Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. iPhone 16

There’s little doubt that Apple and Samsung are two of the biggest rivals in the world of flagship smartphones. Every February and September brings a new smartphone that tries to leapfrog ahead of its main competitor. This year, that’s Samsung’s Galaxy S25 coming on the heels of September’s iPhone 16.

With few design changes, the Galaxy S25 doesn’t look much different from last year’s Galaxy S24, but Samsung has packed a lot of new technology and software improvements under the hood to produce an AI-forward smartphone that’s ready for prime time. With Galaxy AI in its second generation and the Gemini now front and center, the Galaxy S25 promises to usher the company’s flagships into a new era of AI smartphones.

Android smartphones aren’t the only ones playing that game, though. Apple is coming in from behind, but the iPhone 16 is part of Apple’s first lineup of phones built for Apple’s AI generation — a new suite of tools under the banner of Apple Intelligence.

Of course, there’s more to both of these leading smartphones than just AI features, and Apple, in particular, has made a few other interesting enhancements to its iPhone 16 this year. Does Samsung’s new Galaxy S25 measure up to these and are new AI features enough to tilt the scales in Samsung’s favor? Let’s find out.

Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. iPhone 16: specs

Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. iPhone 16: design

It’s becoming more apparent every year why many smartphone manufacturers work hard to create rear camera arrays that are unique and stylish. These have become a “signature” aesthetic feature in an era where most smartphones would otherwise be virtually indistinguishable. After all, when even two of the most iconic flagship smartphone brands in the world share the same flat design, there has to be something to set them apart.

With the Galaxy S25, Samsung has proven that it’s all-in on a design that was once the exclusive domain of the iPhone. Apple went with flat sides and an edge-to-edge screen with its 2020 iPhone 12 lineup, and it seems that 2024 was the year when many Android rivals decided to follow suit, ditching their curvy edges and screens of yesteryear and going for the same look. The average user picking up an uncased Galaxy S24 could be forgiven for thinking they were holding an iPhone, and the Galaxy S25 doesn’t change the design in any meaningful way.

There are plenty of subtle differences between the Galaxy S25 and iPhone 16, of course, and anyone holding both in their hands will notice they don’t quite feel the same. The Galaxy S25 is also slightly smaller and thinner than the iPhone 16 — an impressive feat considering is boasts a 0.1-inch larger display. Nevertheless, both look eerily similar when viewed from the front and sides.

Of course, that’s where the camera arrays come in. Flip the two phones over, and you’ll have no problem identifying them, and that’s not just because of the company logos on the back. Samsung has stuck to its distinctive array of three protruding lenses that feature the more minimalist aesthetic introduced when it got rid of the camera bump with the Galaxy S23. It’s a distinctive look for Samsung’s Galaxy S-series phones, and we’re glad they’ve stayed with it.

Perhaps ironically, Apple’s iPhone 16 moved away from its iconic camera bump this year in favor of a pill-shaped bump that houses its dual lenses. It’s a nice look that departs from the square arrangement that’s been the norm since 2019. It’s a throwback to the iPhone X era and makes a lot of sense for a phone with only two cameras. Previous models seemingly tried too hard to mirror the iPhone Pro look; the iPhone 16 charts its own course.

Both phones stick with an aluminum frame — Apple and Samsung reserve titanium for their higher-end flagships — and glass on the front and back. The Galaxy S25 uses Gorilla Glass Victus 2, first introduced on the Galaxy S23, while Apple uses its own comparatively strong Ceramic Shield glass that it claims is 50% stronger for the iPhone 16. However, unlike Samsung, which uses Gorilla Glass on both sides of the Galaxy S25, Apple’s Ceramic Shield only covers the front display.

The Galaxy S25 and iPhone 16 both feature an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance. However, Apple certifies the iPhone for immersion in a maximum depth of 6 meters of water for up to 30 minutes while Samsung sticks with the more common 1.5 meter standard for the Galaxy S25.

