Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra / Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max

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 adjusts the refresh rate to the content, giving 120 Hz smoothness when scrolling and lowering it on still images to save battery. The Always-On display shows the time and notifications dimmed while locked.

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 Center Stage camera’s square sensor allows landscape or portrait selfies without rotating the phone.

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 100/120 fps is limited to the main camera. ProRes 4K 120 fps requires recording to external storage. Genlock syncs several cameras to the same timing with compatible hardware.

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.

Water resistance is not permanent and may diminish over time.

Colour availability varies by country and carrier.

The 3,000-nit outdoor figure is a short peak in strong sunlight, not sustained full-screen white. The screen has an anti-reflective coating.

Apple notes that this resistance is not permanent and can decrease with normal wear.

The GPU supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing.

It also gives a 12 MP 2× (48 mm) image by using the centre of the sensor.

This camera is also used for 48 MP macro shots.

Using the centre of the sensor gives a 12 MP 8× (200 mm) image; Apple quotes a 16× optical-quality range and up to 40× digital zoom.

No adapter in the box; only a 1 m USB-C charge cable.

Apple quotes about 50% in 30 minutes with a 30 W or higher adapter and MagSafe Charger.

10 Gb/s needs a compatible USB 3 cable; the included cable does not guarantee that speed.

Ultra Wideband availability varies by region.

Availability of satellite features varies by country.

Camera Control opens the camera and changes settings such as zoom and exposure with slide and light-press gestures.