iPhone 17 Pro Max vs Galaxy S25 Ultra: 5-ish months left 'till the showdown of 2025!
Intro
Alright, at this point it's barely a secret that we are waiting for another set of iPhones to launch at the end of summer, right? Apple typically launches its new phone models in September and there's no reason to believe 2025 will be different. There's also no reason to believe there won't be an iPhone 17 Pro Max yet again. On the contrary — we've even seen a few leaks about the top-tier iPhone.
The question now is — how is it going to compare to the top tier Samsung phone? Regular Samsung phone, of course, we are not going to be touching on the Galaxy Z Fold 7 here. The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra launched in early 2025 and has had plenty of time to gather momentum. How do we think it will compare to the newly launched iPhone 17 Pro Max when that comes out? Let's see what we know:
iPhone 17 Pro Max vs Galaxy S25 Ultra expected differences:
| iPhone 17 Pro Max | Galaxy S25 Ultra |
|---|---|
| Design facelift with camera bar module on the back | Flat design with stark edges and lifted camera rings |
| Slightly thicker 8.7mm, possibly switching back to aluminum | 8.2 mm titanium-coated body — nearly the same |
| Triple 48 MP cameras on the back 24 MP front camera | 200 MP main camera, two zoom cameras 12 MP front camera |
| 8K video recording possilbe | 8K video recording possilbe |
| Apple A19 Pro chipset (3 nm) | Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy (3 nm) |
| Likely 12 GB of RAM | 12 GB RAM |
| Brighter screen 3,000 nits peak | 2,600 nits peak, low-reflectivity glass |
| Miniaturized Dynamic Island notch possible | Small punch-hole for selfie camera |
| Possibly a battery larger than 4,700 mAh | 5,000 mAh battery |
| 27 W wired charging 25 W wireless MagSafe 2 | 45 W wired charging 15 W wireless charging |
| Possible reverse wireless charging | Reverse wireless charging |
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Design and Size
iPhone shopping at the Pixel mall
RoboCop's iPhone (Image Credit-Weibo)
The leaks are ramping up and all reaffirming the same thing — the iPhone 17 Pro Max will have a big, wide, side-to-side camera bar on the back. Kind of like the Pixel's camera vizors! Why? No idea. This will certainly be a polarizing design choice — maybe not as polarizing as the notch and subsequent Dynamic Island, but still something that will be hotly discussed. One thing is for sure — the iPhone 17 Pro Max will not wobble when laid flat on a table. Yay?
Otherwise, we are expecting a pretty standard iPhone look. Flat sides, slightly rounded edges and corners. Some curious rumors say that the iPhone 17 Pro models may go back to using aluminum out of environmental consideration. That's a bit out of character. The Pro iPhones have been using super-shiny stainless steel from the iPhone 12 Pro onwards. Then, they switched to titanium coating with the iPhone 15 Pro, to have the bragging rights of using a tough and light premium material. Now... back to aluminum?
The Galaxy S25 Ultra got a facelift of its own this year. Doing away with the sharp-cornered rectangle and slightly rounded sides, it seems to have taken hints from the iPhone's tailor. It now also has flat sides and slightly rounded corners, for that all-business-but-still-mellow look. Titanium-covered frame, of course. The cameras on its back are housed in individual protruding lens rings off the corner of the phone. So its back looks a bit cleaner, even if it wobbles.
They should be sized about the same — we expect a 6.9-inch panel on the iPhone 17 Pro Max, and the S25 Ultra also has a 6.9-inch screen. They should be around the same thickness, too, though early reports tell us that the iPhone 17 Pro Max will be ever-so-slightly thicker.
| Phone model | iPhone 17 Pro Max | Galaxy S25 Ultra |
|---|---|---|
| Thickness | 8.73 mm | 8.2 mm |
The iPhone will have some more buttons on its exterior — there's the power button, the volume keys, then the muti-functional Camera Control button and programmable Action button. That's a lot from a company who, just a few years ago, was venturing to remove all buttons from its phones. Samsung takes it easy here with just power, volume up, and volume down.
