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Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra vs iPhone 15 Pro Max: expected differences

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Intro

Both come with big screens, the most advanced chips available, perfected camera systems, and a long lasting battery life.

In a nutshell, the Galaxy S24 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max are as cutting edge as it gets, but what are the differences between the two?
Galaxy S24 UltraiPhone 15 Pro Max
Galaxy has sharp corners and is slightly bigger and heavieriPhone has rounded corners and weighs less
Slightly larger 6.8-inch screen with higher 2,600 nits peak brightness6.7-inch screen with 2,000 nits peak brightness
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip in the US
Exynos 2400 in some other markets		Apple A17 Pro chip
Runs on Android 14 with Samsung One UIRuns on Apple’s iOS
Configurations with either 8GB or 12GB RAMAll configurations have 8GB RAM
Four cameras on the back, including both a 3X zoom and a new 5X zoom periscopeThree cameras on the back (lacks 3X zoom native camera)
Comes with S PenDoes not have built-in stylus
Only standard power and volume buttonsHas customizable physical Action Button
Ultrasonic fingerprint readerFace ID system
Larger 5000mAh battery size (but battery life is yet to be seen)4,422mAh battery size
Faster charging speeds at up to 45W25W max charging speed (via wire)
Expected same $1,200 starting price$1,200 starting price

Design and Size

The Galaxy is bigger, the iPhone offers titanium

When it comes to design and styling, the Galaxy and iPhone each have a distinct look. The Galaxy S24 Ultra design is characterized by a bigger footprint, the phone is wider, weighs a bit more, plus it has these signature sharp corners. The iPhone 15 Pro Max, on the other hand, has a more traditional look with rounded corners. The iPhone also weighs less thanks to that new titanium body.

When it comes to buttons, the power and volume keys are all on the right side on the Galaxy, while on the iPhone the power button is on the right while the volume keys are on the left which makes it a bit easier to press these together to take a screenshot, for example.

The iPhone also has one extra button: the new Action button! We love the idea, it’s a programmable button which you can set to what you want, but we don’t love the placing as it is in the far top left corner and a bit out of reach.

For the first time, you now have USB-C on the iPhone, just like the Galaxy has had for the last decade or so. That’s really nice and means you no longer need to look for proprietary Lightning cables.

Of course, you also have the S Pen tucked inside the Galaxy, and it remains the only phone with this cool stylus inside it. However, we don’t expect to see any changes to the functionality of the S Pen this year.

Both phones are also IP68 water and dust protected, just like pretty much all other flagships.

When it comes to colors, here are the expected color options for the Galaxy S24 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Galaxy S24 Ultra colors (as per leaks):

  • Black
  • Gray
  • Violet
  • Yellow
  • Orange – Samsung online exclusive 
  • Light blue – Samsung online exclusive
  • Light green – Samsung online exclusive

iPhone 15 Pro Max colors (official):

  • Titanium Black
  • Titanium Gray
  • Titanium Blue
  • Titanium Silver

Both phones will arrive in slim boxes with just a charging cable, but no charger.

Display Differences

The wider size of the Galaxy allows for a more spacious screen too: you get a 6.8-inch screen compared to a 6.7-inch display on the iPhone 15 Pro Max. But not only that, the screen has a wider 19:3:9 aspect ratio (the iPhone has a 19.5:9), so the actual screen area on the Galaxy is even bigger than the display diagonal numbers alone suggest.

The new thing with the Galaxy is that it uses a flat screen now with only the glass ever so slightly curved at the edges, and the iPhone also uses a flat screen. We find this change for the better.

Both phones support a high resolution, but the Galaxy should be just a bit sharper with a 1440p resolution.

Both also support 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, and can go down to just 1Hz with statics content.

One area where the Galaxy is expected to – quite literally – outshine the iPhone is screen brightness. The S24 Ultra should be able to hit 2,600 nits max brightness, while the iPhone reaches 2,000 nits. That’s particularly useful outdoors on a sunny day, but not very important otherwise.

As for biometrics, the Galaxy relies on an in-screen fingerprint scanner of the ultrasonic kind, and in previous generations this scanner has proven to be reliable and fast enough. Additionally, you also have image based face recognition too. On the iPhone, you only have Face ID, which uses a 3D model of your face. Both a fingerprint and face recognition are nice to have, and it really depends on personal preference which one you use.

Performance and Software

Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 vs Apple A17 Pro
When it comes to performance, the battle is getting heated. Apple’s new A17 Pro chip, the world’s first based on a 3nm process, has not quite lived up to the huge hype, and then on the other hand, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is coming with a new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip inside, which – rumors say – has found the perfect balance between increased performance and power efficiency.

It’s still too early to judge of course, but we will be updating this section with performance benchmarks and more information as it comes in.

One disclaimer here: Samsung might go back to offering different versions of the Galaxy S24 in different markets. The US and many other popular markets are expected to get the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, but some countries will probably get a version of the S24 Ultra with a Samsung Exynos chip instead.

However, as you can see in the benchmark scores above, the Snapdragon Galaxy model should beat the iPhone in terms of graphics performance and even outscore it slightly in multi-core CPU performance.