Winner: Tie

Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. iPhone 16: display

Samsung traditionally puts its best displays on its entire Galaxy S-series lineup, which means the Galaxy S25 has essentially the same high-quality Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel as the Galaxy S25 Ultra, differing only in size and resolution.

With a variable refresh rate that runs from 1 to 120Hz and supports an always-on display mode, the Galaxy S25 has a significant edge over the iPhone 16. Apple reserves its best displays for its Pro models, inscrutably leaving even its 2024 model with a basic OLED panel and a fixed 60Hz refresh rate.

The iPhone 16 doesn’t have an always-on display, although, despite its limited refresh rate, it still boasts vibrant colors and deep blacks. It’s an excellent display for everyday use as long as you don’t care about fast-paced gaming, smooth scrolling, or better power efficiency for watching videos. It can also reach 2,000 nits of peak outdoor brightness and get as dim as one nit so you can read in the dark without hurting your eyes or disturbing those around you.

However, the Galaxy S25 beats those specs, too, reaching a maximum of 2,600 nits when used outdoors and the same minimum single-nit brightness as the iPhone 16. Still, we’ve had no problems seeing either smartphone, even in bright outdoor sunlight, so Samsung’s higher rating here feels like it’s mostly a paper spec rather than something that makes any practical difference for most folks.

Nevertheless, a smartphone with a 60Hz display in 2025 feels absurd, especially when we know Apple can do better. The Galaxy S25 easily takes this round for its variable refresh rate alone, not to mention the always-on display feature that accompanies it.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S25

Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. iPhone 16: performance

It’s always been challenging to compare performance specs for Android and Apple devices due to the significant differences in hardware and software. Flagship Android devices typically use Qualcomm Snapdragon chips, while Apple builds the iPhone on its own A-series silicon.

That continues with the Galaxy S25, which packs in an optimized “for Galaxy” version of Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. This is the direct successor to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 used in the S24, but Qualcomm has eschewed generational tags in favor of the new “Elite” brand. It’s the most powerful piece of silicon Qualcomm has ever made, with incredible new GPU capabilities and an even more potent neural processing unit (NPU) for handling AI tasks.

Meanwhile, the iPhone 16 bucks Apple’s recent trend of using year-old silicon in its standard iPhone models, adopting the latest A18 chip instead. That’s a notch below the A18 Pro used in its premium flagships, but it’s not as much of a downgrade as you may think. The difference primarily comes down to the A18 having a 5-core GPU, which is one less core than the A18 Pro. Both versions have the same 6-core CPU and 16-core Neural Engine (NPU), along with increased memory bandwidth.

Specs aside, the Galaxy S25 and iPhone 16 pack more power than most folks are likely to need. You can read our detailed comparison of the Snapdragon 8 Elite and Apple A18 Pro if you want the full rundown. Both phones run buttery smooth during everyday tasks, have more than enough oomph for the latest games, and have performance to spare for the complex on-device AI tasks both platforms offer.

If anything, the real battle comes down to high-end mobile gaming. It’s a close race here as the shortchanged GPU on the A18 gives the Galaxy S25’s Adreno GPU a lead on paper, but the iPhone ecosystem carries the day by offering the kind of AAA console games on the App Store that can actually take advantage of this extra power.

Winner: Tie

Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. iPhone 16: battery

There’s only so much battery you can squeeze into a mid-sized smartphone like the Galaxy S25 or iPhone 16, which makes getting the best battery life more about power efficiency than raw capacity. Thankfully, the leading-edge silicon in these phones delivers on that in spades.

The Galaxy S25 packs in a 4,000mAh cell, while the iPhone 16 battery is slightly smaller at 3,561mAh. Both will easily get you through a full day of heavy use, although you should expect they’ll need to hit a charger every night.

You’ll also find the two phones are evenly matched when that time comes. Samsung still hasn’t pushed its smallest flagship above 25W wired charging, and that’s where Apple’s entire iPhone lineup has always sat. Getting from 0-50% should take about 30 minutes with an appropriate charger, after which you’ll be looking at another hour or so before they’re fully topped up.

