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The iPhone 18 Pro Max camera test is finally here, and we're putting it through its paces in six of our custom modules to measure everything from how well it captures moving subjects in low light to color accuracy and resolution. The main change in the iPhone this year is a new variable aperture, which theoretically should give it an advantage in low light. The Galaxy, on the other hand, still has its 200-megapixel main camera along with two separate telephoto lenses. Additionally, it has also received over 7 months of software updates. Will this be enough for the Galaxy to win, or will the iPhone's new hardware give it the edge? Let's find out. This episode is sponsored by WhisperFlow, which is arguably the fastest way to type
on both your phone and computer until we all get brain chips. You never realize how slow typing is until you get used to using just your voice. For example, even for me, on a full-size keyboard, I can type at a pretty good speed- 100 words per minute. But with WhisperFlow, I actually double that result. And of course, on a phone, where I only have two thumbs, it's about five times faster. However, speed is n't really the only reason I use WhisperFlow. This is also its accuracy. So, to demonstrate this, we have two iPhones. One runs on WhisperFlow, and the other with the new improved Siri Dictation. So let's say I'm sending a message to our researcher. Can you do a low light
and motion camera test for the following phones? iPhone 18 Pro Max with variable aperture F 1.48, Pixel 11 Pro with F 1.6 aperture and Galaxy S26 Ultra with F 1.4 aperture. And, as you can see, WhisperFlow not only correctly recognized the technical terms, but also organized everything into a nice, neat list. Whereas with Siri you get a bunch of errors and this huge block of text. If you want to try it out for yourself, you can get 1 month of WhisperFlow Pro for free with unlimited words by following the first link below. So this first module is low light motion, because if there's one thing that gets more photos deleted than anything else, it's blur. And this usually happens when you're taking a picture in challenging
lighting conditions and your subject is moving-whether it's a child, a pet, or anyone who just can't stand still. So, to test this, we move our subject at three different speeds: low, medium, and high, precisely controlling both the movement and the shutter release time. Starting with the main camera at low speed, both phones perform quite well. All 20 of the iPhone photos met our 55-point sharpness threshold, compared to 17 on the Galaxy, where the other three barely reached that level. But the gap only widened as the test became more difficult. So, at average speed, the iPhone again showed a result of 20 out of 20, while on the Galaxy this time only one photo was recognized as clear. And you can see the difference in his eyebrows
, beard, and even the fabric of his shirt. Then we moved on to a challenging mode, such as when a child quickly turns away, and even here, 14 out of 20 iPhone photos were exceptionally sharp, while the Galaxy couldn't take a single clear shot, with five of them falling below our 40-point pass threshold. However, on the ultra-wide-angle cameras, the difference was not quite as dramatic. Both showed similar results in light motion, but at medium speeds the iPhone proved to be better: 19 successful shots compared to just seven on the Galaxy, with both phones barely coping with the challenging speed. But the good news for the Galaxy is that the situation changes dramatically at the telephoto lens: at low speed, while neither phone was able to take sharp
photos, all 20 of the Galaxy's shots were considered passable, while none of the iPhone's shots were. So, overall, the iPhone has the advantage in ultra-wide-angle photography, the Galaxy wins in telephoto, but the most important thing is the results of the main camera: if you're trying to take a picture of a child or pet in low light, the iPhone will give you a much better chance of getting a good shot. Okay, next we have the smoothness of the zoom, which I think is extremely important because nothing ruins a video like a jerky zoom. To test this, we use our robots to perform the same zoom gesture on each phone, switching from the ultra-wide camera
to the telephoto lens while our software tracks the object frame by frame. In all tests, the iPhone consistently outperformed the Galaxy, scoring an average of about 80 points compared to the Galaxy's 74. And when you look at the footage, especially the zooming process, the reason becomes quite clear. The Galaxy has an additional 3x camera, and you can see that it takes a noticeable detour in the zoom path when it goes to the 5x lens. But it's not just about these jumps. The Galaxy also changes speed when zooming, which makes it look a bit jerky. Whereas on the iPhone, not only is the zoom speed much more stable, but the path itself is much smoother and less choppy, giving it an easy win in zoom smoothness. Here, during object tracking, we measure
how well each phone can keep a moving object sharp and in focus, which can be very important in certain situations, like when you're filming a child on a swing. When some phones are just much better at capturing all those little micro expressions. And at least with the main cameras, there wasn't much difference between them. The iPhone had a slight advantage, as it regained focus a little faster when the subject approached the frame, as well as when it re-entered the frame. But, to be honest, the difference wasn't that big. However, when we switched to cinematic mode, the difference became much more noticeable. Where this time Galaxy performed much better. Because the iPhone took noticeably longer
to focus on an object, and also lost this clarity during movements. It could be argued that Apple did this intentionally. Although that wasn't the case last year, and I simply wouldn't use this mode in any situation with a lot of fast movement anyway. Moving on to ultra-wide-angle shots, the two phones were even again, with little difference between them. For example, the Galaxy did a slightly better job of maintaining clarity during some movements, but overall it wasn't critical. But we saw the biggest difference on the telephoto lens. And, to be honest, the iPhone simply lost in this comparison. When the subject moved towards and away from the camera, the iPhone was less sharp the entire time. Sometimes it lost focus completely,
while the Galaxy mostly managed to keep the subject sharp. So, with or without the cinematic mode advantage, the Galaxy gets a clear win in object tracking. In this color accuracy module, we test how realistic each phone can display a scene compared to a calibrated reference. And we divided this test into three different scenarios. One with just our light- skinned model, one with just the dark- skinned model, and then one with both of us in the frame to see if and how things change. Starting with the main cameras, when only our fair-skinned model was in the frame, both phones were quite similar in overall scene rendering accuracy. But if you look specifically at her skin tone, the Galaxy had the advantage here, as the
