Hands-on: iPhone 16 Pro Max vs. Samsung’s new S25 Ultra: Which had better AI?

Deal Score0
Deal Score0

I was able to get an early look at the new Samsung S25 lineup, most importantly the S25 Ultra. I wanted to see how Samsung’s best of the best compared to its Apple counterpart, the iPhone 16 Pro Max. What particularly stood out to me about these phones is that they seem to be at their peak when it comes to form factor. The rectangular candy bar design gives off a lot of similarities between both devices, and so do the internal specs. So the only real comparisons here would be the software, the user experience, and of course the AI. Let’s go in.

If you want to see the S25 Ultra in the flesh and compare it to the iPhone 16 Pro Max, we highly recommend checking out the video below.

Design comparison

Again, from a design perspective, you can see that these two phones have a lot of similarities. Samsung has made some changes to the new S25 Ultra compared to last year. The bezels have shrunk slightly, bringing the screen from 6.8 inches to 6.9 inches (sound familiar?). We also made the side handrails slightly curved to make it more difficult to hold. Additionally, Samsung was able to reduce the weight of the device by around 15g. This is very noticeable.

Both phones use titanium material for their chassis, use top-quality glass, feature triple camera arrays, and feel very premium in the hand. The biggest visual difference is that the S25 Ultra has more angular corners, while the iPhone has rounded corners. So it comes down to visual preference.

A18 Pro vs Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy

I would like to briefly explain the internal specifications of each of these.

S25 ultra iPhone 16 Pro Max
single core geek bench 3049 3539
multicore geek bench 9793 8772
Total number of cores 8 6
Total RAM 12GB 8GB
operating system OneUI 7 iOS18.X

So at a glance you can see that they are very similar. The single-core score would be an iPhone, but there are two additional cores, so the multi-core score would be an S25. Again, these are just numbers, but the fact is that when it comes to everyday tasks, both of these phones can do everything very efficiently. In my video, I tested how fast the app opened and how fast I pressed the shutter button to take a photo, and both worked well. Watching these content will be the best of the best. Still, this ultimately comes down to a matter of preference and familiarity. But what both of these chips will enable is all the AI ​​capabilities that are coming.

Other specs to consider for the S25 Ultra:

  • 3NM processor
  • NPU 40% increase
  • 37% increase in CPU
  • 30% increase in GPUs
  • Raytracing increased by 40%
  • FPS increased by 18%

Galaxy AI vs. Apple Intelligence

One thing to note in this section is that as of this writing, Apple Intelligence is not yet fully available. I’m currently using iOS 18.2, but only some Apple Intelligence features are available. Many of the features promised in WWDC 2024 are still missing, most importantly the ability to take action on your behalf. That’s where Galaxy AI comes into play.

cross app action

This is what I find most exciting and where I think Apple can score a point or two. Galaxy AI enables you to perform actions across apps. They gave several examples, but the point is that you can actually launch the Galaxy AI Assistant and tell it to do something, even when multiple applications are involved.

  • Former: Looking for the next soccer match “Hey, find out when the next football game is, put it on your calendar, and text it to your friends.”

In this case, proceed to the final step of sending the text to your friend. One thing to note is that it won’t actually send the message without asking your permission or prompting you to send it, but it will do everything else.

However, there are times when you will run to the end to complete the entire task. Here’s another example:

  • Example: While watching a recipe video, ask the Galaxy AI agent to retrieve ingredients from the recipe video. create a video, memo AP

This is great because you can open a recipe video and, without having to watch it, Galaxy AI can extract all the information it needs and write it in a note to watch later. I see a lot of use cases for this.

Currently, this works with all Google and Samsung first-party apps, and there is an APK for third-party developers to add this to their flows.

Similarities to Apple Intelligence

Both of these phones have the ability to use “just for fun” features, such as creating images from sketches and generating emojis. They both have great speech recognition abilities, so even if they stumble over a word, they can understand the context and understand what you’re trying to say.

  • Samsung has Generative Edit. Apple has an image playground
  • Samsung has Sketch to Image. Apple has an Image Wand
  • Samsung has an audio eraser. Apple has its own audio editing features

Final thoughts on AI

I think I would give the edge to the S25 Ultra from an AI perspective at this point. You’ll be able to do more and use it with more confidence. When I tested some simple prompts, the Galaxy was usually faster and always gave me the correct answer. It also appears to be more context-aware and able to use information from other apps to provide more tailored answers. Apple is slowly rolling out all aspects of Apple Intelligence, allowing Samsung and Google to stay one step ahead. Also, Google Assistant has always been a little better than Siri, and this is no exception.

Last trivia

I also wanted to include some other cool information that Samsung has introduced with its new S25 product line.

  • New 50MP Ultrawide (with macro mode)
  • 4k LOG video support
  • audio eraser
  • variable digital aperture
  • Buy now Pay later with Samsung Pay
  • Tap to pay across devices (from Samsung to iPhone)

final take

As I said at the beginning, we are now in an era where internal and external hardware is all at a very high level. All materials science and hardware capabilities have become largely commoditized. So it really comes down to two things: software (AI) and ecosystem. As it stands, I think it would give Samsung and OneUI 7 a leg up when it comes to AI integration and actually useful use cases and features. Apple’s intelligence landscape is still a long way from being as useful as I, or even Apple, would like it to be. We’re sure it will happen before the new iPhone 17 lineup launches.

However, even if I were told to switch to Samsung to use as my main device, I personally would not be able to do so given my investment in the ecosystem. I have an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac mini, Homekit accessories, Apple TV, and Homepod. The list goes on. All of these hardware devices are purpose-built to seamlessly communicate with each other. Introducing a non-Apple phone into my ecosystem would probably make my experience even worse. But if I were already in the Samsung ecosystem, this S25 Ultra would be something that would excite me.

S25 Ultra is available for pre-order starting today starting at $1299

What do you think? Do you think Apple will eventually be able to compete from an AI perspective? Why not switch ecosystems? Let’s discuss this below.

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