Galaxy S25 vs. iPhone 16 Professional

So, you’re available in the market for a robust compact flagship telephone, and you’re 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, in fact, you aren’t essentially invested in both ecosystem.

Nicely, the 2 gadgets are very completely different in terms of {hardware}, software program and value. The one frequent floor they share is footprint. These are the newest and biggest 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 evaluate 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. Positive, it homes a barely smaller show, 0.1″ smaller, however it’s significantly extra compact in actual life. It is shorter, narrower and thinner, so it appears like a a lot smaller machine 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 biggest Apple can provide (titanium body and Ceramic Protect 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 gadgets to resist immersion at a a lot better depth than Samsung (6m vs 1.5m).

Show comparability

Each gadgets provide glorious shows and are very comparable in measurement too. Nevertheless, the iPhone takes the lead with Dolby Imaginative and prescient help, barely greater decision (not that it issues a lot) and can also be brighter. Do not get us flawed, the S25’s panel is completely wonderful even within the brightest of days, however the iPhone 16 Professional’s max brightness is tough to disregard – mid 1,700 nits vs. nearly 1,400 nits.

Bear in mind the notch, although. Though Apple makes use of it as a function, it takes significantly extra display screen actual property than the punch-hole for the selfie cam on the S25.

Battery life

If we strictly take a look at the Energetic 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 internet looking/social community scrolling by a landslide whereas providing a barely higher video streaming rating too, that are arguably the primary two makes use of for modern-day smartphones.

Charging pace

Neither machine has a formidable charging fee, and it is also exhausting to find out the winner right here. In accordance with our assessments, the Galaxy S25 is the clear winner of the total 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 would give the Galaxy S25 the win because it’s meaningfully sooner on the end, whereas the iPhone is simply negligibly faster within the first half-hour.

Speaker take a look at

The Galaxy S25 and the iPhone 16 Professional commerce blows on this class, with the previous successful within the loudness comparability and the latter by providing higher tuning or sound high quality, nevertheless you wish 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 biggest Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, with the “for Galaxy” designation suggesting barely greater clocks on the primary 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 opponents, however not this yr.

Each gadgets provide 128GB of inner storage by default, which is fairly low for a high-end smartphone, however whereas the S25 may give you 512GB at finest, 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 in all probability makes use of slower storage than that as UFS 4.0 is simply 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 yr, Qualcomm outdid itself and launched a considerably extra highly effective chip. The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy outperforms the A18 Professional in multi-core situations by 21%, no less than on this explicit 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%.

Digital camera comparability

The 2 gadgets function very completely different digicam {hardware}. Judging solely by the specs sheet, the iPhone 16 Professional is the clear winner right here. It has an even bigger primary 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 primary digicam, 10MP telephoto shooter with 3x optical zoom and 12MP ultrawide snapper.

The selfie sport 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 analogous high quality with a slight benefit of the iPhone 16 Professional. In nearly all circumstances, the iPhone 16 Professional will provide you with sharper stills with a bit extra element and a wider dynamic vary. That is true in each daylight and low-light situations. 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 provided that the iPhone must crop from the primary digicam, whereas the Galaxy S25 has a devoted 3x telephoto unit. Alternatively, the 16 Professional has a 5x digicam, which produces nicer images at its corresponding focal size. We had been shocked by the Galaxy S25’s skill to shoot in 5x, although, because it will get fairly near the iPhone 16 Professional in daylight situations.

Galaxy S25: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x • 5x

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

Video high quality

Beneath, we now have just a few framegrabs from the movies taken by the 2 telephones at every focal size so it is simpler to check 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 gadgets produce considerably comparable movies and within the 3x zoom mode, the place the Galaxy S25 has an edge as a consequence 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 finest compact flagship telephones on the market. Nevertheless, the iPhone 16 Professional looks as if the higher telephone total, with its brighter show, higher digicam system, longer battery life and better-sounding audio system. But it surely’s additionally the costlier telephone too. It sells for a bit 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 will not be essentially game-changer options, however a few of it’s possible you’ll respect them.

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