Galaxy S25 vs. iPhone 16 Professional

So, you might be available in the market for a strong compact flagship cellphone, and you might be able to dig deep in your pocket for one of many world’s heavy-hitters, the Samsung Galaxy S25 and the Apple iPhone 16 Professional? In case, after all, you aren’t essentially invested in both ecosystem.

Properly, the 2 units are very totally different with regards to {hardware}, software program and value. The one frequent floor they share is footprint. These are the newest and best compact premium options from Samsung and Apple, so it is solely pure to place them face to face.

Desk of Contents:

For starters, you may examine the whole specs sheets or straight proceed with our editor’s evaluation within the following textual content.

Measurement comparability

If portability is a prime precedence, then the Galaxy S25 is the clear reply right here. Certain, it homes a barely smaller show, 0.1″ smaller, but it surely’s significantly extra compact in actual life. It is shorter, narrower and thinner, so it appears like a a lot smaller system in hand. To not point out lighter.

The Galaxy S25 is greater than 30 grams lighter than its competitor, and though that does not sound like a lot, it is an enormous distinction in hand.

Construct quality-wise, the iPhone has a slight benefit because it options the newest and best Apple can supply (titanium body and Ceramic Defend glass), whereas the Galaxy S25 is a step down from the S25 Extremely with an aluminum body and Gorilla Glass Victus 2.

Ingress safety is matched at IP68, although Apple certifies their units to face up to immersion at a a lot better depth than Samsung (6m vs 1.5m).

Show comparability

Each units supply wonderful shows and are very related in dimension too. Nevertheless, the iPhone takes the lead with Dolby Imaginative and prescient help, barely greater decision (not that it issues a lot) and can be brighter. Do not get us fallacious, the S25’s panel is completely positive even within the brightest of days, however the iPhone 16 Professional’s max brightness is difficult to disregard – mid 1,700 nits vs. virtually 1,400 nits.

Take note the notch, although. Although Apple makes use of it as a characteristic, it takes significantly extra display actual property than the punch-hole for the selfie cam on the S25.

Battery life

If we strictly have a look at the Lively Use Rating, one may argue the iPhone 16 Professional has solely marginally higher battery life. The Galaxy S25 even has an extended name runtime and barely higher gaming rating, however the 16 Professional outperforms the S25 in net searching/social community scrolling by a landslide whereas providing a barely higher video streaming rating too, that are arguably the principle two makes use of for modern-day smartphones.

Charging pace

Neither system has a formidable charging price, and it is also exhausting to find out the winner right here. Based on our checks, the Galaxy S25 is the clear winner of the complete charging cycle by outpacing the iPhone 16 Professional by round 21 minutes.

Conversely, the iPhone 16 Professional beats the S25 to the primary two checkpoints at 15 and half-hour by just a few percentages. Nonetheless, we might give the Galaxy S25 the win because it’s meaningfully sooner on the end, whereas the iPhone is just negligibly faster within the first half-hour.

Speaker check

The Galaxy S25 and the iPhone 16 Professional commerce blows on this class, with the previous profitable within the loudness comparability and the latter by providing higher tuning or sound high quality, nonetheless you prefer to name it.

We discover the iPhone 16 Professional’s tuning hotter with extra expressive bass, so tracks sound fuller and livelier.

Efficiency

The Galaxy S25 depends on Qualcomm’s newest and best Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, with the “for Galaxy” designation suggesting barely greater clocks on the principle CPU cores and the GPU in comparison with the usual chipset utilized in different Android telephones.

The iPhone 16 Professional, however, runs on an in-house designed chip, Apple A18 Professional, which traditionally has outperformed its rivals, however not this 12 months.

Each units supply 128GB of inside storage by default, which is fairly low for a high-end smartphone, however whereas the S25 can provide you 512GB at greatest, the 16 Professional has a 1TB model. The 16 Professional’s NVMe storage is notably sooner than the S25’s UFS 4.0 too. The 128GB model of the Galaxy additionally most likely makes use of slower storage than that as UFS 4.0 is just accessible in sizes 256GB and up.

