We will once again try to answer the age-old question: Samsung or Apple? Let’s be honest, not many users are making the switch between platforms these days. Still, some of you out there just want to get the best value for money and are familiar with both platforms. And if you are aiming high, then you are probably looking at Samsung’s top-end Galaxy S26 Ultra and Apple’s direct competitor, the iPhone 17 Pro Max. Both devices are definitely the best from Samsung and Apple, but the question is which one is the best for you.
If you came here reading this article to find answers, you probably are not locked in either ecosystem. So it all boils down to performance, camera, display, battery life, charging speed and, of course, pricing. If you are in the US, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is $100 more expensive, while Europeans can find the handset up to €200 cheaper than the iPhone.
Table of Contents:
For starters, you can compare the complete specs sheets or directly continue with our editor’s assessment in the following video or in the text below.
Size comparison
The Galaxy S26 Ultra and the iPhone 17 Pro Max are big phones with similar dimensions, but we’d say the Galaxy has a slight edge over the iPhone because it’s noticeably lighter and thinner.
On the other hand, you might like the iPhone’s design better. It incorporates mostly aluminum, while the S26 Ultra’s back is completely flat glass. It’s just a matter of preference.
Still, whichever phone you choose, expect excellent build quality, premium materials and feel.
Display comparison
The iPhone and the Galaxy feature very similar displays with comparable specs and features. Both offer a 120Hz refresh rate with granular control, anti-reflective coating, similar resolutions and an identical 6.9-inch diagonal.
When it comes to performance, the two OLED panels are mostly on par. Sure, according to our tests, the S26 Ultra’s display is slightly brighter on a 75% white fill, but they both get close to 3,000 nits on a 10% white patch. We believe it’s all about how Apple tuned its iPhone displays. The engineers over at Cupertino decided you don’t really need all those nits on when most of the content on the screen is white, and we get that. Ignoring the numbers, we found both displays to offer excellent sunlight legibility, even in the brightest environment.
The Samsung contender, however, has one extra trick up its sleeve and that’s Privacy Display. You can read all about it here. As the name implies, it’s a privacy feature that prevents other people from seeing the contents on your screen. In short, it limits the viewing angles, and it can be disabled or enabled at any time.
So if you are often a victim of shoulder surfing on your commute to the office, then you might find this novelty quite useful.
Battery life
When it comes to battery life, it’s easy to answer which one has a better endurance, and that’s the iPhone 17 Pro Max. Despite having a smaller battery, it outperforms the Galaxy S26 Ultra with a higher Active Use Score overall.
But once you go deeper, you will see some nuances. For instance, the S26 Ultra has a longer 4G call time and similar video streaming endurance. The 17 Pro Max, on the other hand, offers longer web browsing and gaming runtimes.
Charging speed
Samsung and Apple phones have never been the fastest ones to charge, so we had our hopes up when the smartphone makers introduced an upgrade to the charging speed of their top-tier phones. Interestingly, only the Galaxy S26 Ultra shows a meaningful improvement in charging speed. It’s now capable of 60W fast charging over Power Delivery, while the 17 Pro Max bumped up its rated charging power only to 42W.
The Galaxy S26 Ultra outpaces the 17 Pro Max by a big margin. It’s faster at the 15 and 30-minute marks and much faster to full charge. So the Galaxy S26 Ultra easily takes this one.
While both phones are rated to support 25W wireless charging over Qi2, the S26 Ultra is missing the built-in magnets needed to make use of the MPP (Magnetic Power Profile). It needs a case that has those magnets in order to offer the highest wireless charging speed possible. In contrast, the iPhone has a set of magnets built right in and supports all MagSafe accessories out of the box./p>
Speaker test
Even though the Galaxy S26 Ultra offers excellent stereo loudspeakers that are just as loud as the iPhone’s, the latter is our preferred choice as it has nicer tuning with warmer and more pronounced bass without overpowering the vocals.
Performance
Naturally, the iPhone 17 Pro Max and the Galaxy S26 Ultra run on the latest flagship chipsets, which are the most powerful mobile hardware you can get right now. The 17 Pro Max uses Apple’s A19 Pro silicon, while the S26 Ultra relies on an overclocked version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, called Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy. The main CPU cores and the GPU are a notch faster than the ones in the standard SD8 Elite Gen 5.
-While the two phones’ base memory configurations offer 12GB of RAM and 256GB internal storage, the iPhone has more flavors to choose from. The Galaxy caps at 16GB/1TB, while the 17 Pro Max also has 12GB/2TB version in addition to the 1TB and 512GB variants. So if you require plenty of storage and you have the cash to splurge, the iPhone 17 Pro Max might be a better pick.
