Samsung s25 Ultra and the iPhone 16 Pro Max let’s put them head-to-head the two best smartphones in the world and spoiler up the results are going to shock you so both these phones come with a bunch of special features that really set them apart like the most obvious one is the S Pen on the Samsung which has been around for 14 years not everyone uses it but it is still cool to have even if it has had a bit of a downgrade.
The Samsung DeX which essentially turns the Samsung into a computer with just an HDMI connection to a TV or monitor also comes with a secure folder to hide files documents UH videos you guys know all that sneaky sensitive stuff and something I still haven’t seen on iPhones is wireless battery share that turned your Samsung into a wireless charging pad come to think of it they’ve also had this for years.
Then you can also multitask like a Beast with Samsung using split screen mode or Advanced multitasking Windows plus its real-time call translation feature is just mind-blowing especially when you get calls from say someone who doesn’t speak your language oh and also let’s not forget if you tap and hold down onto any video it’ll slow it down which is pretty cool am I right?
But the iPhone 16 Pro Max does have its own bunch of exclusive features like a dedicated button for the camera which is used to control a bunch of its features kind of like on a professional camera you can also easily lock apps on iPhone which surprisingly is missing from Samsung and although the dynamic island is kind of in the way there’s a lot of cool things you can do with it like control your music check out your timers and a bunch of other live activities then there’s name drop which works by bumping two iPhones together to quickly share files and contact info wow and if you’re out in the middle of nowhere there’s also satellite SOS where you can call for help and potentially save your life as well as car crash detection which has saved lives.
So, both these phones have some awesome special features but the s25 Ultras just feel a lot more practical so it gets the first point and to spice things up I’ll switch to whoever wins this showdown.
Camera Performance
So, here are two picks I took one with Samsung and the other with iPhone let’s see if you guys can guess which one is which but before I show you the first thing I’ll actually compare is video because both these bad boys can shoot in 4k slowmo which Samsung came up with first but even though Samsung’s had it for longer you’ll notice there isn’t that big of a difference even when you zoom in like both phones are basically identical in quality but where you will notice a difference is that the s25 ultra can now shoot in 8K log whereas the iPhone can only shoot in 4k log and how log works is it’s basically a video mode specifically made for Cinema cameras to shoot Hollywood movies and the video might look very desaturated at first but that’s because this way it can pick up a lot more detail so once you edit the color back in it should look much better and as you can see Samsung seems to struggle with low light but iPhone did a really good job as for normal video both these phones again look pretty identical historically iPhone’s video is much better though but in this case Samsung’s caught up photos on the other hand is usually where Samsung is better than iPhone and with the s25 ultra we get a brand new 50 megapixel Ultra wide camera whereas the iPhone has a 48 megapixel ultra wide but all in all you don’t actually see that much of a difference in quality and sharpness expectable color and the same goes for the 200 map camera on the Samsung against the 48 me pixel on the iPhone like there isn’t that much of a difference okay now let’s see if you got this right the left is iPhone and the right is Samsung.
Selfies is usually where Samsung kind of disappoints me because of skin tone but damn these look great honestly even though Samsung has added 8K log improved its portrait mode and even the camera interface I still think that the iPhones quality is just better.
Display Performance
Now, onto these massive screens that actually had tiny updates I really do mean tiny like literally A.1 in update so from 6.8 in to 6.9 that that’s it so while they’re equally as big it is just better to watch videos on Samsung because it doesn’t have a massive cutout like on the iPhone and they’re also equally as thin so not much competition there but they do have different screen resolutions
so although you won’t see a huge difference when watching content Samsung does have an overall better screen resolution than iPhone alongside that it’s also slightly brighter too but honestly you won’t really see any big difference between the two even in direct sunlight regardless though the Samsung is just slightly better than the iPhone and when it comes to Reflections the screen on the Samsung is again slightly better at handling glare than the iPhone but even though these massive screens are slightly different they do have something in common the glass.
You know what gloss does it breaks which can totally ruin your $1,000 phone especially if you’ve got a massive screen like these and I’ve learned the hard way you’ve got to be really careful or if you just want to forget about worrying all together I suggest you get a case and I actually found the best two cases for these phones that I just had to show you guys because not only can you slap it on to protect your phone but it’s also got a special feature and that is mag safe baby on the s25 Ultra which is one of the biggest features I’ve been wanting on Samsung for like ever.
it’s called the Halo lock classic hybrid case from ESR that you can also get for the 16 Pro Max in a couple different colors and a little bonus about this case the camera button actually works unlike other cases and ESR also have this sick Wireless Car charger that’s specifically made to work with both es25 Ultra and the 16 Pro max cases which also cools them down while charging. But if you want to protect and charge your phone in style then check out the link to ESR down below but back to who’s got the better screen well because the Samsung is slightly brighter and higher res it gets the points.
Assistant
So, we all know that Samsung has Bixby and the iPhone has Siri but now the s25 ultra also comes with Google Gemini alongside Bixby and the 16 Pro Max has GPT alongside Siri and for the most part both of them will give you some pretty solid answers no matter what question you ask them even if it is a pretty random would you rather question.