Notably, all iPhone 16 Professional configurations have 8GB of RAM, whereas the S25 runs on 12GB, irrespective of the storage.

Benchmark efficiency

As we identified earlier, Apple’s silicon has traditionally been extra highly effective than its friends, however this 12 months, Qualcomm outdid itself and launched a considerably extra highly effective chip. The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy outperforms the A18 Professional in multi-core eventualities by 21%, a minimum of on this specific comparability between the Galaxy S25 and the iPhone 16 Professional. In GPU-heavy workloads like 3DMark’s Wild Life Excessive, the S25 beats the iPhone 16 Professional by round 38%.

Digicam comparability

The 2 units characteristic very totally different digicam {hardware}. Judging solely by the specs sheet, the iPhone 16 Professional is the clear winner right here. It has an even bigger most important 48MP sensor, a 12MP telephoto digicam with 5x optical zoom, and a stronger 48MP ultrawide digicam.

The Galaxy S25 sits within the reverse nook with a 50MP most important digicam, 10MP telephoto shooter with 3x optical zoom and 12MP ultrawide snapper.

The selfie recreation of each handsets is excellent – 12MP front-facing shooter with autofocus for the Galaxy S25 and 12MP selfie, autofocus-enabled unit for the iPhone 16 Professional.

Picture high quality

Off to the precise digicam comparability, we see an identical high quality with a slight benefit of the iPhone 16 Professional. In virtually all instances, the iPhone 16 Professional provides you with sharper stills with a bit extra element and a wider dynamic vary. That is true in each daylight and low-light eventualities. And that is even earlier than you activate the 24MP mode.

Galaxy S25: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x • 5x

iPhone 16 Professional: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x • 5x

The one case during which the S25 outperforms the iPhone 16 Professional is within the 3x zoom, which is to be anticipated on condition that the iPhone must crop from the principle digicam, whereas the Galaxy S25 has a devoted 3x telephoto unit. Alternatively, the 16 Professional has a 5x digicam, which produces nicer pictures at its corresponding focal size. We have been stunned by the Galaxy S25’s capability to shoot in 5x, although, because it will get fairly near the iPhone 16 Professional in daylight eventualities.

Galaxy S25: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x • 5x

iPhone 16 Professional: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x • 5x

Video high quality

Beneath, now we have just a few framegrabs from the movies taken by the 2 telephones at every focal size so it is simpler to match to 1 one other.

Galaxy S25 video framegrabs: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x • 5x

iPhone 16 Professional video framegrabs: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x • 5x

Video recording is the place the iPhone 16 Professional excels. The 16 Professional delivers noticeably higher movies evening and day apart from the ultrawide digicam, the place the 2 units produce considerably related movies and within the 3x zoom mode, the place the Galaxy S25 has an edge on account of its bodily zoom cam.

Galaxy S25 video framegrabs: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x • 5x

iPhone 16 Professional video framegrabs: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x • 5x

Verdict

The Galaxy S25 and the iPhone 16 Professional are undoubtedly among the many greatest compact flagship telephones on the market. Nevertheless, the iPhone 16 Professional looks like the higher cellphone general, with its brighter show, higher digicam system, longer battery life and better-sounding audio system. However it’s additionally the dearer cellphone too. It sells for slightly over €1,000 in Europe and $1,000 within the US, so it prices as a lot as a Galaxy S25+ (once you equate for storage), whereas the Galaxy S25 asks €800/$800. That is a 200 bucks distinction, which might hardly go unnoticed.

Along with the outlined benefits, the iPhone has UWB help, satellite tv for pc messaging and a extra premium construct. These are usually not essentially game-changer options, however a few of you could recognize them.

Alternatively, the Galaxy S25 is lighter and extra compact than the 2, it is barely sooner to cost, packs extra uncooked horsepower beneath the hood and is notably cheaper. And if you’re into that AI stuff, you may get pleasure from many of the options on Samsung’s One UI software program straight away, whereas Apple is but to ship all of its deliberate AI-powered options, not to mention launch them in Europe.