The iPhone 16 gains support for 25W wireless charging with Apple’s proprietary MagSafe charger and also supports standard 15W Qi2 charging with the Magnetic Power Profile (MPP) — essentially the open-source version of MagSafe. Samsung’s Galaxy S25 doesn’t have direct Qi2 support (there are no magnets in the phone), but Samsung offers a magnetic case that effectively adds Qi2 for those who want it, delivering wireless charging speeds up to 15W. There’s also reverse 4.5W wireless charging that can be used to power up a set of Galaxy Buds or other low-power Qi-capable devices.

Winner: Tie

Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. iPhone 16: cameras

Although Samsung’s Galaxy S25 isn’t a camera powerhouse like the Galaxy S25 Ultra, it still packs in a surprisingly capable camera system, with a 50-megapixel (MP) primary wide lens joined by a 12MP ultra-wide and a 10MP 3x telephoto. Those are identical hardware specs to last year’s Galaxy S24, but Samsung is taking advantage of new computational photography features in the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip to improve low-light photography.

This year, Samsung is also beefing up its videography features with a new “Nightography” mode for low-light recording, plus support for the professional Log V3 video format. The Galaxy S25 also looks like it will continue last year’s course correction away from the overly vibrant and saturated photos that Samsung’s phones have long been known for, with the company’s new ProVisual Engine providing a much more natural and balanced look.

Like the Galaxy S25 lineup, Apple’s best photographic features are the exclusive domain of its more expensive iPhone Pro models. However, the base iPhone 16 model is no slouch, and Apple has been making a concerted effort over the past two years to close the camera gap between its standard and pro models.

That includes a bump to a 48-megapixel primary camera — what Apple now calls its “Fusion” camera — that can provide an optical-quality 2x photo in 12MP resolution by cropping to the center pixels. That first arrived on last year’s iPhone 15, and the specs are mostly the same this year; the Fusion branding and an anti-reflective coating appear to be the most significant changes to the primary camera this year.

However, the ultrawide gains autofocus capabilities, bringing the previously pro-exclusive macro photography feature to the iPhone 16. The tandem lenses also provide the ability to capture Spatial Photos and Videos that can be viewed on an Apple Vision Pro. Add in zero shutter lag and Dolby Vision HDR recording, and the camera system on the iPhone 16 can do many things that were once limited to the pricier pro models.

That’s not all, though, as the iPhone 16 also gains support for a dramatically improved version of Apple’s Photographic Styles. The original versions of these have been around since the iPhone 13 was released in 2021, but they never garnered much attention in their original form, which only gave you four basic fixed styles to choose from. The iPhone 16 expands that list to 15 preset styles you can customize, adjusting the tone and color using a two-axis slider control. However, what really sets the new Photographic Styles apart is that they’re entirely non-destructive. Not only can you apply them after the fact, but you can also remove a style, tweak an existing one, or switch to a new one for any photo you’ve already taken.

This gives the iPhone 16 a definite edge over the Galaxy S25, which really feels like Samsung phoned it in on the cameras this year.

Winner: iPhone 16

Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. iPhone 16: software and updates

As you’d expect, the Galaxy S25 ships with the latest version of Android 15 out of the box, plus Samsung’s One UI 7 layered on top. While the look and feel of One UI will be readily familiar to Samsung fans, the company has made some interesting changes this year to take the user experience to a whole new level.

One UI 7 delivers what Samsung promises to be a “significant new look” over its predecessor that reduces clutter and takes customization to new heights. There are more One UI widgets and cleaner home and lock screens. A new “Now Bar” that’s exclusive to the Galaxy S25 offers up iPhone-like Live Activities, and a “Now Brief” promised to keep you apprised of everything you need to know at any given time of the day, from news and weather to upcoming appointments and an overview of how your health is doing. It’s a nice maturing of the One UI platform, and we love it.