But from a ton of testing I have found that cha PT on iPhone almost always works smoother than Gemini on Samsung ChatGPT’s answers are just way clearer and straight to the point but not only that from my experience Gemini’s answers are inconsistent and loses its conversation memory so in comparison to chat GPT Gemini kind of feels like a goldfish so even though Gemini and Bix P have improved it is still just harder to hold a conversation with it than with chat GPT so the iPhone takes the point.
Speed Performance
Now, Samsung have made huge advancements with speed and I have three tests to test it against the iPhone the first one is the power test pretty simple let’s see which one turns on faster ooh no surprise there the s25 ultra beat the 16 Pro Max but by just a few seconds as for gaming I tested a few games like alien isolation which is actually a console game and the performance was super smooth on both phones I even tested out genshin game impact on Max settings which is one of the most demanding games out there and again they both felt super Snappy as for the third test this one was about who could export 4K footage the fastest using an app called light cut and this one really surprised me because iPhone actually beats Samsung here by as you can see quite a lot I mean overall both phones do have blazing fast chips that will get the job done and you barely notice the difference between them but overall the s25 ultra is slightly faster than the iPhone.
Advance Features
So, it gets the points so one of the biggest perks of having a tough to your phone is all the advanced features they come with like advanced search which on the Samsung is called Circle to search and on the iPhone is called visual lookup and both work really well they can both also summarize any website right in their browser too and can even create stickers from basically anything you’d like but the iPhone does take it a step further by allowing you to create stickers of people whereas Samsung just doesn’t have that then both phones can also generate IM including images based on people in your photos and speaking of photos they can both do Advanced photo editing but the Samsung does take it up a level by letting you generate entirely new elements in your photo.
the S35 Ultra also comes with a new feature called now brief which is kind of like a summary of your entire schedule the iPhone on the other hand doesn’t have that but it does have these really convenient message summaries and you can also rewrite text or generate entire messages from scratch using their Advanced keyboard features although Samsung does have one thing the iPhone doesn’t and that’s generating almost any type of wallpaper you’d like which is kind of nice so if you’re wondering which one has the better features well you can’t go wrong with either one so I’m giving them both the point.
Battery Performance
Now let’s move on to the battery all right so for the battery I did four different tests to see which one would last the longest from my casual use test I used both phones at the same brightness primarily for social media and the Samsung gave me a solid 19 hours of battery whereas the iPhone’s battery L at around 18 hours just slightly less than the Samsung part of why the s25 ultra’s battery lasts longer this year might be because the Spen no longer has a battery that needs to be charged then for the second test I put brightness to Max on both and used them Non-Stop and again the s25 ultra gave me just a bit more juice than the 16 Pro Max and as for charge time the Samsung is still in the lead using a super-fast charger iPhone even though it’s faster than before is still slower than Samsung and the last test I did was wireless charging where they both took around 2 hours to charge from 0 to 100 there’s definitely a pattern I’m noticing here because again Samsung is just slightly better than the iPhone so it gets the point but with three points left let’s see if the iPhone can make a comeback.
Customization
Apple finally caught up to Samsung in the customization game but just when you think the playing field is leveled Samsung released its latest one i7 software update and let me tell you it’s packing some seriously cool customization tricks that the iPhone just doesn’t have like first off folder customization you can now enlarge group folders which look so much better and still change the color like you could with before then there icon customization Samsung usually shines here because they also have different theme options where you can completely swap out the design but not only does iPhone let you choose any color you want it also tints the widgets and system icons sheesh but then again on the lock screen Samsung you can choose from basically any clock font you want all you got to do is download it from the Samsung store and Bam iPhone you’re stuck with six fonts and a massive bonus is that setting up an animated wallpaper on Samsung is super easy unlike the Hoops you got to jump through on iPhone and it gets even better because you can even set an animated background for calls and this also works for alarms too like who doesn’t want alarm backgrounds but Bar None the biggest feature that blows out the water is good luck this app is like the customization Holy Grail because with it you can customize anything I literally mean anything so Samsung clearly takes the point here because it’s just got way more advanced customization kind of leaves the iPhone in the dust.
User Experience
The user experience is basically how easy intuitive painless and fun it is to use a phone and Samsung have had a lot to do in this department but surprisingly it’s managed to close the gap especially with the new one ui7 update and that’s also because the iPhone has felt a bit stagnant over the past few years like if you compare all the changes between one UI and iOS Samsung has just had huge leaps like why is it that we still can’t split screen on iPhone and use multitasking like you can on a Samsung it’s frustrating and one more thing the Samsung has is 7 years of software updates whereas iPhone you only get Max 5 or six honestly even though iPhone feels pretty stale it’s still really good and Samsung have just caught up so for user experience they’re both really good and they both get the point that just leaves one point.
Prices
The Price the competition is tough and that’s because the Samsung is still $1,299 or $1,249 whereas the iPhone believe it or not is still cheaper by $100 however here is what makes price so tough Samsung’s trading deals are just better than iPhone you can get up to $900 of trade in value when buying the new s25 Ultra making it $399 which is 69% off in comparison to the iPhone 16 Pro Max which you can get $630 off making it $569 which kind of makes them both worth.
Final Concluison
Finally, I’m going to give them both the final point and that makes the s25 ultra the best smartphone in the world and the iPhone the second best but then why does everyone still keep buying the iPhone when it keeps losing these battles well here’s my final conclusion and let me know if you agree iPhones are made for the masses but Samsung’s are made to be the most advanced smartphones in the world.
