Today's top phones come with high performance specs across the board, and that includes the camera systems. With a great camera phone in your hand, you can take superb images that can help you on your way to Instagram stardom. Or whatever. The iPhone 17 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra are no exceptions. Both phones impressed us in their respective reviews, and both pack camera setups that offer stiff competition to the likes of Google and Oppo. But how do they compare with each other?

To find out, I took them out on multiple image-capturing missions around Edinburgh, testing them in a variety of conditions and then scrutinizing the results. 

With phones at this level, there often won't be a "winner" in each test. Many results will come down to personal preference, as you'll see here.

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As a professional photographer, I prefer a more true-to-life image, with natural tones and rich contrast, that provides a good baseline for me to apply my own edits should I want to. 

I also dislike over-processing, which can make an image look too digital and artificial. Some of you may disagree, preferring instead more vibrant images with strong saturation and clarity that can be shared directly to social without any extra effort on your part. Either stance is fine, but it's why tests like these need to be taken with a pinch of salt. 

With that said, let's dive in and take a look at the images. All shots were taken in each phone's standard camera app in JPEG (or HEIF for some of the iPhone's images) and have been imported and resized in Adobe Lightroom, but with no additional edits or sharpening applied. 

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iPhone 17 Pro vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: Main camera tests

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Like any average day of mine, this test begins with plenty of bread and melted cheese. Both shots look great, with great detail and even exposure. The colors on the S25 Ultra are marginally richer, which I don't mind here as it helps the food really pop. 

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Outside in the Autumn light, I love the colors captured by both phones. The iPhone's image has richer contrast, with deeper black levels that I think look better, but otherwise, there's very little to choose between them. 

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It's the same when I got close to this leaf. I think the iPhone's bokeh (the out-of-focus background) looks a little nicer, but I slightly prefer the deeper tones on the S25 Ultra. (These are true optical bokeh, not portrait-mode style processing.) Toss a coin and choose your favorite.

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There's a much bigger difference here, though. While the exposure is comparable, the S25 Ultra's colors are significantly more saturated than those of the iPhone -- notice the blue boat hull and the reddish building at the right. Is that good? Well, that again comes down to opinion. To my eye, Samsung's shot looks overly saturated to the point of looking quite fake. I much prefer the more muted, almost filmic tones of the iPhone. 

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And it's almost exactly the same story when I switched to the ultrawide cameras of both phones. The S25 Ultra delivered a highly saturated image while the iPhone's is much more subtle.

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The Galaxy S25 Ultra has done a better job here, though, color-wise, with warmer, more autumnal tones that suit the scene well. The iPhone's shot looks a little cold by comparison. 

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But just to confuse the result, while the iPhone's colors might not look as nice, when I looked close up at the details around the edge, I noticed that its shot has noticeably better clarity, while the S25 Ultra's image has lost a lot of detail. Will you ever notice that difference? Almost certainly not, especially if you're only posting to Instagram or sending messages over WhatsApp. However, when both phones are over $1,000, you'd better believe I'm going to nitpick harder than you ever thought possible. 

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That said, I actually don't have a lot to say between these two shots inside a museum in Edinburgh. Both are well-exposed, and while the iPhone has leaned slightly more toward a magenta white balance, I don't really see that as either a good or a bad thing. Take your pick. 

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I definitely prefer the iPhone's shot when switching to the ultrawide lens, though. The S25 Ultra has evidently tried to pull down the highlights on the reflection on the floor, leaving it looking a little gloomy. The floor pops more in the iPhone's shot, which adds nicer contrast to the scene overall.

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Here's another example of more vibrant tones from the S25 Ultra, with the iPhone looking more natural. I know which I prefer (the iPhone, if you haven't been paying attention), but there's nothing wrong with the S25 Ultra's shot either. 

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And in this image, looking up at some golden leaves, I can see almost no discernible difference whatsoever. Lovely stuff.

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The iPhone's shot is definitely much brighter here, and it looks better for it. I'm not sure why the S25 Ultra has underexposed its image, but it's made the scene look quite drab as a result.

iPhone 17 Pro vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: Zoom photos

Both phones have dedicated optical zoom lenses, with the iPhone's going up to 8x (what Apple calls "optical quality," which is a processed crop of the 48-megapixel sensor) and the S25 Ultra going slightly further to 10X. Both phones offer different preset zoom levels in between. 

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Starting at 8x on the iPhone and 10x on the Galaxy, this shot of golden leaves looks great on both, with vibrant tones and solid details.

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While using the iPhone at 4x zoom and the S25 Ultra at 5x, I again think that both phones have done a great job. The iPhone has leaned slightly harder into warmer autumnal tones, with the greens of the grass and leaves looking more vibrant and emerald in the S25 Ultra's image. 

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At 5x zoom, the Galaxy S25 Ultra's image looks quite dull and underexposed, with a slight magenta shift to its colors. The iPhone's shot at 4x zoom appears brighter, with more pleasing colors.

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And it's much the same at the full 8x and 10x zoom levels; the iPhone offers better contrast and colors. 

I've found the Galaxy can struggle with its colors more when zooming than when using the main camera. Take this as an example:

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At the standard focal length of the main camera, these images are almost identical, with beautiful warm tones captured by both phones.

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But zooming in to 2x has really thrown the Galaxy off. Its white balance instead errs on the colder side, with a more pronounced magenta bias, losing the lovely golden light that's still present in the iPhone's image.

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