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The month of September has arrived and with it two things are certain: spring and the launch of new iPhones. The top of the line iPhone 15 Pro Max becomes the best iPhone available on the market with new features such as the titanium body (which reduced its weight), periscopic camera with 5X optical zoom and the long-awaited USB-C port. However, Samsung already has a few months on the market with its flagship Galaxy s23 ultra, with a 200MP sensor and 10X optical zoom, in addition to the exclusive pen S Pen.
Do you want to choose one of the best devices of the current generation and don't know how? O showmetech shows you the main differences between the models.
Design
O iPhone 15 Pro Max has a fundamental difference compared to last year's model (and the S23 Ultra as well): now, its body is manufactured in grade 5 titanium alloy, used in aerospace applications. In practice, the material provides greater resistance to the device, while helping to reduce its weight compared to the previous generation. Still speaking in terms of materials, the Apple flagship has a glass finish matte textured, following the color of the device that can be in black titanium, white titanium, blue titanium and natural titanium.
Apple's smartphone maintains rounded corners, which ends up slightly reducing the usable screen area for consuming video content. The bump in the rear camera area is also maintained, but now with a smooth transition. The edges around the back and front faces have lost their right angles and are now rounded, making the feeling of holding the new device smoother.
O Galaxy s23 ultra It is made of aluminum, with a glass rear finish. Here, the smartphone has right-angled edges, allowing better use of the screen area for consuming video content. For this model, Samsung offers a wider range of colors (8 in total): Red, Blue, Graphite, Lime, Verde, Black, Violeta e Creams — but only the last four are available in Brazil.
A big design difference in the devices is that the Samsung smartphone has the top edges facing at right angles, while the side edges are curved — a design difference that also differentiates it from the rest of the Galaxy S23 line. As a result, the screen glass also has slightly curved edges, which move towards the sides. Another big difference is the presence of S Pen, to assist the user in handwriting, drawing and other uses.
The two smartphones are IP68 certified against dust and water (immersed up to 1,5m deep for up to 30 minutes), in addition to high-resistance glass for the screen and back: the Galaxy s23 ultra is equipped with the Gorilla Glass Victus 2, while the iPhone 15 Pro Max comes with the ceramic shield — both technologies developed by Corning.
Regarding dimensions and weight, the iPhone 15 Pro Max is slightly smaller than the Galaxy s23 ultra — and also lighter, with 5% less weight. Below is a comparative table:
| iPhone 15 Pro Max | Galaxy s23 ultra | |
| Height (mm) | 159,9 | 163,4 |
| Width (mm) | 76,7 | 78,1 |
| Thickness (mm) | 8,25 | 8,9 |
| Weight (g) | 221 | 233 |
With the lighter weight and more sophisticated appearance of titanium, the iPhone 15 Pro Max It is our choice in this regard.
Fabrics
O iPhone 15 Pro Max arrives on the market with a 6,7-inch Super Retina XDR screen, presenting impressive smoothness thanks to the ProMotion refresh rate of 1Hz to 120Hz, providing an extremely satisfying scrolling experience throughout the interface. The OLED panel with a resolution of 1290×2796 pixels (460 ppi) provides contrast of 2.000.000:1, with a peak brightness of 2.000 nits outdoors. It's the same screen as the iPhone 14 Pro Max, which launched the Dynamic Island instead of the notch launched with the iPhone X.
Meanwhile, the 2-inch Dynamic AMOLED 6,8X display on the Galaxy s23 ultra It follows the pattern seen in most of the Samsung line and has a single, much smaller hole in the screen for the camera, which undoubtedly contributes to a cleaner look. The Samsung smartphone also offers a dynamic refresh rate of up to 120Hz, a QHD+ (1440×3088 pixels) screen with 500 ppi that is very sharp and capable of reaching a maximum brightness of 1750 nits, although not as much as the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
O Galaxy s23 ultra it also hides an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner in the screen, which allows you to unlock your phone and authorize online payments quickly and effortlessly. O iPhone 15 Pro Max does not offer this option and will continue to rely on Face ID as a biometric unlocking method, using facial recognition. Although there is distrust on the part of some users, the latter is safer than conventional facial unlocking via camera.