iPhone added a bit of warm tones that weren't really there. However, when we switched to shooting only dark- skinned models, the results were completely different. This time, Galaxy was wrong, too aggressively highlighting his skin tone. But interestingly, when we placed both models in the frame, the Galaxy stopped highlighting so much, bringing his skin tone closer to what we saw on the iPhone. And the same story repeated itself with the ultra-wide-angle and telephoto cameras. When there was only a fair-skinned model in the frame, the phones were pretty close, with the Galaxy slightly ahead. And when there was only a dark-skinned model, the iPhone had the advantage. But unlike the main
camera, this time it wasn't just about skin tones, as the Galaxy also illuminated everything else in the frame. And again, when we put both models in the frame, the Galaxy again became significantly more accurate, and both phones became practically comparable. But with video, things were completely different: no matter what camera we used or who the model was in the frame, the Galaxy was consistently more accurate and no longer highlighted dark skin tones as aggressively. And quite the opposite, it was the iPhone that deviated both skin tones and colors throughout the scene from our reference, adding more saturation than was actually there. So, overall, the results are mixed. The iPhone gets the edge when it comes to
color accuracy in photos, mainly because it did better on the dark-skinned model. Whereas in the video, Galaxy was consistently closer to reality. The good news is that when it comes to color stability, or how well each phone maintains its appearance when switching between its own lenses, both devices did quite well, with no sharp jumps or color shifts when switching from the ultra-wide to the main camera or from the main to the telephoto lens. Next- image stabilization, this is one of those things that is very difficult to evaluate without proper control, as in our case. Starting with the ultra-wide-angle cameras, this time the Galaxy had the advantage during our hand-shake test, where we added sharp movements to simulate shaking, and
the Galaxy did a much better job of smoothing out the image. When it comes to walking, both devices showed roughly the same result, and even our frame-by-frame analysis couldn't detect much difference. But when we moved on to the running simulation, the Galaxy once again pulled ahead, while the iPhone exhibited more jitter and less smooth movement overall. However, on the main cameras, the results were much closer: both phones performed almost identically during the shake test, except for one approach where the Galaxy was slightly less stable. But when walking or running, they walked practically level. It was the same story when switching to Action Mode stabilization, but the real difference became apparent
when we switched to telephoto lenses, where the iPhone simply couldn't handle the sudden jerks, adding significantly more shake and blur to the frame than the Galaxy. The Galaxy advantage persisted throughout the walking simulation, and especially during running. Which, of course, is a pretty rare scenario, as few people shoot running videos in telephoto mode. But when you look at the video from the Galaxy and how stable it is, it's really impressive. So, overall, the Galaxy gets the win in ultra-wide mode. The iPhone has a slight advantage on the main camera. And as for the telephoto lens, the Galaxy did much better, which helped it win in stabilization. Okay, the last module we're looking at is resolution, where we measure how
clearly each phone captures fine details on different lenses. Starting with photos on the main camera at default settings, the iPhone had the advantage, which isn't too surprising since it shoots at 24 megapixels compared to the Galaxy's 12 megapixels. You can see this on this big star: on the Galaxy, the lines have noticeable artifacts, while on the iPhone they look clean and neat. Interestingly, when moving to higher resolution modes, the gap becomes even greater. While the Galaxy does a good job of eliminating some of the artifacts, when you look at these smaller stars, it's clear that the iPhone captures more
detail. This is perhaps even more noticeable if you look at the groups of small stripes here: on the iPhone, you can still distinguish individual lines, while on the Galaxy they have merged into one bunch. But it's not just the lack of details that negatively affects the Galaxy's score in this test. It's also about the artifacts it creates, like this halo glow around some elements that shouldn't be there at all. Moving on to the ultra-wide-angle cameras, the difference was much smaller this time, with both phones capturing about the same amount of detail. But at higher resolutions, the iPhone was able to pull ahead again. Although everything wasn't perfect, because this time he added his own set of
artifacts, like this color moire. At telephoto, the phones were on par, even at higher resolutions, where technically the Galaxy had a slight edge in detail. But the problem was again the appearance of artifacts, such as halos and severe oversharpening. Now, moving on to video modes, in 4K the iPhone had the advantage on all three cameras. On the main camera, it showed a bit more detail in the band groups, while creating less moiré, which you can see is noticeable here on the Galaxy stars. But unlike the iPhone, the Galaxy has an 8K video recording option, and when we turned it on, it was finally able to pull ahead, displaying more detail than the iPhone in 4K, allowing it to earn a higher score despite a higher
number of artifact penalties. Of course, the 8K mode is limited, for example, you can't zoom between lenses or shoot at 60 frames per second. So, looking at the big picture, I still think the iPhone has the edge in video. And, of course, when it came to photos, it was a complete victory for the iPhone, which surpassed the Galaxy in every way. So, to sum up, the iPhone was significantly better at producing clear photos in low light. It is smoother when zooming and generally displayed more detail on all cameras. The Galaxy, on the other hand, had an advantage in tracking objects and also did a better job with stabilization. But since the iPhone not only won in most modules, but also performed better
in arguably more important aspects, like resolution and low-light shooting, it ultimately takes the win in this camera test. Anyway, that's all from me in this video. Thanks for watching, and as always, see you in the next episode.
