iPhone 18 Pro Max vs Galaxy S26 Ultra Comparison

The competition between the latest flagships in the smartphone market has always been a source of great interest for users and tech enthusiasts. According to ixbt.com, the well-known creators at PhoneBuff conducted another interesting comparison, pitting the most advanced devices from Apple and Samsung against each other. To eliminate the human factor and ensure fair results, a specialized robotic manipulator was used during the testing process. This is reported by news from Ixbt.com.

In the initial stage of the tests, both smartphones performed almost neck-and-neck, showing the same pace with minor fluctuations. However, when the testing process reached a highly resource-intensive task like text recognition in Adobe software, the Apple flagship pulled ahead sharply. The Samsung flagship's slight advantage in video processing was not enough to catch up with its rival.

Real-world speed and memory capabilities

At the end of the first round, the iPhone 18 Pro Max reached the finish line first. Notably, the device managed to improve its time by a full 10 seconds compared to last year's generation model. This is a significant figure for a test lasting approximately three minutes. In the second round, the same applications were relaunched to check how well they were kept in RAM. If applications are not cleared from memory, it becomes practically impossible for the trailing device to close the gap.

The Samsung flagship also finished the second round in second place. In total, the Korean brand's device trailed by 12 seconds over a total time of four minutes. Although this difference is not huge, it is still a notable result. It is worth noting that this gap was almost entirely formed due to one complex task — the heavy process in the Adobe software.

Tests under heavy load

The experts did not stop there and introduced a new, even tougher type of test for the devices. They forced both smartphones to record 4K video continuously for 10 minutes, after which they restarted the most resource-intensive tasks from the main test. The results showed that both devices exhibited unique characteristics under load, but the difference was only clearly noticeable in the Galaxy S26 Ultra.

It turned out that under conditions of intense heat and load, the iPhone 18 Pro Max slowed down by an average of only 1.9 percent compared to its normal state. The Samsung flagship, however, worsened its performance significantly under difficult conditions — by 13.2 percent. This comparison provides a clear picture of the latest generation mobile processors and their capabilities in thermal management and handling heavy tasks.