By comparison, the iPhone 16 continues Apple’s tradition of ushering in significant new iOS releases with each new model. This year, that’s iOS 18. The core software improvements are much more iterative than what Samsung has done with One UI 7, with Apple putting most of its efforts into Apple Intelligence — a new suite of AI features that are (mostly) exclusive to the iPhone 16 lineup. Apple Intelligence has been rolling out in stages; while December’s iOS 18.2 release brought most of what Apple has promised for this year’s iPhones, we’re still waiting on improvements to Siri that aren’t expected to arrive until iOS 18.4 in April.

Both One UI 7 and iOS 18 are (or will be) available for older Galaxy and iPhone models, but only the latest models will get everything these two operating systems have to offer. Only the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max can benefit from the Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18, and while Samsung is rolling its Galaxy AI tools out to older models, we’ll have to wait and see which ones make the cut as One UI 7 has yet to roll out to older models.

In terms of updates, Samsung is maintaining its usual promise of seven years of Android updates, which means the Galaxy S25 will someday be able to run Android 22 when it arrives in 2031. We expect most folks will be shopping for a new phone by then, but it’s nice to know we have the option. Apple doesn’t make specific update promises for the iPhone, but it has a proven track record for updates; it was offering four or five years in the days when most Android phones rarely got two. The iPhone 16 should make it to at least iOS 22, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it goes one or two releases beyond that, considering the iPhone XS and iPhone XR, which shipped with iOS 12 in 2018, can run iOS 18 today.

Winner: Tie

Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. iPhone 16: special features

It seems everything is about AI these days, and the Galaxy S25 and iPhone 16 both lean heavily into these features. As we mentioned in the last section, Samsung has its Galaxy AI tools that are now in their second generation while Apple is just getting started with Apple Intelligence on the iPhone 16 lineup.

With the Galaxy S25, Samsung’s Galaxy AI suite feels ready for prime time, although many of the tools are still of dubious value. The most significant change is that Samsung has shown its Bixby voice assistant to the door and embraced the “Gemini Era” by adopting Gemini Live as the standard voice assistant. This gives the Galaxy S25 a massive leg up over the iPhone 16, which still uses Apple’s beleaguered Siri. Apple’s voice assistant squandered a three-year head start to become something of a punch line, and in a somewhat ironic twist, many have observed that Siri has gotten worse in iOS 18.

However, the Siri improvements promised by Apple Intelligence have yet to arrive. The first of these should come in iOS 18.4 in a few months, but a more conversational Siri could take until an iOS 19 release sometime next year. In the meantime, Gemini Live is here now on the Galaxy S25, and it’s leaps and bounds ahead of anything Apple has on deck.

That’s not to say iPhone users are entirely left out in the cold. In developing Apple Intelligence, it recognized that it wouldn’t have Siri ready to handle conversational AI anytime soon and wasn’t equipped to handle broader “world knowledge” questions. So, Apple partnered with OpenAI to bake ChatGPT into iOS 18. Siri will send any requests it can’t deal with to ChatGPT, but you can bypass the middleman by simply telling Siri to “Ask ChatGPT” outright. It’s a bit more cumbersome than Gemini Live, but it works well and gets the job done when you have a nagging question you need an answer to.

Leaving the chatbots aside, Apple Intelligence and Galaxy AI are more on par when it comes to useful AI features like recording and transcribing phone calls and notes, summarizing blocks of text and even whole web pages, and handling real-time translation. Samsung comes out ahead in its AI photo and video editing features, although iPhone users have plenty of apps to choose from that can do many of the same things, including Google Photos. On the flip side, Apple’s Image Playground is a handy tool for turning photos and descriptions into cartoony-like AI images, but the Play Store is full of tools that can do the same thing.

While Samsung has leaned heavily into AI with the Galaxy S25, the iPhone 16 offers one cool feature that even non-AI fans can enjoy: the Camera Control. This is an extra button on the lower right side of the iPhone that effectively turns your device into an old-school point-and-shoot camera.