Display Differences
No surprises expected here — the iPhone 17 Pro Max should have a 6.9-inch Liquid Retina XDR OLED display with dynamic 1-120 Hz ProMotion. This will be rivaled by the Galaxy S25's 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED x2 1-120 Hz. These are very good screens and we expect we will have little to complain about.
Now, Samsung does have the super-cool low-reflectivity coating that gives the display that extra oomph. We wonder if Apple will do something to improve the anti-reflectivity of its iPhone Pro displays.
| Phone model | iPhone 17 Pro Max | Galaxy S25 Ultra |
|---|---|---|
| Screen size | 6.9-inch | 6.9-inch |
| Peak brightness | ~3,000 nits | 2,600 nits |
The Dynamic Island cutout on the iPhone 17 Pro Max screen will allegedly, possibly, and hopefully get a bit smaller. It's the pill-shaped cutout that houses the Face ID sensors on the top of the screen, and it's a contentious topic to this day. A slight size reductions might make it more bearable for those that hate it.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra has a very tiny punch-hole in the screen for its single selfie camera, which generally doesn't get in the way of content.
Performance and Software
Apple silicon vs the Samsung-Qualcomm partnership
Apple's A-series chips have been at the top of the game for years. However, over the past couple of generations, silicon-slinger Qualcomm really caught up. Especially since it partnered with Samsung for design and manufacturing — that might be a coincidence, we really don't know how much hand in the process Samsung had. After all, Sammy's own Exynos chips are not amazing.
In any case, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Made for Galaxy inside the Galaxy S25 Ultra is an excellent performer. We do believe that the Apple A19 in the iPhone 17 Pro Max will be incrementally better — after all, it will be newer tech — but we don't think the differences will be huge. Apple does need to adress some heat and throttling concerns here, as the A18 does achieve great peak scores but can't maintain them for long. Hopefully, steps will be taken to improve that.
| iPhone model | iPhone 17 Pro Max | Galaxy S25 Ultra |
|---|---|---|
| Chip | Apple A19 Pro | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite |
| Manufacturing process | 3 nm | 3 nm |
| Memory | 12 GB | 12 GB |
It's very possible that the iPhone 17 Pro Max may go up to 12 GB of RAM this year. Apple didn't use to put a lot of RAM in its flagships, however, the desire to implement AI tools that are always at-the-ready and working in the background requires a significant hardware upgrade. In 2024, we saw Apple update multiple devices specifically to give us hardware that supports Apple Intelligence. Word is, all 2025 iPhones will have 12 GB of RAM for the sake of future-proofing them. After all, Apple does like to support these things for 5 years at least.
Samsung's Galaxies, being Android flagships and all, have had high amounts of RAM for years now. The S25 Ultra is not exception with its 12 GB RAM. In fact, power users are a bit bitter that they aren't getting at least 16 GB RAM in 2025.
For storage, we expect the iPhone 17 Pro Max to repeat the previous tiers — 256 GB minimum, then 512 GB and 1 TB upgrades. The Galaxy S25 Ultra comes with the same storage options.
The iPhone 17 Pro Max should launch with iOS 19, which is supposedly going to have a visual overhaul bringing its aesthetics closer to the glassy looks of visionOS. There should be some movement on the Apple Intelligence front, too, as Apple failed to deliver on its promises for iOS 18 in full, and we do presume that the engineers are scrambling to come out with something marketing-worthy pretty soon.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra comes with One UI 7 and Android 15 on board, with the full Galaxy AI suite backed up by Google's Gemini on board. So, conversational assistant, text, voice, and call summaries, image generation, cross-app interactions, it's all here. From here on, it's about what will come to the Galaxy S25 Ultra via updates. It should keep getting those for 7 years, so up until 2032.
Apple's iPhones typically get 5 years of iOS support, but that might change, as Samsung and Google have really pushed the envelope on update commitments.
Camera
The eternal camera battles
Both of these phones are leaders in the camera field — both Apple and Samsung have been putting a lot of eggs in the camera basket and the result is that we have competing flagships that can take super high-res photos and videos with excellent stabilization and editing tools. Well, some editing tools are better than others.
| Phone model | iPhone 17 Pro Max | Galaxy S25 Ultra |
|---|---|---|
| Main camera | 48MP F1.8 | 200MP F1.7 |
| Ultrawide camera | 48MP F2.2 | 50MP F1.9 |
| Zoom camera | --- | 10MP F2.4 3X |
| Periscope camera | 48MP F2.8 5X | 50MP F3.4 5X |
| Front camera | 24MP | 12MP |
After Apple updated its main, ultra-wide, and zoom cameras to have high-res sensors, we now expect the front-facing camera to get some love, but nothing too extreme. A jump from 12 MP to 24 MP — we'll see what improvements that brings.
Meanwhile, we are already well-familiar with the Galaxy S25 Ultra's camera suite and we are quite happy with it. For a while, it was at the top of our camera benchmark score with excellent performance all around — from portraits to video to selfies to landscape shots. It hasn't been dethroned, mind you, it's just that the Xiaomi 15 Ultra beat it by a point or two in very specific situations.
Battery Life and Charging
The power of 5,000
Apple typically doesn't play the battery capacity games. iPhones historically have had smaller batteries than their contemporary competitors, but have made up for it with excellent software and hardware optimizations.
However, one must get with the times. The Pro Max devices usually house big cells — the iPhone 16 Pro Max had almost 4,700 mAh, word is that the iPhone 17 Pro Max may push that to 5,000 mAh. With iOS, that means 2-day battery life easily.
Samsung also doesn't push the envelope too much. Ever since that Galaxy Note 7 snafu, the manufacturer slowed down its battery efforts significantly and now prefers to play it super-safe, just in case. The Galaxy S25 Ultra has 5,000 mAh and it's pretty OK. It can last you like a day and a half with regular use, and won't trigger your low-bat-phobia often.
| iPhone model | iPhone 17 Pro Max | Galaxy S25 Ultra |
|---|---|---|
| Battery size | 4,700-5,000 mAh | 5,000 mAh |
| Wired charging speed | 27W | 45W |
| Wireless charging speed | 25W | 15W |
The same can be said about both companies' charging efforts. You won't find super-speedy 100 W charging here, just the safe numbers that standard USB C chargers can provide. It's worth noting that Apple's new MagSafe (Qi2) chargers can provide 25 W of power. The Galaxy S25 Ultra is semi-compatible with Qi2 (no magnets), but caps out at 15 W.
Specs Comparison
So, here's what we know so far about the iPhone 17 Pro Max vs Galaxy S25 Ultra specs:
| iPhone 17 Pro Max | Galaxy S25 Ultra |
|---|---|
| Size, weight 163.0 x 77.6 x 8.73 mm | Size, weight 162.8 x 77.6 x 8.2 mm 218 g |
| Screen 6.9" OLED 120Hz ProMotion 3,000 nits peak brightness | Screen 6.9" AMOLED 120Hz 2,600 nits peak brightness |
| Processor A19 Pro 3nm | Processor Snapdragon 8 Elite 3nm |
| Versions: 12GB/256GB 12GB/512GB 12GB/1TB LPDDR5 | Versions: 12GB/256GB 12GB/512GB 12GB/1TB LPDDR5X |
| Cameras: 48MP main 48MP ultra 48MP 5X zoom 24MP front | Cameras: 200MP main 50MP ultra 10MP 3X zoom 50MP 5X zoom 12MP front |
| Battery: 4,700+ mAh | Battery: 5,000 mAh |
| Charging: USB-C 27W wired 25W MagSafe 2.0 | Charging: USB-C 45W wired 15W Qi2 |
Summary
The iPhone 17 Pro Max will be another incremental step to improve on things that are honestly pretty good right now. Of course, we obviously don't have the full picture just yet, but nothing spicy or groundbreaking has leaked or been speculated about.
Then again, that's pretty much what the Galaxy S25 Ultra was, too — a small step forward for the Galaxy S flagship, and plenty of S24 Ultra owners are still happy with their "older" device and not even thinking about an upgrade.
So, the question is, will the 2025 Apple flagship be "better" than the 2025 Samsung flagship? Jury is still out, our best bet — they will be comparable and close. Of course, that doesn't mean that they won't be the cause for many a heated argument!
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