iPhone 17 Pro Max vs. S26 Ultra – Which is Better?

By Josh Teder

The iPhone 17 Pro Max is one of the most solid phones I’ve reviewed, especially from a hardware standpoint. But now that Samsung’s new flagship is out, and I’ve been using one for a few months, can it actually hold its own against the iPhone? In certain areas, it sure can. And in others, well, it might surprise you. Let’s dive in.

Display: Privacy Tech vs. Color Accuracy

One of the biggest differences with these phones is their display. Samsung has included a built-in privacy display using its Flex Magic Pixel technology. This phone basically has a privacy screen built into its display. And it’s actually cooler than that, because Samsung can turn this feature on and off at the pixel level. So if you get a sensitive notification from a certain app, it can just apply the privacy screen tech to that notification on the screen. They basically eliminated the need for a privacy screen protector on this phone.

Honestly, you wouldn’t want to put one on it anyway because of Samsung’s excellent anti-reflective coating. While Apple does now have a new anti-reflective coating with their upgraded Ceramic Shield, too, Samsung’s Gorilla Armor 2 is still superior when it comes to reducing glare. One trade-off to be aware of with this new display tech is that off-axis color accuracy does take a noticeable hit.

So who wins the display category? Samsung definitely earns a point for the privacy feature and better anti-reflective coating. But because Apple’s display color is better, especially off-angle, you can just see it more easily. I’m also going to give it a point there as well, because I think that will matter to some people.

Form Factor and Design

To me, they look equally aesthetically pleasing. Both have a nice industrial feel and a camera plateau that protrudes from the body. Though if you decide to use your phone caseless, the S26 Ultra wobbles way more on a flat surface than the iPhone.

Where these phone designs differ even more is in weight. The iPhone feels a good bit heavier at 233 g compared to the 214 g on the S26 Ultra. The point here goes to Samsung.

Design factor	iPhone 17 Pro Max	Galaxy S26 Ultra
Weight	233 g	214 g
MagSafe	Built into the phone	Cases and accessories only
iFixit repairability	7 out of 10	5 out of 10
Caseless stability	More stable on a flat surface	Wobbles more

Now, one area where Apple has a clear edge with its phone design is MagSafe. Samsung only includes MagSafe-like support in their cases and accessories, but it’s not built into the phone itself. A point goes to Apple for that.

One more thing worth knowing in this category: the iPhone 17 Pro Max got a 7 out of 10 repairability score from iFixit thanks to a screwed-in battery, while the S26 Ultra only got a 5 out of 10 score. So I would also give another point to Apple here for having an easier-to-repair design.

Cameras

Overall, though not universally true, Apple does a better job with color.

Standard Photos

A good example was at a graduation ceremony that I shot with both phones, where Apple got the color coming from the LED lights correct, and Samsung made the UNC blue look kind of purple. And when zooming in, you’ll see that Samsung also has a tendency to produce sharper images, which comes from them turning up the sharpening and clarity sliders a bit more aggressively than Apple.

Apple shots often look more like what the scene actually looked like when I took the photo.

Shooting in RAW

So how do these two compare when you shoot in RAW? Honestly, they look more similar than you might expect in a lot of shots, but the differences that do show up are consistent. Apple’s colors skew a bit warmer, and that does occasionally skew too warm, like this shot of Hogsmeade at Universal Islands of Adventure, where it just looks a bit off. And Samsung, even in RAW, still tends to blow out shadows rather than just preserve them, which means Apple shots often look more like what the scene actually looked like when I took the photo. Samsung also still has a tendency to add too much saturation even in RAW mode. You can see it clearly in wide shots with the sky.

Night RAW is the same story. Samsung applies noticeably more denoising, and the coloring is just quite a bit more saturated and quite a bit different than what the scene actually looked like in real life. And that LED light issue I mentioned earlier still shows up in the Expert RAW mode. So in general, a lot of the same things you’ll notice in Samsung’s normal processing with the main camera app will still show up when you shoot in Expert RAW.

Another area where you’ll really notice Samsung crank up the saturation and vibrance sliders is when it detects flowers. It just loves doing that. And for macro shots, I do prefer the more consistent bokeh that Apple’s camera produces.

Selfies and Night Mode

The selfie comparison between these two phones did net an unexpected result. The S26 Ultra looked a bit less overprocessed than I expected, and I often preferred the selfies from Samsung.

Moving on to night mode and nighttime shots, the differences between the two become way more pronounced. Samsung applies way more noise reduction and smoothing than Apple, and the coloring differences we talked about earlier also apply here.

Pro Video

For pro video, both phones do support shooting in log. So how do these videos actually look? Here are a few observations. First, I took both of these phones to my husband’s PhD ceremony, so not a low-stakes situation. Overall, Samsung did a better job of setting the black point at the graduation ceremony that I filmed, though I was able to correct it from the iPhone because I shot using the Final Cut Camera app. That made it easier to adjust when I brought it into Final Cut Pro. Samsung also does a better job with default stabilization when you want to pan. However, Apple’s mics are noticeably better. The S26 Ultra’s audio sounds just a bit too harsh in the highs.

Moving on to night mode here, I thought Apple just did a better job. It doesn’t crank up the exposure as much, which keeps footage looking less noisy and more natural. The iPhone also did a better job handling bright flames against a dark sky, where Samsung struggled to render this as naturally. And Apple’s color accuracy in night video, especially with LED and colored lighting, just looks to me more true to life.