It may seem like a gimmick at first blush, but we’ve been having a lot of fun with it as it does so much more than just open the camera and take pictures. The capacitative surface also lets you swipe through various controls to adjust any of the camera settings, from zoom levels to Photographic Styles, and a light-press can be used to lock auto-focus and auto-exposure before pressing all the way down to capture a picture — the same way most DLSRs work. The fact that we wrote six paragraphs about it in our iPhone 16 review should give you an idea of how compelling this new feature is.

The Camera Control also ties into an iPhone 16-exclusive AI feature called Visual Intelligence. Pressing and holding the button from the Lock Screen or within nearly any app will switch to a camera view that you can use to get more information on real-world objects from either Google or ChatGPT. This includes identifying breeds of animals or types of flowers, deciphering laundry labels, finding out more information from an event poster, and even automatically adding the date and time to your calendar. You can also translate text between different languages and perform a Google Lens-style search to find other similar items.

In addition to the Camera Control, the iPhone 16 also gets the Action button that was exclusive to the iPhone 15 Pro models last year. This replaces Apple’s classic ring/silent switch with a customizable button that can trigger nearly any action you can think of, thanks to its support for running Apple’s macro-like Shortcuts.

Although Apple’s AI features remain behind the curve compared to the Galaxy S25, AI isn’t a priority for everyone, and the iPhone 16 makes up for it with more versatile controls.

Winner: Tie

Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. iPhone 16: price and availability

The Galaxy S25 went on sale on February 7 and can be ordered directly from Samsung or any of the usual online or brick-and-mortar retailers. You should also be able to find it at your carrier of choice. The Galaxy S25 starts at $800 for the base 128GB, with the 256GB version selling for only $60 more. Samsung is offering the usual trade-in programs that can shave up to $550 off those prices. This year, the Galaxy S25 comes in navy, mint, Icy Blue, and Silver Shadow as the standard colors, while those ordering from Samsung can also choose from exclusive Blueblack, Coralred, and Pinkgold finishes.

The iPhone 16 was released in September 2024 and starts at $799 for the 128GB model, with 256GB and 512GB versions available for $899 and $1,099, respectively. Apple is also offering trade-ins that can knock up to $630 off the price, but you’ll need to trade in a recent higher-end model to get that maximum value. The iPhone 16 comes in black, white, pink, teal, and ultramarine.

Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. iPhone 16: verdict

A comparison between an iPhone and just about any other smartphone on the market often comes down to one question: platform. The iPhone 16 and Galaxy S25 may now look more similar than ever on the surface, but they couldn’t be more different under the hood. They run fundamentally different operating systems, and chances are that your preference for iOS or Android will dictate your choice here more than anything else.

Still, if you have no strong feelings either way or you’re looking for a change, both have a lot to offer that could tempt you to come over from the other side.

The iPhone 16 has a surprisingly fun and capable camera system for a non-pro model, and the Camera Control button makes this even more of a joy for avid mobile photographers. Whatever you may think of Apple Intelligence, iOS 18 is a solid and mature operating system with a proven track record, and it sticks to its roots this year, so anyone who has used an iPhone in the last decade should still feel right at home. Apple’s A18 chip offers power to spare and the App Store hosts a collection of strong AAA console games to enjoy, although you’ll disappointingly be held back by the iPhone’s archaic 60Hz refresh rate.

On the other side, the Galaxy S25 has embraced Gemini Live to offer a voice assistant that can talk circles around Siri, plus a wealth of other Galaxy AI features that are more useful and refined. The camera system is still very capable, even if it feels like Samsung wasn’t really trying this year, the display is gorgeous, and the Snapdragon 8 Elite is an insanely powerful chip that’s just waiting for the right games to take advantage of everything its souped-up Adreno GPU has to offer.

To put the key differences between these two flagships in simpler terms, the Galaxy S25 is for those who want leading-edge AI features, but if photography is your bag, the iPhone 16 will surprise and delight you in myriad creative ways.