Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra / Apple iPhone 14 Plus

The Samsung Newsroom release is dated 23 January Korea time; the event was 22 January in US time.

Samsung notes memory options may vary by market and usable storage is lower because of preloaded software. There is no card slot.

Samsung quotes 40% NPU, 37% CPU and 30% GPU gains over the previous generation. This version is tuned for Galaxy with higher clocks than the standard Snapdragon 8 Elite.

The vapor chamber spreads heat from the chip into the body, helping clocks hold longer in extended gaming.

The viewable area is smaller than the diagonal because of rounded corners and the camera hole. Refresh that drops to 1 Hz saves power on static content; Vision Booster adjusts tone mapping in bright light.

Typical maximum brightness is 800 nits, with 1,200 nits peak for HDR content; typical contrast is 2,000,000:1. Because of the rounded corners the screen measures 6.68 inches as a rectangle and the viewable area is slightly smaller. Apple does not list a refresh rate; 120 Hz ProMotion is only on the Pro models.

Used on the front only. Corning says it survived drops of up to 2.2 m onto a concrete-like surface in internal lab tests; this is not a durability guarantee for any given phone.

Titanium is used only on the frame, excluding the volume and side keys.

Per Samsung, 3× and 5× are optical; 2× and 10× are “optical quality” zoom made by sensor cropping. OIS is optical image stabilisation.

There is no telephoto camera: the 2x figure refers to switching from the main to the ultra wide camera. Photos are processed with the Photonic Engine, Deep Fusion and Smart HDR 4; Night mode and Portrait mode are included.

Log records a flat profile for colour grading; results depend on the editing workflow. Audio Eraser can reduce layers such as voices, music, wind and crowd separately in videos.

Recording formats are HEVC and H.264, with stereo audio. 8 MP stills can be taken while recording 4K video. Action mode crops the image to reduce shake and tops out at 2.8K.

The 45 W adapter is sold separately. Samsung quotes up to 31 hours of video playback. Wireless PowerShare charges earbuds or a watch from the back of the phone.

These are longer than the iPhone 14’s 20 hours of video and 80 hours of audio. No power adapter is in the box; the fast-charge time comes from Apple’s test with a 20 W adapter.

According to Android Central’s one-year report, the phone received One UI 8 (Android 16) ahead of schedule.

5G/LTE availability depends on market and carrier.

Water resistance is not permanent and may diminish over time.

Colour availability varies by country and carrier.

According to Apple this resistance is not permanent and may decrease with normal wear; liquid damage is not covered by the warranty.

This is the A15 version with a five-core GPU used in the iPhone 13 Pro; the A15 in the iPhone 13 has a four-core GPU.

Capacity is chosen at purchase; there is no memory card slot.

The front camera also records 4K Dolby Vision video; Face ID uses the same TrueDepth camera system.

The band list depends on the model number. The US page lists n258, n260 and n261 for mmWave; the UK page has no mmWave.

According to Apple the US model runs two active eSIMs and can store eight or more. eSIM needs carrier support.

According to Apple the satellite features are free for two years after activating any iPhone 14 model; connection and response times vary with location and site conditions.

Adapters are sold separately.

The high-g accelerometer and gyro are used for Crash Detection.