In terms of configurations, you will have the same choice for the Galaxy and iPhone: 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of storage. For the Galaxy, all those models are paired with 12GB of RAM, while the iPhone comes with 8GB of RAM.
Of course, the big difference will be in the actual software. The Galaxy is expected to run on Samsung’s new One UI 6 software on top of Android 14, while the iPhone runs on iOS 17. Both have their distinct advantages, but we’ll be looking out to see what software commitment will Samsung take upon. Google has recently announced seven years of software updates for the Pixel 8 series, and Samsung has so far offered four years. Apple does not officially disclose how many years it will support its phones, but it’s usually around five to six years.
One interesting tid-bit that Apple has included in recent iPhones is satellite connectivity, and so far, this feature has not made it on mainstream Android phones. Rumors say the Galaxy S24 Ultra might be among the first to get it, so let’s see about that.

Another detail worth knowing is that iPhone models in the United States (and only in the US) come with eSIM and NO physical SIM card slot. The Galaxy is expected to keep that physical SIM card option.

Camera

The battle centers around zoom quality and video recording

The Galaxy S24 Ultra sticks with four cameras on the back, but makes some significant changes to one of them, while the iPhone 15 Pro Max features three cameras on the back including a brand new 5X tetraprism zoom lens.

Which one is better?

We don’t know yet, but let’s look at what we do know. First of all, despite a 200MP main sensor, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is expected to still default to 12MP shots, while the iPhone 15 Pro Max now captures 24MP photos, with the promise for more detail.

Samsung is also expected to make big changes to image processing, now going for a more true-to-life look in pictures with less aggressive sharpening and saturation, which is the most common complaint against its cameras, so kudos for that.

The ultra-wide cameras have 12MP resolution on both phones.

And when it comes to zoom, the Galaxy has both a 3X and a 5X zoom lens, while the iPhone only has 5X. Not only this, the Galaxy uses a 50MP sensor for the 5X zoom shooter, meaning that it will be able to sensor crop and provide good quality at 10X and why not even 20X.

The other big battle is for video quality where the iPhone currently reigns supreme as videos from previous Galaxy phones still have a bit of noise and are not quite as clean. We are yet to see if Samsung can make big improvements there.

What Samsung does have is 8K video recording (and now that should work at 5X too), an option missing on the iPhone, but we are not sure many people really care about that considering the huge size associated with 8K video and the lack of support on most monitors and TVs.

Audio Quality and Haptics

When it comes to loudspeakers, most phones – including the Galaxy S24 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max – use a main, bottom firing loudspeaker and a helper speaker in the earpiece.

The Galaxy changes the visual look of the bottom speaker going for a pill-shaped cutout instead of the perforated design used previously, and this suggests some tweaks to the speaker are possible too.

As for haptics, vibration feedback out of the iPhone still feels a bit more refined with that Taptic Engine and while Samsung’s vibration motor is fine, we do want to see some improvements there too.

Battery Life and Charging

Can one of these last two days between charges?

With an expected 5,000 mAh battery size, the Galaxy has the theoretical advantage over the iPhone 15 Pro Max with its 4,422 mAh battery.

However, you definitely should NOT take the numbers and run only with them as there are big differences in Android and iOS in optimization.

What this means is that iOS is able to squeeze more out of the same battery size. In reality, our use with the iPhone 15 Pro Max shows we can get to two days between charges if we don’t spend too much time glued to the screen. We are yet to see if the Galaxy will be able to match that, but the new rumored power efficiencies of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 should help.

When it comes to charging, the Galaxy is projected to be faster at 45W speeds compared to 20W speed on the iPhone. Okay, in reality, the iPhone can hit around 25W charging speeds (higher than the Apple advertized 20W), but that still means you have to wait for around 1 hour and 40 minutes for a full charge, while the Galaxy should top up in just around 1 hour.

Both also support wireless charging, but the iPhone also comes with the magnetic MagSafe support and 15W charging speed support, while the Galaxy should be rated at 10W+ and regular Qi charging.

Specs Comparison

Samsung Galaxy S24 UltraApple iPhone 15 Pro Max
Size, weight162.3 × 79 × 8.6mm
233 g		159.9 x 76.7 x 8.25 mm
221 g
Display6.8″ OLED
120Hz dynamic
2,600 nits peak		6.7″ OLED
120Hz dynamic
2,000 nits peak
ProcessorSnapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy in US
Exynos 2400 in UK/EU		Apple A17 Pro
RAM, Storage12/256GB
12/512GB
12/1TB

LPDDR5X

8/256GB
8/512GB
8/1TB

LPDDR5

Cameras200MP main
12MP ultra-wide
10MP 3X telephoto
50MP 5X periscope, f/3.4

12MP front

48MP main, f/1.8
12MP ultra-wide, f/2.2
12MP 5X telephoto, f/2.8
–

12MP front

Battery5000 mAh4422 mAh
Charging45W wired
15W wireless		20W wired
15W MagSafe wireless

We are really curious to see how that change in the Galaxy camera will work out and whether it will actually be for the better considering that previously you had a longer-range 10X zoom camera.

Summary

When you draw the line in the sand, each of these two stick to their own game.

The Galaxy is the bigger phone, it has the S Pen for those who care, and the customization and openness of Android, plus a new and modernized camera system.

The iPhone on the other hand, has finally caught up with the zoom situation, and it offers the beauty of iOS and the closed Apple ecosystem, and it is expected to have the slightly longer battery life.

Price-wise, these should be quite the same, starting at around $1,200.

So… which team are you on, team Apple or team Galaxy, and why?



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