Benchmark performance
Unfortunately, not all benchmarks offer a reliable way to compare cross-platform results from different devices, so we have only Geekbench 6 to work with.
Apple’s chipsets have always been the performance kings, but the SD8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy seems to be outpacing the A19 Pro in the multi-core test. However, the difference is pretty minor, and it doesn’t matter which route you take; you will enjoy a high-performance chipset capable of running pretty much everything you throw at it.
Perhaps it’s also important to point out a few software disparities. Samsung promises 7 years of software upgrades, while Apple gives you 5. Additionally, Samsung’s One UI gets bonus points for having arguably more useful AI features and a smarter AI assistant, Bixby. The iOS Apple Intelligence, which is Apple’s version of Galaxy AI, is a bit behind the curve. We are still waiting for many of the AI features that Apple promised us in the last year or so, and Siri is yet to receive a much-needed, AI-infused overhaul.
Camera comparison
Different, yet pretty similar, the S26 Ultra and the iPhone 17 Pro Max have versatile high-end camera systems – well, high-end within their somewhat specific context, but still. Both feature relatively similar primary cameras – the Galaxy’s 1/1.3″ sensor isn’t going to be 4 times as good as the iPhone’s 1/1.28″ imager, just because it’s 200MP vs 48MP.
The ultrawide cameras are closely specced too, and both phones feature telephotos around the 100mm mark – Samsung’s is 111mm and they’re calling it 5x zoom, the iPhone’s 100mm equivalent qualifies for a 4x label. The Galaxy also has a 3x zoom camera that sounds good as a bridge between the main and the 5x in theory, but makes little sense in practice.
Both phones feature nice selfie cameras too. The Galaxy’s 2026 improvement comes in the form of a wider lens, while the latest iPhone Pro Max features a multi-aspect sensor that can take landscape photos when you’re holding the phone vertically (works the other way around too).
Image quality
Daylight
Daylight photos from the main cameras are great from both phones. The iPhone’s 24MP resolution gives an illusion of more detail but we wouldn’t say there’s a meaningful advantage over the Galaxy’s default 12MP output. Funnily enough, the two have fairly comparable color rendition – the Galaxy isn’t too vibrant, the iPhone isn’t too dull – they’re meeting in the middle. The Samsung is a bit more lush with its greens, but it’s not a massive difference. Dynamic range is excellent on both.
Daylight comparison, main camera (1x): Galaxy S26 Ultra • iPhone 17 Pro Max
Human subjects comparison, main camera (1x): Galaxy S26 Ultra • iPhone 17 Pro Max
At 2x zoom, the iPhone doesn’t do 24MP, so it’s a more straightforward 12MP vs. 12MP comparison. We’d say the iPhone has a bit of an edge, more in the way the detail is rendered than in the actual amount of detail, but it’s a difference that’s mostly academic. The Galaxy does lose a bit of color pop compared to its 1x rendition, making the two phones that extra bit more similar.
Daylight comparison, main camera (2x): Galaxy S26 Ultra • iPhone 17 Pro Max
Human subjects comparison, main camera (2x): Galaxy S26 Ultra • iPhone 17 Pro Max
The Galaxy’s 3x camera produces unremarkable photos in the best of circumstances. We’re not sure it’s an asset, rather than a liability – that internal space and those lines of code could have been put to better use.
Daylight samples, telephoto camera (3x): Galaxy S26 Ultra
The Galaxy’s longer telephoto and the iPhone’s, well, only telephoto are broadly comparable in their coverage, but then the iPhone can shoot in 24MP vs. the Galaxy’s 12MP so comparing detail takes some staring. You could say that both capture about the same level of texture and both have a relatively digital look – these are hardly the best telephotos on the market. The Galaxy just might be a bit more colorful in this or that scene, but it’s not universal and it’s not a big difference either way.
Daylight comparison, telephoto camera: Galaxy S26 Ultra (5x) • iPhone 17 Pro Max (4x)
Human subjects comparison, telephoto camera: Galaxy S26 Ultra (5x) • iPhone 17 Pro Max (4x)
Zooming in to twice the nominal level of the telephotos, the Galaxy’s 10x almost has a definitive advantage over the iPhone’s 8x in board daylight. That’s half the story, though – the iPhone handles dimmer indoor conditions at this level a lot better.
