iPhone 17 Pro Max vs Samsung S25 Ultra: A Pointless Battle?

Here we go again…

Courtesy of the author

Every year, I publish a comparison between the top-end iPhone and Samsung’s flagship S-series smartphone. And every year I ask myself: is this really worth it?

A fair few people always ask the same question in the comments section of the YouTube video. And I understand why.

I have no hard-and-fast data to back up this, but I’m pretty sure that precisely no one will be agonising over the choice between the iPhone 17 Pro Max and the S25 Ultra this year.

Because everyone has already chosen their side.

Despite this, such comparisons still draw in a big audience both on YouTube and within the pages of this website. Which is why I keep publishing them. It’s fun, right?

Design

These are two very different-looking phones. Which is nice, because it makes choosing your favourite a lot easier.

I love what Apple has done with the iPhone 17 Pro Max this year. It looks considerably different from the device it replaces, and marks a sea change in Apple’s iPhone design language that we haven’t seen for quite some time. It’s still unmistakably an iPhone, but it just looks different. It looks new.