Apple has just announced the flagship iPhone 16 range, with the iPhone 16 Pro Max sitting atop the pile as the ultimate iPhone in 2024. The question is, how does it compare to the popular Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra?
While there are obvious differences between the two – like the iPhone running iOS and the Galaxy S24 Ultra running Android – there are other key differences between the two that could sway your buying decision.
The iPhone 16 Pro Max, for example, offers a few extra hardware buttons that make the everyday iOS experience easier, while the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has a built-in S Pen to make taking notes much easier.
Both also have a huge focus on generative AI this year in the form of Apple Intelligence and Galaxy AI respectively, and although both offer a combination of primary, periscope and ultrawide lenses, there are clear differences in camera offering too.
While we’ve not yet gone hands-on with the iPhone 16 Pro Max, we’ve spent plenty of time with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, and here’s how the two flagship smartphones compare on paper.
Pricing and availability
Both the iPhone 16 Pro Max and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra are flagship smartphones, and that means they’re pretty pricey.
The iPhone 16 Pro Max matches the pricing of its predecessor, the iPhone 15 Pro Max, starting at £1,199/$1,199 with 256GB of storage, with 512GB and 1TB variants also available.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has a similar RRP of £1,249/$1,299, with 512GB and 1TB options available at an additional cost, though it’s worth noting that the phone can be found for much cheaper as it has been on sale since January 2024, meaning you could find yourself a bargain on the Android flagship.
The iPhone 16 Pro Max has handy additional buttons
Apple has leant into new physical buttons in the past few generations of iPhone; it started with the Action button, available on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, and this year’s iPhone introduced the Camera Control button.
The Action button is essentially a reprogrammable button that replaces the silent switch found on older iPhones, allowing you to program a series of shortcuts to the button. This can range from simple tasks like turning on your torch to more advanced features like running a Shortcut that’ll control your smart home.
Then there’s the Camera button, new to the iPhone 16 collection, that acts like a physical camera shutter for the Camera app. You can softly press it to focus the camera, and a full press captures the shot. However, it’s also touch capacitive, so you also can swipe left and right to zoom in and out.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, on the other hand, comes with the regular combination of volume buttons and a power button, with no extra buttons to offer more advanced functionality.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has a better digital zoom
The iPhone 16 Pro Max has a pretty solid camera offering, fronted by a 48MP sensor and backed by dual 12MP ultrawide and periscope lenses, with the latter delivering 5x optical zoom that can be boosted up to 15x using digital zoom.
In fact, this remains the same as that offered by the iPhone 15 Pro Max, though it is an upgrade on the 3x telephoto of the iPhone 15 Pro that capped out at 9x – but that’s not that relevant here.
That’s a pretty good offering, but it still can’t quite compete with the extreme zoom offered by the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s 50MP 5x periscope lens, which can offer 100x digital zoom. It’s arguable whether it’s a useful feature, given that 100x shots generally look incredibly blurry, but it’s a handy thing to have in the back pocket.
There’s also a 200MP main camera, retained from the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and a 12MP ultrawide lens for those scenic vistas, offering some real competition for Apple’s top-end 2024 smartphone.
The iPhone 16 Pro Max boasts Apple Intelligence
One of the big focuses of both the iPhone 16 and iOS 18 is Apple Intelligence, Apple’s long-awaited entry into the world of generative AI – and it’s a pretty big first offering. As well as a generally smarter, more useful Siri that runs on-device, Apple is offering a slate of GenAI-powered tools, from photo editing tech to the ability to create custom emoji dubbed Genmoji.
It also integrates with other forms of AI, starting with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. This means that if you ask Siri to do something it can’t do, it’ll automatically pass that over to ChatGPT. This includes functions like image generation, which Apple Intelligence doesn’t currently offer, and it means you can take advantage of ChatGPT Plus in a native way in iOS if you’re a paying subscriber.
Of course, Samsung’s flagship also has a massive focus on generative AI in the form of Galaxy AI. While it offers a range of tools, from rewriting text messages to translating phone calls and moving or removing subjects from photos, it’s not quite as varied as what Apple Intelligence offers.
There is a catch, however; Apple Intelligence features will roll out to the iPhone 16 Pro Max slowly over the next year, while Samsung’s Galaxy AI is available right now. Apple Intelligence is also a US exclusive while it hashes out privacy worries with the EU, UK and other markets, further limiting who can use the technology.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has a built-in stylus
For all the strengths of the iPhone 16 Pro Max, there’s one area where it can’t compete with Samsung’s high-end alternative; stylus support.
Not only does the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra offer stylus support, making great use of its huge 6.8-inch OLED screen, but it actually comes with its own specially designed S Pen. What’s more, the stylus lives within the chassis of the phone when not in use for extremely easy access without the need for a bulky case.
This means that you can not only doodle and hand-write notes on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, but you can also use the S Pen to control presentation slides, remotely activate the camera shutter for group photos and much more.
It remains the only top-end Android smartphone with a built-in stylus, making it one of the key reasons to opt for the Galaxy S24 Ultra over practically any other smartphone – and that includes the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
The iPhone 16 Pro Max will likely be more powerful
While we can’t say this for certain until we’ve spent some time with, and benchmarked, the iPhone 16 Pro Max, but it’s safe to assume that the new 3nm Apple A18 Pro chipset found in the top-end smartphone will outpace the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
Despite the fact that both are flagship chipsets, Apple’s iPhone SoCs have been comfortably more powerful than the Android competition for years, with even the two-year-old A16 Bionic found on the iPhone 15 able to beat the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra in benchmark testing, so a state-of-the-art chipset will likely run rings around the 8 Gen 3.
Again, we’ll confirm for sure once we go hands-on, but we’re quietly confident of this.
Early Verdict
There’s a lot to like about both the iPhone 16 Pro Max and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, and the winner will likely depend on personal preference as both offer a flagship-level experience throughout.
If you’re a dedicated iOS fan, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is an easy choice, but the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra offers more capable camera hardware, stylus support and more, making it a tougher choice than one might initially expect.
We’ll hold our final thoughts until we’ve spent some time with the iPhone 16 Pro Max, however, so check back soon for our deep dive and final verdict on these two titans of the smartphone industry.
