iPhone 16 Pro Max vs. S25 Ultra – Which is Better?

Transcript

So in the age where smartphones have been plateauing as a category, at least here in the US for a good bit, when you take a look at the two flagships from Samsung and Apple, is there actually that much of a difference between them? I’ve been using these two phones over the past few months now, switching back and forth between them, and I’m going to take you through some of the surprising differences.

Design and Form Factor

The S25 Ultra feels more iPhone-like than this line has in recent memory, with its flat side rails and rounded-off edges, which, yes, do make the phone just nicer to hold compared to the previous Ultras. Another thing that makes it nicer to hold is the weight. For the first time, and maybe like ever, the S25 Ultra is the lighter phone.

Another actually pretty big difference between the two form factors is buttons and styluses. The iPhone 16 Pro Max has the new Camera Control button, which acts as a dedicated shortcut to the camera by default but can also be remapped to other apps too. It allows you to adjust settings, focus, lock, and more. The other button that Apple has is the Action Button, which lets you map specific actions or custom shortcuts to it.

Now Samsung has a similar feature called Side Key, which you can set to do certain things like the Action Button, but they don’t have a dedicated physical button for it like Apple does. It’s kind of funny that the company typically thought of as making a phone that’s less customizable, in reality, has these dedicated buttons whose sole purpose is customizability.

Now one unique thing with the Ultra line of phones for the past few years has been its stylus named the S Pen. Although it doesn’t have Bluetooth like previous models, which gave you functionality like the remote app control and Air Actions, you can still write and draw with it, use Air Command for shortcuts, and use it as a magnifier and more.

Authentication Methods

When it comes to authentication methods, that’s another area where Samsung and Apple have different approaches. Both technically have face unlock, although Apple’s is a bit more secure because it uses a 3D facial depth map with the additional sensors built into the Dynamic Island on the iPhone, where Samsung relies on a 2D camera image alone.

For more secure authentication, the S25 Ultra also comes with an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, which for me so far has worked accurately and is fast. The iPhone only has Face ID—no backup fast authentication method via a fingerprint sensor in the Camera Control button or power button, which would be nice for those times where Face ID fails to identify you correctly, which in my experience happens infrequently, but it does still happen.

For the form factor and design category, I’m going to give a slight edge to the S25 Ultra.

Display Quality

Next, let’s talk about displays. Both overall have excellent displays with good color balance and saturation, and both are basically the same size. Both have 120 Hz refresh rates, the same pulse-width modulation, and both have a feature that will match the color temperature of the display to your surrounding environment, making it a bit easier on the eyes. That’s where the similarities really end though.

One of the surprising things when looking at both of these displays that I didn’t expect was the viewing angles on the iPhone are just much better. Another big difference when you look at them is screen glare. The S25 Ultra’s display significantly reduces more glare from hard lighting compared to the iPhone. And when you add in the S25 Ultra’s 2,600 nits of peak brightness compared to the iPhone’s stated 2,000 nits of peak brightness, the display is just going to be easier overall to look at, especially when outdoors. The win here definitely goes to the S25 Ultra.

Camera Systems

Next up: camera systems. Now both phones offer top-tier camera systems, but they do take a bit of a different approach from each other. Hardware-wise, Samsung just packs a lot more physical camera sensors with more megapixels into their system, especially when you look at their telephoto cameras. You can really tell the difference in the 5x telephoto quality, especially in low light. The iPhone does struggle more with noisier images compared to Samsung’s.

Now hardware specs are only one part of the story though, since most modern phones nowadays do a lot of computational photography. What does that mean? Well, basically when you take a photo, the phone actually takes several different photos with variances in different settings like exposure, and then it’ll mash them all together into a single photo. Things like exposure, saturation, color tint, color temperature, black point—basically all the things you would look at if you used a dedicated camera and shot in RAW—are already adjusted and decided for you. This is why shooting on smartphones is relatively easy, like even a three-year-old can do it.

