Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra vs iPhone 16 Pro Max: The world's most interesting phones

As 2024 is nearly over, it's only natural to turn our gaze towards 2025. Samsung will be the first one to release its flagship offerings for next year, as the upcoming Galaxy S25 range is expected to get announced in January and will spearhead Samsung's flagship effort. 

The Galaxy S25 Ultra in particular will be the most interesting new device, encompassing all of Samsung's advances in software and hardware, so it's only natural to have it compared to another premium device like the iPhone 16 Pro Max. 

It's yet another yearly chapter in the never-ending Samsung vs Apple story, with both companies bringing their best to the brawl. 

We're generally expecting the Galaxy S25 Ultra design language to remain mostly the same, with a large titanium frame sandwiched between glass up front and at the back. 

However, unlike older Galaxy S Ultra flagships which had mostly flat frames at the bottom and top, giving the devices a very posh and business-like look, the Galaxy S25 Ultra is expected to feature a curved frame at the bottom and top, similar to the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus. 

This would bring cohesion to the Galaxy design language, but also means that the Galaxy S25 Ultra will lose some of its unique styling as it tries to fit in with its little brothers. 

Fortunately, signature staples like the large and lovely display and integrated S Pen will remain on board. The Galaxy S25 Ultra isn't expected to feature any custom buttons aside from the standard volume rocker and power button, so nothing too fancy.

Meanwhile, the iPhone 16 Pro Max 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.

Other staples like the customizable Action Button and the Dynamic Island screen notch are once again available here as well. 

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 S24 Ultra will likely be available in similar colors, as well as some more intriguing ones, exclusively sold on Samsung.com. 

No major changes in the Galaxy S25 Ultra screen formula are expected!

Thus, it's more than certain the phone will have a 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen with smooth 1-120Hz refresh rate, superb HDR support, high peak brightness, and most importantly, the same anti-reflective screen coating that debuted with the Galaxy S24 Ultra. The latter is probably one of our favorite new features of 2024, as it largely eliminates reflections. 

As we mentioned, the iPhone 16 Pro Max has scored a display size increase to 6.9 inches, which is usually a rarity with iPhones. However, the jump isn't that stellar, merely 0.2 inches in comparison with most previous Pro Max devices. 

As far as the rest of the specs go, we still get a 120Hz ProMotion display, giving us a smooth experience, as well as the now signature Dynamic Island punch-hole. 

One area in which the two will differ will be the peak brightness. The Galaxy S25 Ultra will certainly hit higher maximum nits of brightness, as the Galaxy S24 Ultra is already beating the iPhone 16 Pro Max right now, and we don't expect Samsung to downgrade. 

Another one in favor of the Galaxy could be the anti-reflective coating, which will boost its legibility. The iPhone 16 Pro Max doesn't have a novel way of dealing with reflections. 

The Galaxy S25 Ultra will most certainly pack the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 inside. Sure, there has been some talk about MediaTek potentially making an entrance, but at this point, it's highly unlikely that Samsung and Qualcomm will part ways.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, likely slightly factory overclocked to suit Samsung's needs, will most certainly make its way to the Galaxy S25 Ultra. We expect the chipset to feature dual performance cores clocked at 4.47GHz and six mid-range cores clocked at 3.53GHz. The chip has already been allegedly benchmarked, delivering a pretty promising performance. 

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. 

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 will likely start with 12GB of RAM. Storage-wise, both devices will share the same versions: 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. 

In terms of software, we will get Android 15 with One UI 7 running the show. Samsung has confirmed its next One UI version will be released with the Galaxy S25 series. Meanwhile, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is currently running on iOS 18, with iOS 18.1 and Apple Intelligence coming soon. Early in 2025, we should also get a much more capable Siri assistant. 

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. 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. This will happen with iOS 18.1 at the end of October.

We don't expect any major changes with the Galaxy S25 Ultra's camera setup, so we expect the Galaxy S24 Ultra setup to be inherited. Of course, Samsung might apply a slew of software enhancements and algorithm improvements to the mix, so we might still get slightly better image quality without any major hardware changes. 

We expect the Galaxy S25 Ultra to come with a 200MP main, 50MP telephoto with 5X optical zoom, an auxiliary 10MP telephoto with 3X optical zoom, and finally, a 12MP ultrawide camera. A very versatile and capable setup judging by the Galaxy S24 Ultra's camera performance.

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.

Still, as a whole, the iPhone 16 Pro Max performs very well, though it's worth noting that it lost to the Galaxy S24 Ultra in the PhoneArena Camera score test. We only expect Samsung to  turn things to eleven and come up on top once again. 

The Galaxy S25 Ultra is expected to come with a 5,000mAh battery, just like most of its predecessors. That's the upper limit for Samsung flagships these days, and likely the most we are going to get in these form factors for the foreseeable future. Still, with the faster and therefore more efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip, the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

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. We expect that the Galaxy S25 Ultra will try its best to bridge that gap.

Charging-wise, we highly doubt that Samsung will move away from the 45W wired charging it has been feeding us for the past few years. It's not terribly slow, but it's not mind-bogglingly fast, either. The Galaxy S25 Ultra will possibly come with Fast Wireless Charging 2.0, which might still be limited to 15W.

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. 

Here's how the Galaxy S25 Ultra vs iPhone 16 Pro Max specs will likely pan out. Of course, the Galaxy S25 Ultra are unofficial and not yet set in stone, have that in mind. 

Best of the best, that's what the iPhone 16 Pro Max and Galaxy S25 Ultra are shaping up to be. Without a doubt, we expect the Galaxy S25 Ultra to be the best Android phone 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 will end up being better? Remains to be seen. The Galayx S25 Ultra will possibly beat the iPhone in overall camera performance, but the Apple flagship could still have the upper hand in overall performance and battery life. 

Objectively, either phone is or most certainly will be the best one in its respective ecosystem, so we are in for an intense face-off.