chargers can bump that to around 27W. 

Interestingly, with the new iPhone 16 series, if you fire up an intensive app while charging the phone, the power draw will quickly jump above what's advertised. We measured up to 39W of charging speeds while playing a game when charging the iPhone 16 Pro Max, compensating for the increased energy needs of the hardware. The reason for that could be consistency: regardless of what you do with your phone, it will always charge for a similar amount of time.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra charges in around 69 minutes, which is half an hour faster than the iPhone 16 Pro Max, which charges in 1 hour and 42 minutes. The Galaxy S25 Ultra charges a bit more in 30 minutes, which is great. Interestingly, both phones take two hours to charge wirelessly, though the iPhone gets a higher charge in 30 minutes.

Best of the best, that's what the iPhone 16 Pro Max and Galaxy S25 Ultra are shaping up to be. Undoubtedly, we expect the Galaxy S25 Ultra to be one of the best Android phones in early 2025, while the iPhone 16 Pro Max is already your best bet if you want the best Apple has on the market at the moment. 

Which one is better? From the looks of it, this neck-and-neck battle doesn't have a clear winner. A bit cliché, but both phones are excellent, so which one's better will be determined by your personal preference and ecosystem affiliation. 

The Galaxy S25 Ultra beats the iPhone in overall camera performance, but things are mostly tied in overall performance and battery life. Design-wise, the two are also very similar, making it a really tough choice to pick one over the other.