We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to deliver a comparison between the ultimate rivals – the Galaxy and iPhone. You may already know which of the two is your dream phone, but many people would like to know how these two match up against each other in more objective metrics. So, here it is – the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra versus the Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max!
Table of Contents:
For starters, you can compare the complete specs sheets or directly continue with our editor’s assessment in the text further down below.
Size comparison
The Galaxy S24 Ultra has a larger screen which makes it the larger phone. It also weighs more, but keep in mind that it houses a stylus inside its body.
Still, the size difference is mostly marginal. However, the design of the two phones is radically different. Samsung’s signature rectangle shape with right-angled corners and separate camera rings is just as recognizable as the iPhone’s rounded corners and arguably busier camera island. Both companies have had years to perfect these designs, so there is nothing radically new here, but we are sure each one will have its own fans.
Both smartphones feature titanium frames and offer IP68 ingress protection. The iPhone has extended water protection since Apple claims it can survive in up to 6m deep water for half an hour, compared to 1.5m for the Galaxy.
We cannot say that one is better than the other as both are quite different. However, the iPhone does trump the Galaxy with its higher water ingress protection rating.
Display comparison
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has a larger display with higher pixel density and supports S-Pen input. It also offers a smaller camera cutout and higher peak brightness.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max’s display has a higher manual and automatic brightness than the Galaxy, along with Dolby Vision support on top of HDR10+ video.
Not to mention that the bigger camera cutout on the iPhone comes with Apple’s FaceID, which works for secure unlocking, and Apple has found a way to add some clever functionality around it with the Dynamic Island.
Overall, both displays are as premium as their makers can offer today. Nobody would be able to see the difference in the pixel density as it is not that major. Both offer outstanding contrast, brightness, and color specs.
Before we wrap this section up, we should mention a few issues with the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s display. One of them is the slight graininess that can be observed at very low brightness levels when you use your phone in a dark setting.
Samsung also received a lot of flak for its muted color rendition, even in the Vivid color mode, but this has since been addressed with a firmware update, and users can now pick their desired level of vividness with a slider.
So, wrapping up this section, you’d get the Galaxy for the combination of the S-Pen, the built-in fingerprint sensor, and the smaller punch-hole selfie cam. You will go for the iPhone Pro Max if you lean into Dolby Vision content and think you will enjoy the seamless FaceID and Dynamic Island functionality offered by iOS.
Battery life
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is powered by a 5,000mAh battery, while the iPhone 15 Pro Max has a 4,441mAh cell.
Despite the fact that the iPhone has a smaller battery capacity, it managed to beat the Galaxy S24 Ultra in our battery life test. It scored better across all of our test scenarios except for voice calls, resulting in an Active Use score of 16:01 hours compared to 13:49 hours for the Galaxy.
Both scores are excellent; it’s just that the iPhone performs slightly better.
Charging speed
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra supports up to 45W fast charging, while the iPhone 15 Pro Max maxes out at 20W. And while both charging solutions are nowhere near the fastest on the market, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is the phone that recharges faster of the two.
Beyond wired charging, both the S24 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max support 15W Qi/PMA wireless charging. However, only the Galaxy offers reverse wireless charging.
Speaker test
The S24 Ultra and the iPhone 15 Pro Max feature hybrid stereo speaker setups. There is one speaker firing out of the bottom of the handset and another one at the top end, which outputs sound forward through a slit that also serves as the earpiece.
Both phones fall into the ‘Very Good’ category for loudness in our testing, and there is minimal difference in the sound quality. While both phones offer good bass and excellent high range, the iPhone has richer mid-tones and vocals.
You can compare how the two phones sound in controlled acoustic conditions with the samples below. Just make sure you have your headphones on and the volume is at a max level.
Performance
Things don’t look any better for the S24 Ultra when it comes to raw computing power. The Apple A17 Pro chip appears to be faster than the latest Snapdragon. The S24 Ultra may have 12GB of RAM on its side, but the two mobile operating systems have different RAM requirements.
Still, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is the fastest Android silicon, so it will remain relevant for quite a while.
The Apple CPU is faster than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in both single-core and multi-core loads.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is faster in GPU-bound tests as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 seems to have faster graphics performance.
Samsung promises 7 years of major OS updates for the S24 Ultra, which looks better than Apple’s unwritten policy of offering its phones 5-6 years of major iOS updates.
The more extended software support means better value preservation overall. However, the big question is how well the hardware in a 7-year Android phone would keep up with the software in terms of performance. Nobody needs an updated phone that may be borderline unusable due to lag, whereas iPhones have already proven to be quite usable for years after launch without significant performance degradation. So, for now, we’ll call this one a tie.
However, Samsung has the upper hand by introducing Google’s latest mobile AI features on the S24 series. You can read more about those in our dedicated One UI 6.1 review, but the list includes:
- Circle to search.
- Chat translations.
- Generative AI message creation.
- Webpage summarization.
- Language interpreting for live calls or in-person convos.
- Recorded speech transcribing and summarization.
- Generative AI wallpapers and edits in the Gallery such as content-aware fill or object moving and removal.
Camera comparison
The S24 Ultra’s camera system has a new, large-sensor 5x telephoto camera, which replaces the 10x module of the previous generation. It provides great quality 5x and 10x zoom shots. The rest of the setup includes a 200MP primary unit that bins 16 pixels into 1, a 3x zoom camera, and an ultrawide camera with autofocus.
The Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max also has a new 5x periscope telephoto camera. The rest of the cameras include a familiar 48MP primary that takes 24MP photos and a 12MP ultrawide with AF. As you see, the iPhone is one camera short compared to the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Both phones offer lossless 2x zoom via cropping from their main cameras.
Photo quality
Let’s start with the ultrawide and main cameras.
The ultrawide shooters on both devices capture similar photos with identical levels of detail, high contrast, and wide dynamic range.
The iPhone takes better panoramic scene photos – with more pleasing colors and less sharpening. When it comes to closer subjects, it is the Galaxy that offers a more balanced rendition with natural-looking foliage and grass.
The Galaxy’s primary camera offers less artificial rendition, and that is why we prefer its photos over the messy iPhone ones. We are glad that Samsung has reworked its image processing algorithms this year and went for a more natural look. Even if the iPhone’s color presentation is closer to reality, we’d still go for the S24 Ultra photos.
Finally, both phones offer high-quality 2x zoom thanks to their high-resolution sensors on the main camera. The resolved details seem up to par and nearly identical, but Samsung does more sharpening for its 2x photos, and we are inclined to say its photos are more convincing than the iPhone’s because of that.