Daylight comparison, telephoto camera: Galaxy S26 Ultra (10x) • iPhone 17 Pro Max (8x)
In the battle of the unimpressive ultrawides (both use 1/2.5″-ish sensors), we’re getting alright images from both phones with more or less the same level of detail (even though, again, these are 12MP vs. 24MP files). The Galaxy is showing a more vivid color rendition, a bit more noticeably so than on the other cameras, but that’s about all the difference there is.
Daylight comparison, ultrawide camera (0.6x): Galaxy S26 Ultra • iPhone 17 Pro Max
Low light
Some of the low-light samples below have been shot on different occasions with the two phones. The first two scenes have been shot at the same time, while the iPhone’s samples for the third and fourth scene have been taken from its review and the Galaxy’s samples were captured separately.
In the dark, both phones have strong opinions about their auto processing, and neither is particularly keen to do aggressive night mode action. We feel like that’s preventing both from realizing their full potential. That’s more readily apparent on the Galaxy, which in general tends to produce too soft and noisy images and it requires going through hoops to get it to apply dedicated low-light processing and get the most out of a scene.
Anyway, 1x photos are alright on both phones, and they look just about comparable next to each other if not exactly state-of-the-art if you venture outside of their limited context. It’s probably this complacency with being just about as good as the archrival that’s at the root of us not having nice things on Galaxies and iPhones.
Low-light comparison, main camera (1x), full auto: Galaxy S26 Ultra • iPhone 17 Pro Max
Depending on the scene’s lighting, the Galaxy may not be able to engage any night mode, or it may give you a hint of sorts that night mode is available but not really trigger it itself, or it may be dark enough that it will do everything on its own – the results will differ, somewhat wildly. First scene – yes night mode processing in both samples, second scene – no night mode in either sample, third and fourth scene – no night mode above, yes night mode below. The iPhone is a bit more reliable in its behavior – no night mode in scenes 1, 3, and 4 above, yes night mode in scene 2 above and all of the samples below.
Low-light comparison, main camera (1x), Night mode (most of the time): Galaxy S26 Ultra • iPhone 17 Pro Max
At 2x zoom in full auto, the iPhone has the upper hand, capturing finer textures and looking noticeably sharper.
Low-light comparison, main camera (2x): Galaxy S26 Ultra • iPhone 17 Pro Max
The Galaxy can clean up a little if you can get its night mode processing to work for you, but even then it remains behind the iPhone’s full auto result.
Low-light samples, main camera (2x), Night mode: Galaxy S26 Ultra
The Galaxy’s 3x telephoto isn’t bringing a lot to the table, capturing relatively soft detail and overall bleak colors and contrast. Night mode does give the photos a boost improving on all the issues mentioned. Why not do that automatically?
Low-light samples, telephoto camera (3x): Galaxy S26 Ultra
Low-light samples, telephoto camera (3x), Night mode: Galaxy S26 Ultra
Moving to the ‘real’ telephotos, the Galaxy’s 5x camera just might have a tangible advantage for a change. Its photos are sharper and show better definition in well-lit areas and shadows alike. The iPhone’s full auto 24MP shots are still decent, but they can be gritty in some areas while also smoothing out texture at the same time.
Low-light comparison, telephoto camera: Galaxy S26 Ultra (5x) • iPhone 17 Pro Max (4x)
Leveraging the iPhone’s night mode does help it a bit, but we’d still be inclined to give the Galaxy the nod.
Low-light comparison, telephoto camera, Night mode: Galaxy S26 Ultra (5x) • iPhone 17 Pro Max (4x)
At 10x/8x zoom, things are more or less on par.
Low-light comparison, telephoto camera: Galaxy S26 Ultra (10x) • iPhone 17 Pro Max (8x)
The ultrawides are comparably soft and noisy in full auto between the two phones – the photos are usable, just not particularly likeable.
Low-light comparison, ultrawide camera: Galaxy S26 Ultra • iPhone 17 Pro Max
Getting a bit of more intense night mode action helps the Galaxy more than it does the iPhone and we’d prefer the Ultra’s shots in these circumstances.
Low-light comparison, ultrawide camera, Night mode: Galaxy S26 Ultra • iPhone 17 Pro Max
Selfies
Selfies are great on both phones, but there are nuances. The Galaxy’s absolute image quality is hard to rival, with some of the finest facial hair renditions we’ve seen out of a smartphone. The iPhone does offer even wider coverage (20mm focal length) than the Galaxy’s newly adopted 23mm lens, and the versatility of the multi-aspect sensor can be of use. Both will give you likeable skin tones and great colors overall, though you might like one rendition better than the other.