However though, it is somewhat of a double-edged sword because oftentimes the phones can screw up or make photos that look too unnatural or not like what you remember the scene looking like. And yes, both phones allow you to shoot in a RAW format so you can go back and make some tweaks, but Apple’s ProRAW and Samsung’s Expert RAW aren’t exactly the same thing as true uncompressed RAW. They do retain some image processing that cannot be changed, though to a lesser extent with Samsung.

Now to help combat this issue of not everyone liking the look these smartphone cameras create, both Apple and Samsung have features that allow you to adjust some of the image processing before as well as after you take the photo. Apple calls their feature Photographic Styles, while Samsung calls them Photo Filters, but both allow you to create non-destructive changes to your photos after you take them. Importantly though, with Apple you have to be shooting images in the HEIF file format, while with Samsung you can just shoot in regular JPEG, which I definitely think is an advantage for Samsung.

Photo and Video Quality

So in general, how do both of these phones hold up when it comes to photos? Overall, for photo quality, they’re actually pretty similar. Samsung’s is maybe slightly more saturated overall, and both trend towards warmer tones by default. Now obviously, because of the higher megapixel sensor, you can capture way larger images with the S25 Ultra than with the iPhone, which allows you to crop in further than the iPhone’s photos. A higher megapixel count doesn’t necessarily mean better image quality, but it definitely does equate to a higher resolution, which, yes, is an advantage for the S25 Ultra.

Now last year I noticed a lot of bad oversharpening issues with photos and videos with my S24 Ultra, but this year I haven’t had similar issues so far with the S25 Ultra. Its camera system, when compared to this year’s iPhone, is just much more competitive.

For video, so far my experience between these two camera systems is that aside from better low-light performance on the 5x, they’re pretty similar, with the only real difference being the overall look. In certain shots, the iPhone may have a bit more detail in its shadows and a bit more contrast to its overall look, but overall I’d consider it to be a tie.

Now features-wise, there are some noticeable differences with video. The S25 Ultra can shoot in 8K 30fps. The iPhone can shoot in Dolby Vision HDR while Samsung has HDR10+, and the iPhone has ProRes Log video recording and the Academy Color Encoding System while the S25 Ultra has Samsung Log.

In the camera category, even though the S25 Ultra has superior camera hardware, I think the iPhone’s surprisingly better contrast and overall look balances that out enough to where I’d call this one a draw. But I actually wouldn’t put my money towards either of these two phones just for their camera systems alone. As I’ve stated in other videos like my Fujifilm X100VI review, while smartphones are the most convenient modern-day cameras to carry, they’re by no means the best, and in some instances they’ve even gone backwards in terms of their photos just looking too overprocessed. If you’re really looking for a significant leap in photo quality from your current smartphone, putting money towards a dedicated camera, in my mind, is still the smarter option.

Operating Systems and Software Features

Next up, let’s talk about operating systems and software features. Both phones feel closer to each other in terms of software features and design than they have in years. This is partially due to Samsung’s One UI 7 refresh, which borrows some styling and features from Apple, like the customizable lock screen with widgets, which works pretty much exactly the way it does on the iPhone. Another customization Samsung borrowed is the new quick settings panel, which you can edit and also separate from the notifications shade, similar to how iOS is set up, and you can add new widgets to it, though at the time of recording I see more widgets available for Apple’s than Samsung’s.

Samsung now finally gives you the option within One UI itself to have the app drawer just vertically scroll, which to me feels faster. While Samsung doesn’t have a Dynamic Island—a persistent place on the iPhone that shows you things running in the background—they did introduce the new Now Bar, which allows you to check your phone’s essential information from the lock screen and do things like receive morning briefings, control music, recordings, and your connected Galaxy Watch.

Aside from those new features, not much has changed with the Ultra experience compared to the iPhone. Samsung’s phone and OS still offer way more customizations than Apple’s and ways you can use and navigate the OS, like with the S Pen or by using features like split-view multitasking—something the iPhone still doesn’t allow for.

Apple though has over the years implemented more customization options for iOS, like being able to drag app icons wherever you want, do icon theming, personalize the lock screen experience, and map different lock screens to different Focus modes.

One advantage I’d still give to iOS is that even in 2025, I still see some app developers developing apps for iOS before releasing an Android version. Another important difference between these two phones and their operating systems is how much control you have over what you can actually put on your phone. Samsung’s One UI, because it’s based on Android, gives you more freedom with what you download to your phone. You can download apps from the web on Android—something you still in 2025 cannot do on the iPhone, which from a user perspective is dumb.

For the OS category, there are pluses and minuses to both, but I think Samsung’s One UI strikes the overall right balance for the direction a smartphone operating system should be going in 2025.

Phone Assistants

Next up, let’s talk about phone assistants. One of the assistants is better, but it might not be the one you’re thinking of. I actually think Siri is the better assistant now. Hear me out before you flame me in the comments. Yes, Siri can be incredibly stupid at times, and yes, Gemini can do more things than Siri, being an LLM-based assistant, but for things I find myself actually needing to use the phone assistant for—like playing music, setting timers, opening apps, etc.—Siri is just faster, and it’s not even close.

The only area I’ve noticed Gemini is as fast as Siri is with setting timers. Otherwise, it’s typically quite a bit slower than Siri, especially for things like opening apps and playing music. If I really need to use a chatbot app, I can just go directly to ChatGPT or the Gemini app on the iPhone, and heck, I could even use the Action Button as a shortcut to them, and that’s fine.

In the assistant category, I’m going to give the win to the iPhone with Siri, simply because it’s just faster at doing the things that you want a phone assistant to do.

Audio Quality

And speaking of playing music, when doing these tests, that’s another difference I did notice between these two phones. The iPhone’s external speakers just sound more well-rounded, and they don’t emphasize the highs as much as the S25 Ultra’s. For external speakers, I definitely have to give the win to the 16 Pro Max.

Ecosystem and Device Integration

Next, let’s discuss ecosystem and device integration. Apple and Samsung are two companies that probably have the largest consumer hardware ecosystems in existence. Both offer ways to take calls on your tablet or computer, or copy something from your phone, paste it to another device, and use your entire phone from a computer. This is, of course, if you stay mostly within their ecosystems.

Now because the S25 Ultra runs Android, it actually opens up the possibility of using a greater variety of devices with your phone, such as a Pixel Watch or Windows PC. This allows for more cross-platform features with Samsung and Android than you would find outside of Apple’s ecosystem. But while Android does give you more hardware to choose from, Apple does give you class-leading devices and just excellent hardware paired with Apple’s software.

The MacBook Air is the best-selling laptop in the world. The Apple Watch is pretty dominant. iPads still have dominant market share even though they have some decent competition from Samsung and Microsoft, like with the new Surface Pro that I’m reviewing—and make sure you’re subscribed if you want to see that upcoming review. And no one has been able to do what Apple has done with their AirPods line, where you have multiple price points with devices that can seamlessly switch between all of your Apple devices, including the over-the-ear AirPods Max headphones, which I’ve reviewed and think are great. And Apple’s Spatial Audio is still better than anything except maybe Sonos’s headphones that I’ve tested and reviewed.

So I’ll give a point to Samsung here because you just get access to way more varieties of hardware in the Android ecosystem plus Windows, but I think Apple may also deserve a point because their ecosystem includes so many class-leading devices.

Performance

All right, next up let’s move to performance. In my CPU tests, Apple’s A18 Pro chip scores better in single-core performance, while the S25 Ultra’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chip scores better in multi-core benchmarks. For GPU performance, both phones perform pretty well in cross-platform GPU benchmarks, but based on the various benchmarks I’ve run on both of these phones, the S25 Ultra outperforms the iPhone in cross-platform benchmarks.

