Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra / Apple iPhone 16 Pro

The Samsung Newsroom release is dated 23 January Korea time; the event was 22 January in US time.

Samsung notes memory options may vary by market and usable storage is lower because of preloaded software. There is no card slot.

Samsung quotes 40% NPU, 37% CPU and 30% GPU gains over the previous generation. This version is tuned for Galaxy with higher clocks than the standard Snapdragon 8 Elite.

The vapor chamber spreads heat from the chip into the body, helping clocks hold longer in extended gaming.

The viewable area is smaller than the diagonal because of rounded corners and the camera hole. Refresh that drops to 1 Hz saves power on static content; Vision Booster adjusts tone mapping in bright light.

ProMotion changes the refresh rate with the content: 120 Hz smoothness when scrolling and gaming, lower rates on still images to save power. Apple quotes 1000 nits typical, 1600 nits HDR peak, 2000 nits outdoor peak and 1 nit minimum; peaks are not sustained full-screen brightness.

Used on the front only. Corning says it survived drops of up to 2.2 m onto a concrete-like surface in internal lab tests; this is not a durability guarantee for any given phone.

Titanium is used only on the frame, excluding the volume and side keys.

Per Samsung, 3× and 5× are optical; 2× and 10× are “optical quality” zoom made by sensor cropping. OIS is optical image stabilisation.

The Pro system covers a 10× optical zoom range from 0.5× to 5×, with digital zoom up to 25×. The 2× image is a 12 MP crop from the centre of the 48 MP main sensor, not a separate camera.

Log records a flat profile for colour grading; results depend on the editing workflow. Audio Eraser can reduce layers such as voices, music, wind and crowd separately in videos.

4K at 120 fps allows high-frame-rate 4K footage that can be slowed down. Log recording produces a flat image that leaves more room for colour grading. High-bit-rate ProRes needs an external drive.

The 45 W adapter is sold separately. Samsung quotes up to 31 hours of video playback. Wireless PowerShare charges earbuds or a watch from the back of the phone.

According to Android Central’s one-year report, the phone received One UI 8 (Android 16) ahead of schedule.

5G/LTE availability depends on market and carrier.

mmWave and satellite services vary by country. Cellular model numbers are A3083 and A3084.

Water resistance is not permanent and may diminish over time.

Colour availability varies by country and carrier.

Apple says A18 Pro, built on second-generation 3 nm technology, runs the same workload 15% faster with 20% less power than the previous generation; the GPU is up to 20% faster and hardware ray tracing up to 2× faster. The chip also enables faster USB 3 transfers and ProRes recording.

Apple says Camera Control combines a tactile switch, a force sensor and a capacitive surface: a click opens the camera, while a light press and finger slide adjust zoom, exposure or depth of field.

Apple notes that iPhone 16 Pro sold in the US is not compatible with physical SIM cards; models for other markets have a SIM tray.

10 Gb/s transfers need a USB 3 cable. Wireless charging power depends on the adapter and charger.