As screen size is a matter of personal taste, the objective criteria for evaluation are screen brightness (best on Apple's smartphone) and pixel density (500 ppi on Samsung's flagship). But there is another tie-breaker, DCI-P3 color reproduction: while the iPhone 15 Pro Max reaches only 84,5% of the color gamut, which Galaxy s23 ultra reaches 136,7%, offering more realistic colors. Point for Samsung.
| iPhone 15 Pro Max | Galaxy s23 ultra | |
| Screen size | 6,7-inch Super Retina XDR | 2-inch Dynamic AMOLED 6,8X |
| Resolution | 1290 × 2796 pixels | 1440 × 3088 pixels |
| Refresh rate | 1-120Hz | Dynamics up to 120Hz |
| maximum brightness | 2000 nits | 1750 nits |
| Color reproduction | 84,5% DCI-P3 (iPhone 15 Pro Max) | 136,7% DCI-P3 |
Hardware and performance
the chips of Apple have always stood out, outperforming others in various benchmark tests. However, things changed with the arrival of Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy — which actually showed better results in some graphics processing tests compared to the chipset A16 Bionic that powered the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
The chip Pro A17 do iPhone 15 Pro Max is based on the 3-nanometer manufacturing process — an improvement over its predecessor's 4-nanometer process. Apple claims it will increase graphics processing performance by 20%, but we can also expect a significant improvement in energy efficiency.
Although not officially disclosed, the iPhone 15 Pro Max hits the market with 8 GB of RAM, while the Galaxy S23 Ultra features 12 GB of RAM. However, the difference should not be noticeable, mainly due to the way the iOS manages memory and its resources more efficiently.
O Galaxy s23 ultra It comes with features that help with productivity as well as usability. With well-designed multitasking, it has cool features like split-screen view and a complete desktop solution like DeX mode, not to mention the practicality of the pen S Pen, allowing you to have an experience beyond that found on Apple's smartphone.
As for storage, the iPhone 15 Pro Max is available in 256 GB, 512 GB and the ultra-spacious 1 TB version — exactly the same storage options that Samsung made available for the Galaxy s23 ultra. This means that both devices arrive with similar specifications, with ideal space options for those who don't need much, but also for those who have a lot to store.
But how do smartphones deliver performance? The Geekbench benchmark tested both devices, and there is no doubt about the superiority of the Apple chip: while the S23Ultra reached 5.191 points in multi-core and 1.962 in single-core, which iPhone 15 Pro Max reached 7.024 points in multi-core and 2.846 in single-core, respectively 35% and 45% higher to the Samsung smartphone. Point of Apple .
| iPhone 15 Pro Max | Galaxy s23 ultra | |
| RAM memory | 8 GB | 12GB |
| Processor | Apple A17 Pro | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy |
| Internal storage | 256 GB, 512 GB or 1 TB | 256 GB, 512 GB or 1 TB |
Cameras
Among all the points in this comparison, this is perhaps the most exciting part, as cameras are a decisive factor for many people. Among the smartphones sold in Brazil, the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max (which have the same set of cameras) are the ones with the best score in the DxOMark — camera quality benchmark — with 146 points, while the Galaxy S23 Ultra received 140 points — behind even the 13 iPhone 2021 Pro, with 141 points. With the new iPhone 15 Pro Max, a higher score is expected. But let's see the characteristics of the competitors in this comparison.
The Galaxy S23 Ultra features a quadruple array of lenses, consisting of:
- 24MP wide-angle main (200mm), f/1.7 aperture
- 230MP periscope telephoto (10mm), f/4.9, 10X optical zoom
- 70MP telephoto (10mm), f/2.4, 3X optical zoom
- 13MP Ultra Wide Angle (12mm), f/2.2
With this versatile set of cameras, the Galaxy s23 ultra is capable of capturing shots that few phones are capable of, allowing users to photograph objects near, far and very far away. It also excels in low-light photography, producing sharp images in extremely low lighting settings. In addition, it also has good settings for recording videos, thanks to its maximum capture of 8K at 30fps.
Already iPhone 15 Pro Max maintains the configuration of 3 cameras with the LiDAR sensor, namely:
- Main wide-angle (24mm) 48 MP, f/1.8
- 120 MP tetrahedral telephoto (12mm), f/2.8, with 5X optical zoom
- 13MP ultra wide angle (12mm), f/2.2
What's new about the lens set is that, for the first time, the Pro Max model has a different configuration than the Pro, with the inclusion of a tetrahedral set that allows 5X zoom. With the help of hardware and software integration, Apple claims to be able to achieve the equivalent of seven professional lenses in its new camera system. One thing is for sure: it will be very interesting to see how its new 5x telephoto lens compares to the 10x one that the Galaxy S23 Ultra has.
O iPhone 15 Pro Max it still reaches 4K at 60fps, but acquires some new features that video editors will like. For starters, its USB-C connection allows users to transfer 48MP ProRAW images from iPhone to Mac, along with Log encoding for better color fidelity in post-production.
Although all these video features are present in the model, everything will depend on the performance and quality to surpass the 8K video recording of the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Regardless, Apple is making a serious effort in this regard, so the chances of a fierce competition to see which cell phone with the best camera will be.
