When the temperature hits 90 and wind subsides, I like to move all the way down to the boardwalk. We have a couple of close by, however considered one of my favorites is alongside Long Beach on the south shore of Long Island. When I head out, I prefer to seize my sun shades, sunblock, and a smartphone, or two. In this case, I popped the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro Max for a Boardwalk photograph shootout.
These flagships, as I see it, are the very best of the very best (formally ranked Number 1 and Number 4, respectively, on our Best Phones 2025 listing), two spectacular smartphones filled with glorious processors, screens, and cameras. With a 200MP essential digital camera, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is definitely the megapixel winner, however the high quality of any smartphone picture is not only the sum of all pixels.
Both smartphones characteristic a number of lenses and, usually, binning choices to mix some pixels (usually as many as 4) into one information-filled dot. Additionally, there’s all of the processor-based picture processing. Apple calls it the Photonic Engine, and Samsung calls theirs the ProVisible Engine.
Both do an excellent, even glorious job of taking what the bodily optics and picture sensor see and delivering one thing on the display screen aspect that’s correct and typically beautiful.
For my Boardwalk Photo check, I purposely did as little as potential to mess with picture settings. Instead, I centered totally on utilizing the principle digital camera and optics-based zoom. I did not need to use digital zoom since I do know the back-end AI can become involved and attempt to “enhance” and “augment” photographs in unnatural methods.
Overall, the outcomes present glorious work from each the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max. Still, there are key variations that will outline your subsequent selection for the last word boardwalk (and seaside) smartphone digital camera.
I will not argue that that is the ultimate phrase on all these cameras, however I did discover sufficient of a constant strategy throughout every system that I’m ready to attract some conclusions. Let’s take a look at the primary set of photographs.
Main digital camera: The dwelling areas
This picture set seems to be down the boardwalk at a few of the high-rise house buildings. I used to be standing simply off the boardwalk’s lengthy picket path, and pointed the principle cameras towards the buildings.
They’re each good photographs, and at 100%, they maintain up properly. However, the variations are additionally fairly stark.
Samsung’s behavior of over-brightening and typically making coloration too wealthy or overly constant is on full show. Mostly, that impact ends in pleasing imagery, however in comparison with the iPhone 16 Pro Max, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra made the entire picture too brilliant, and we find yourself shedding a few of the dramatic cloud financial institution element. The brilliant strategy additionally damps shadows a bit, draining away a bit of the drama.
Where Samsung excels is in retaining objects in focus effectively into the space.
There is nothing mistaken with the Galaxy S25 Ultra photograph, however I nonetheless choose the iPhone 16 Pro Max shot.
Telephoto: The lifeguards
This picture set was difficult as a result of the foreground foliage is so detailed and subsequently accommodates a considerable amount of digital data for every picture processor to deal with.
I used to be impressed that each 5X optical zoom cameras may choose up the hazy freighters within the distance.
Samsung’s 50MP telephoto appears to assemble a bit extra element than the iPhone 12MP 5X zoom, however not by so much. Part of that’s as a result of the Samsung zoom mechanically bins pixels all the way down to a roughly 9MP picture.
Colors on the Samsung picture are correct, and I appreciated that it picked up the pop of the yellow flag.
The iPhone 16 Pro Max colours are simply pretty much as good (each bought the hazy sky good), and I seen extra element within the ocean churn. Overall, although, Samsung’s telephoto digital camera picks up extra element, and I feel that is all the way down to extra pixels pouring extra data into the general shot.
Main: on the seaside
I may stare on the seaside and ocean all day lengthy, but it surely’s at all times laborious for any digital camera to recreate my view. At least they’re getting nearer. These two pictures spotlight lots of the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s and Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra’s core strengths and weaknesses.
As we have seen earlier than, Samsung is over-brightening the shot, shedding a bit of the deep blue of an ideal pre-summer day and the deeper inexperienced of the ocean.
The iPhone’s shot is more true and, once more, it has stronger shadows.
While the element in each pictures is robust, the iPhone 16 Pro Max holds up a tiny bit higher once I zoom in.
Subject: A person misplaced in thought
The boardwalk is stuffed with characters, individuals who walked its warped planks for many years; they’re as a lot part of the seaside because the sand, surf, and seagulls.
When you will have a topic and setting like this, the sunshine and shadows solely add to the drama. Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro Max appears to intuitively know this and leaves effectively sufficient alone. Even the clouds get to have their second, looming dramatically within the background.
Samsung’s brighter strategy provides us a clearer view of the person however flattens the picture a bit by lighting up nearly all of it.
My favourite a part of these photographs is the person’s weathered fingers. The iPhone 16 Pro Max does an excellent job with its pores and skin coloration and highlights.
Action: Looking up
Overhead, seagulls experience the wind, racing forwards and backwards whereas barely flapping a wing. I attempted pointing each telephones on the sky to seize them in flight. It wasn’t simple.
Neither picture is nice, however Samsung did a bit higher in freezing the motion. Unfortunately, I did not like what it did with the large blue sky. The lack of objects, folks, water, and buildings left an excessive amount of room for interpretation, and the sky finally ends up trying pitted and pixelated.
By distinction, the iPhone 16 Pro Max blurred the birds a bit however stored the sky intact. That’s the unblemished blue I noticed.
If there is a winner in all this, I’d say it is the iPhone 16 Pro Max. It’s nearly as if, inside that Photonic engine, is the essence of Ansel Adams, a pictures pioneer who knew sufficient to let the landscapes converse for themselves.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is shut behind (and forward in some regards), however as ever, I feel the nearer to visible fact Samsung’s cameras get, the higher off its pictures can be.