Selfies comparison: Galaxy S26 Ultra • iPhone 17 Pro Max
Video quality
Video capabilities are also wide-ranging on the two phones. You get 4K60 all around from both the Galaxy and the iPhone, and both can do 4K24 on all cameras too. 4K120 available on the main camera and the ultrawide on the Galaxy, while the iPhone’s 4K120 is only available on the main camera on the back. For what it’s worth, the S26 Ultra also allows for 8K30 capture at 0.6x, 1x, and 5x. Dolby Vision recording is possible on both phones and both offer recording to external storage and pro-grade codecs (Samsung’s AVC vs. Apple’s ProRes). Some serious stuff.
Ultrawide 4K30 videos are meaningfully sharper on the iPhone – the Galaxy’s take is good for a midrange phone, but a bit out of place here. The Galaxy has a bit more saturation here, but both are more or less on the same page. Dynamic range is excellent on both.
Main camera clips at 1x are barely distinguishable between the two, other than a hint of an advantage for the iPhone in terms of sharpness – even the color rendition is almost the same. That remains unchanged at 2x, with almost identical global properties and better sharpness on the iPhone.
The iPhone’s 4x footage is also a bit more detailed, with better definition than the Galaxy’s 5x clips. The iPhone has better contrast here too, next to a more washed out looking S26 Ultra. At 8x vs. 10x, the iPhone’s contrast advantage remains, and it also maintains an edge in detail.
Daylight video screengrabs, Galaxy S26 Ultra: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x • 5x • 10x
Daylight video screengrabs, iPhone 17 Pro Max: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 4x • 8x
In low light, the ultrawides are about on par offering comparably soft results, though the iPhone footage is cleaner. At 1x, the iPhone is also ahead in terms of sharpness and noise performance, though both do well with dynamic range and color. 2x zoom clips are also looking better coming from the iPhone. (Sidenote: The iPhone samples were shot at a time when the building on the right was illuminated by amber lights and they are rendered well by the 17 Pro Max. They were subsequently replaced with more neutral ones, captured similarly accurately by the S26 Ultra.)
Looking at the telephotos, it’s a bit of a tossup. The iPhone’s lens has all sorts of internal reflections (a long-standing trait of iPhone lenses) but the clips are still sharper and cleaner. The Galaxy’s sort-of-periscope ALoP lens has a simpler light path so it’s nowhere as prone to flare, but footage is grainier. 10x isn’t great from either one, but maybe the iPhone’s is still superior.
Low-light video screengrabs, Galaxy S26 Ultra: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x • 5x • 10x
Low-light video screengrabs, iPhone 17 Pro Max: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 4x • 8x
Verdict
At the end of the day, which one should you get? The iPhone or the Galaxy? This is always the hardest question, and the answer is often “it depends.” Let’s assume you are okay with all the iOS and Android quirks, features and shortcomings, and you are generally looking for the better overall hardware and experience.
But even then, it’s not a clear-cut. The Galaxy gives you generally a more feature-rich display thanks to its Privacy Display novelty, it’s much faster to charge, it’s thinner and lighter, offers better selfies, and, of course, has an S Pen. We didn’t talk much about that since it’s a standard feature for Ultras these days, but it’s a noteworthy one for sure. Additionally, you get two years longer software support with the S26 Ultra, compared to the iPhone.
Even though both phones offer advanced, pro-grade video recording capabilities (APV codec on the Galaxy and ProRAW on the iPhone), the S26 Ultra one-ups the iPhone 17 Pro Max with its new Horizon Lock feature.
Conversely, if you are looking for longer battery life, magnetic wireless charging accessory compatibility, nicer-sounding speakers and better videos, get the iPhone.
Mind the pricing, too. As already mentioned, the iPhone 17 Pro Max has an advantage in the US by asking $100 less than the Galaxy, but in Europe, it’s the other way around, with the S26 Ultra being as much as €150-200 cheaper than its rival. That’s a price gap worth considering, which will widen with time, in favor of the S26 Ultra.
- The lighter and thinner design.
- The Privacy Display feature.
- The faster charging.
- The best selfies on the market.
- The 8K video recording and Horizon Lock video mode
- The longer software support.
- The S Pen.
- The more advanced Galaxy AI features.
- The lower price tag in Europe.
Get the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra for:
- The longer battery life.
- The better-sounding speakers.
- The overall better videos.
- The 2TB storage option.
- The MagSafe compatibility out of the box.
- The lower price tag in the USA.
Get the Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max for: