Ever since I moved from Android to iPhone at the end of 2021, I’ve struggled to discover a manner again. Logic tells me that the best Android phones have superior {hardware} to iPhones normally, having obtained to 120Hz shows before Apple’s telephones and providing greater batteries and extra cameras; you, Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.
I additionally discover iPhones to be terribly uninteresting; sensible however boring, particularly with their incremental upgrades and seemingly gradual method to adopting generative AI.
But regardless of this, and the way I usually carry round an Android telephone as a backup, my important telephone has been an iPhone for a number of years. That is merely all the way down to ease of compatibility with quite a few software program instruments and platforms and the nonetheless unbeatable ecosystem Apple presents.
Nonetheless, that might change if a selected Samsung Galaxy S25 rumor has any weight behind it. A benchmark supposedly pertaining to the rumored Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra has indicated that it may include the ability to blow away the mighty iPhone 16 Pro Max; a tool I’m utilizing as my important smartphone proper now.
Benchmarks are inclined to imply naff all to me, as I’m extra focused on real-world efficiency. And in all my expertise utilizing quite a lot of telephones, I’ve by no means discovered an Android handset that’s been gradual. That being stated, I do discover the ability of the latest Professional iPhones, particularly the iPhone 15 Pro Max and aforementioned 16 Professional Max, with their Professional variants of the Apple’s A-series chips, to be very quick.
With the previous, you’ll be able to really run correct console video games, like Death Standing and Assassin’s Creed Mirage, albeit with restricted body charges, however the energy of the A18 Pro within the iPhone 16 Pro and Professional Max brings extra gaming grunt to bear, a lot so we gave the iPhone 16 Professional Max the gaming telephone award within the 2024 TechRadar Choice Awards. So, all that energy does imply Apple’s newest flagship telephone has my consideration.
But when the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra may convey much more energy to the smartphone enviornment, it could possibly be the subsequent telephone to attempt to tempt me away from the home that Steve Jobs constructed.
Go, go energy Samsung
Within the present smartphone local weather, extra energy tends to translate to raised scope for operating synthetic intelligence instruments and options on-device. However I’ve but to completely embrace this new wave of AI, so my curiosity is in cellular gaming.
Samsung’s Galaxy S-series has lengthy provided good efficiency for cellular video games, together with a number of the extra demanding ones. However regardless of this, I really feel Galaxy telephones, and different flagship Android telephones, haven’t had the scope to run correct console ports of Xbox or PlayStation video games.
But when the Galaxy S25 Extremely can provide A18 Professional-beating energy, that might change. Notably, I may see Samsung leaning on its earlier partnerships with Microsoft to convey Xbox video games that can run natively on next-generation Galaxy telephones.
You would possibly scoff at that and level me to Xbox Cloud Gaming because the means to play the best Xbox Series X games with no need {powerful} {hardware}. And whereas that’s true, and I’m an enormous advocate of cloud-powered gaming, the latency, reliability and lack of sturdy super-fast web connections within the UK – particularly in my pokey London residence – make cloud gaming a actuality that’s at present out of attain.
So, the concept of with the ability to run Xbox video games on a telephone with out the necessity for an web connection is an concept I nonetheless discover very palatable. And one that might tear me away from an iPhone.
After all, for those who’ve been studying my telephone ideas over the previous few years, I’ve lengthy held out for a super-powerful Samsung Galaxy, particularly when a partnership with AMD was touted, however my hopes had been always dashed. Equally, I nonetheless maintain out some hope that issues may change, and are available early 2025, Samsung could come out of the gate swinging at Apple and past, delivering a telephone, or sequence of telephones, that see me consign my iPhone to the position of secondary smartphone.