Now for games that are highly optimized for Apple’s Metal engine or benefit from better single-core performance versus multi-core, you’re probably going to see better performance and the iPhone would have an edge in that case. For overall performance, I don’t think there’s actually a clear winner between the two, but for gaming specifically, based on the benchmarks I’ve run, I’d have to give the slight edge to the S25 Ultra.

Battery Life

Next, let’s talk about battery life. Overall, that’s actually been pretty equivalent between these two phones. I haven’t noticed a huge difference in the battery level I end the day with on either of these phones. It’s typically somewhere around 50% for my light to moderate usage of 2 to 3 hours of screen time per day. I’m going to call this one a draw.

Charging Speed

Next up: charging speed. For wireless charging, the iPhone supports 20-watt fast charging via MagSafe, while the S25 Ultra has 15-watt wireless charging. For wired charging, the S25 Ultra supports Super Fast Charging 2.0 with speeds up to 45 watts, though note that’s at peak, not sustained, so once you hit about 30% battery charge, it’ll slow down closer to 30 watts. Speaking of which, the iPhone 16 Pro Max tops out at a wired charging speed of 30 watts. In this category, the S25 Ultra’s faster speed through a wired connection I think does give it a slight edge over the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Microphone and Call Quality

Next up: mic and call quality. All right, and this is the iPhone 16 Pro Max—this is how its mics sound. And now this is how the mics sound when I hold the phone up to my ear. All right, and here’s how the mics sound on the S25 Ultra. This is me just talking into the phone. And now here’s how it sounds when I hold the phone up to my ear, kind of simulating how it would sound if I was talking to you on the phone.

Speaking of which, all right, and this is the S25 Ultra—this is what its mics sound like over a phone call. All right, and these are what the mics sound like on the 16 Pro Max, and I’m recording this right now indoors, so this is like the best possible scenario. I actually think Apple’s mics sound a bit better than the S25 Ultra, so I’m going to give it a point here.

Price and Overall Value

All right, and lastly, let’s talk price and overall value. The S25 Ultra retails for just $100 more than the iPhone 16 Pro Max. You can also check their current prices and view the other devices I’ve mentioned in this video by using the purchase links in the description and the pinned comment. That’s definitely like at the top of the smartphone market, and while not a huge difference, $100 is $100, so yes, I will give a point to the iPhone in this category.

Final Verdict

And now for the big question: which phone is better? When you add up all the categories and the points, I have to give it to the S25 Ultra. Samsung has improved upon most of the complaints I had with the S24 Ultra. The OS feels pretty darn similar to the good things about iOS but more customizable. The rounded edges feel nicer, and while the phone may look slightly larger, it’s actually lighter than the 16 Pro Max and feels better to hold in your hand. Its screen has less glare. The camera system is better in certain cases than the iPhone’s. And though, yes, it’s $100 more, that’s not enough of a difference to outweigh the benefits. So that’s who I think is objectively the winner.

Personal Preference

But you also may be wondering which phone do I personally like better and find myself using more? And for me, a lot of this still comes down to ecosystems. And to be honest, I’m still finding I am more in the Apple ecosystem right now because I edit on a Mac, I’ve got an Apple TV, I love my Apple Watch, MacBook Air, and of course the AirPods Max. So because of that, and the iPhone integrates so well with all those other products, I find I’ve been keeping my personal SIM in the iPhone versus the S25 Ultra.

Conclusion

And now is the time to let me know what you think. Did I pick the right one? Was I fair to both phones? And ultimately, which phone do you think is better? Let me know in the comments. And to see more of my thoughts on smartphones and my reviews of them, you can click here to get to those, and you can click here to see more of my comparison videos, like my comparison between the AirPods Pro and Galaxy Buds 3 Pro. And to see all of the products I recommend at any time, you can do that by viewing them below.

For 6 Months Later, I’m Josh Tedar. Thanks for watching.