So which phone has the better overall camera system? After shooting both of these and seeing the results of what these camera systems can do, I’m going to give the point to the 17 Pro Max.

Battery Life and Charging

Both phones, based on my usage of around two to two and a half hours of screen time and one to two hours of background activity for music and podcasts, can push close to two full days on a charge, for me at least.

Charging	iPhone 17 Pro Max	Galaxy S26 Ultra
Wireless charging	25 watts	25 watts
Wired charging	About 50% in roughly 20 minutes (claimed)	Up to 75% in 30 minutes (claimed)

Wireless charging speed is the same on both at 25 watts, while wired charging is where Samsung pulls ahead. Samsung claims it can reach a 75% charge in 30 minutes, while the iPhone can get about 50% in roughly 20 minutes. Given how close the battery performance between these two phones has been for me, I’m calling this one a tie.

Performance

On the CPU side, the iPhone continues to outperform in single-core performance, while the S26 Ultra edges ahead in multi-core. Where things get really interesting is with the GPU. Apple dominates graphics benchmarks from 3DMark, especially in ray-tracing tests like Solar Bay Extreme. And in the Steel Nomad benchmark, the gap is quite a bit closer between the phones.

One thing I noticed after running these benchmarks is that the S26 Ultra runs noticeably warmer than the 17 Pro Max, which makes sense at a certain level, given that the iPhone has the combination of the vapor chamber and the aluminum unibody acting as a heat sink. But given that the S26 Ultra also has a vapor chamber and an aluminum build, I was surprised that it gets that much hotter than the iPhone. For performance, I think this one is also a tie.

Operating System and Features

In general, Samsung’s One UI OS still offers more customizations, plus features like split screen, which Apple still can’t do, and Android still handles notification triaging better than iOS. Apple has its new Liquid Glass design, which features a new type of digital material that has the translucency of glass but also has some properties of a liquid.

In terms of overall basic features, they’re more similar than you might expect. Widgets work comparably. Samsung’s quick controls are almost the exact same as Apple’s Control Center. Where they do diverge quite a bit is with their AI and machine learning features. Samsung has noticeably more AI-powered features baked in, like the Now Nudge, which helps anticipate your needs in a way similar to Google’s Magic Cue. And you get Gemini on the phone, which is way more capable than Siri right now. Then there’s the S Pen on the S26 Ultra, which adds a whole other layer of functionality: handwriting recognition, note-taking, using it as a magnifier, selecting text with precision, and the list goes on.

For notification management and AI features, Samsung is the true winner in this category.

For most people, though, the day-to-day differences that you’ll actually notice, like how you navigate the UI, Android’s app drawer versus Apple’s App Library, little things like that, really aren’t all that different between the two phones. I would be inclined to say it’s a tie. But given some of the issues with Liquid Glass and Samsung’s better customization, especially for notification management and triaging, plus the fact that it’s got Gemini built in, I actually think Samsung is the true winner in this category.

Ecosystem

You get features like the ability to text on all your different devices and take phone calls on your different devices, and the ability to copy something on one device and paste it onto another. In general, I do think Apple often at least feels like they take these features a bit further than Samsung, like a better implementation of being able to use your phone on your Mac. Apple just does this a bit better because they make the OS for both devices. Samsung makes laptops, but they still have to rely on Windows to make a comparable feature work.

The same goes for things like a more consistent rollout of ultra-wideband across phones and watches for unlocking door locks or interacting with AirTags. Samsung is just now catching up to where Apple has been with features like Home Key, using your phone to tap to unlock a smart lock. Though some features like AirDrop and AirPlay are becoming less of a moat for Apple, thanks to Google’s ability to now have Quick Share work directly with AirDrop, Samsung has started to really catch up to Apple with some ecosystem features and accessories. So much so that I’m inclined to put this category as a toss-up.

Mic and Speaker Quality

The iPhone’s mic performance in the footage I’ve looked at between these two phones impressed me as being better than the S26 Ultra. I ran a mic test for each phone in my studio environment, one of the best environments you’re ever going to hear them in. For the mic test, I’m giving the point to the iPhone.

Speakers tell a similar story. The iPhone wins there as well. It has a more dynamic sound with better mid-range and low-end, for a phone speaker, of course. Its highs I found can occasionally be just a bit too piercing, at least for my ears. But I do prefer its sound over the S26 Ultra’s.

Price and Overall Value

The iPhone 17 Pro Max actually retails for $100 less than the S26 Ultra here in the US, though you can often find the S26 Ultra on sale from time to time, whereas I don’t see many sales with the iPhone. You can see what each one is currently going for in the Featured Products section below, along with all of the products I talked about in this post.

So, which phone do I ultimately think is better? If you go by the points, the device that has the better camera system, MagSafe, repairability score, speaker, and mic is the 17 Pro Max, which did rack up more points than the S26 Ultra.

Of course, in this comparison, I did try to be as objective as possible, but bias inevitably can leak in when you’re doing a comparison like this. If you want more of my Apple coverage, check out my iPhone Air review, my comparison of the iPhone Air vs. 17 Pro/Pro Max, or my full iPhone 17 Pro Max review. On the Android side, you can also browse my coverage over on the 6 Months Later YouTube channel.

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