As we don't have benchmark values for this year's Apple smartphones, we'll rely on DxOMark results from last year's model to define that, in cameras, the iPhone 15 Pro Max is superior to S23Ultra.
| iPhone 15 Pro Max | Galaxy s23 ultra | |
| Cameras | wide-angle: 48 MP, aperture ƒ/1.78 Ultra-angle: 12 MP, ƒ/2.2 aperture Telephoto: 12 MP, aperture ƒ/2.8 |
Principal: 200 MP, f / 1.7 periscopic telephoto: 10 MP, f / 4.9 Telephoto: 10 MP, f / 2.4 UltraWide: 12 MP, f / 2.2 |
Operational system
O iPhone 15 Pro Max will hit the market with the iOS 17 pre-installed and will receive at least five years of important software and security updates, ensuring support until at least 2028. Galaxy s23 ultra will have software support for another four years, until 2027, and security updates until 2028.
O iOS 17 brings significant changes to Phone, Messaging and FaceTime functionality, as well as improvements to Maps, Siri, Visual Look Up and the introduction of interactive widgets. A new application called Diary will allow users to organize their lives, while the StandBy feature will provide useful information while the iPhone is being charged, whether wirelessly or wired.
Additionally, users will be able to share AirTags with other iOS users as part of iOS 17. Enhanced customization options are also available for the iOS lock screen, which had already introduced custom lock screens with iOS 16.
With a variety of different features between operating systems, it is largely up to the user which one they prefer — or which best suits their use. However, to define a winner in this comparison, we chose the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which has an extra year of updates for iOS.
Battery and charging
O iPhone 15 Pro Max It is equipped with a slightly larger battery than its predecessor, at 4.422mAh. Even with the new, more powerful chip, Apple claims that the phone has, in general, the same battery life as the iPhone 14 Pro Max. However, it is very likely that Apple's launch will be able to achieve a battery life of at least least one day of regular use.
On the other hand, the Galaxy s23 ultra It has a 5.000mAh battery, which also helps it last a long time. However, in some custom battery benchmark tests, the Galaxy S23 Ultra appears behind the iPhone 14 Pro Max in terms of battery life. This could mean that the iPhone 15 Pro Max could have similar or even better performance.
As for loading, the iPhone 15 Pro Max supports 20W wired charging, while the Galaxy s23 ultra supports 45W wired charging. The iPhone 15 Pro Max will also have 15W MagSafe wireless charging, just as the Galaxy S23 Ultra has 2.0W Fast Wireless Charging 15. The Samsung phone also features reverse wireless charging, which is not available on the Apple smartphone.
Here, with a larger battery and faster charging, the Galaxy s23 ultra gets the best.
iPhone 15 Pro Max vs Galaxy S23 Ultra: which is better?
On both sides, we have two complete models that will not disappoint you. While the iPhone 15 Pro Max brings important improvements, such as a lighter body, new Action button and USB-C and a fluid operating system, the Galaxy S23 Ultra delivers the S Pen and its exclusive features, as well as a 10x optical zoom and an incredible battery that promises not to let you down.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max also delivers an updated processor and a new telephoto camera for better zoom capabilities, while also offering software updates for HDR and portraits. You will also have a brighter screen and Dynamic Island at your disposal. On the other hand, the Galaxy S23 Ultra remains a phone with a more versatile camera setup and delivers better software for multitasking.
In short, both the iPhone 15 Pro Max and Galaxy S23 Ultra offer a variety of impressive features. The choice between the two largely depends on individual preferences, preferred ecosystem, and resource priorities. Below, we summarize the winners in the areas we evaluated — but remember that each user has their own criteria for choosing a smartphone:
If you're already a Galaxy S23 Ultra user, the update may not be necessary unless you're considering switching to iOS. However, if you're looking for a premium smartphone experience with enhanced features, both the iPhone 15 Pro Max and Galaxy S23 Ultra are excellent choices.
Let's wait for the iPhone 15 Pro Max to hit the market to see how the new model will perform in tests and see, in fact, how it compares to the competition.
See also:
How about checking out all the details of Apple's new releases? In all, there were four models officially launched last Tuesday (12). In addition, the company's new smart watches were shown to the world for the first time!
Sources: Tom's Guide, PhoneArena.
reviewed by Glaucon Vital in 15 / 9 / 23.
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Samsung wins
You have to compare iPhone 15 with Galaxy S24 Ultra
Due to the proximity of the release date, I think it's a fairer comparison than that.
Incomplete article, a work that when read seemed complete but without conclusion!
When we open a link we expect clarity, objective and direct about which device is better!
But it starts with a doubt and ends with the same doubt!
Samsung
top Samsung
Samsung superior to iPhone 15
I understand there is a tie, the iPhone 15 is not superior to the Samsung S23.