The iPhone 18 Pro vs Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra comparison is an unusual one this year, because only one of the two phones actually exists. Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra has been on sale in the UAE since January 2025, has been reviewed to exhaustion, and has already been replaced at the top of Samsung’s range. Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro has not been announced at all.
This iPhone 18 Pro vs Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra comparison separates confirmed Samsung specifications from pre-launch reports about Apple’s upcoming phone.
That changes this week. Apple has confirmed a special event for 9 September at 10 a.m. Pacific Time — 9 p.m. GST the same evening — at the Apple Park campus in Cupertino. The company has given the event the tagline “Surprise and Shine”, and the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max and a first foldable iPhone are all widely expected to appear. Apple itself has confirmed none of those product names.
So this is a comparison between a known quantity and an educated guess. It is still a useful one, because a large number of UAE buyers are sitting on exactly this decision: pay full price for a phone Apple has not yet shown, or buy a heavily discounted 2025 Android flagship that already does almost everything.
Key takeaways
- Apple’s event is confirmed for Wednesday, 9 September 2026; the iPhone 18 Pro name, specifications and price are not.
- The Galaxy S25 Ultra launched in the UAE at AED 5,099 for the 256GB model and has been selling well below that through 2026.
- Samsung replaced it with the Galaxy S26 Ultra, launched globally on 26 February 2026, which is why S25 Ultra pricing has fallen so far. Samsung
- The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max are expected to go on sale on 18 September 2026, with the standard iPhone 18 pushed to spring 2027. Apple
iPhone 18 Pro vs Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: Key Differences
| Feature | iPhone 18 Pro (Rumored) | Galaxy S25 Ultra (Official) |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Expected Reveal expected 9 September 2026 | Available On sale since January 2025 |
| Display | 6.3-inch LTPO+ OLED (reported) | 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X (120Hz, 2,600 nits peak) |
| Processor | A20 Pro (built on 2nm process) | Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy |
| Main Camera | 48MP Fusion with variable aperture (reported) | 200MP wide |
| Zoom | Telephoto improvements (reported) | 50MP 5x periscope + 10MP 3x |
| Battery Claim | Not disclosed | Up to 31 hours video playback (Samsung quote) |
| Stylus | None | Built-in S Pen |
| UAE Price | Unannounced | From AED 3,449 on Samsung UAE at the time of checking; promotions may change |
Design, camera, and battery life compared
On design, the two phones are not really competing on the same axis. The Galaxy S25 Ultra is a large, flat-sided slab with a titanium frame, Gorilla Armor 2 glass and a stylus that slots into the body. It is the most feature-dense phone Samsung has ever sold, and it feels like it.
The iPhone 18 Pro is reported to change very little externally. Reports suggest the same overall design as the iPhone 17 Pro, including the 6.3-inch and 6.9-inch display sizes and the camera “plateau” housing three rear lenses, with the displays moving to LTPO+ technology for better efficiency. If accurate, buyers upgrading from an iPhone 17 Pro will notice the internals long before they notice the shell.
The camera comparison is where the two philosophies diverge most sharply. Samsung’s approach is hardware abundance: a 200MP main sensor, two dedicated telephoto lenses, and a 50MP ultra-wide. Apple’s rumoured approach is depth over breadth. The main 48-megapixel Fusion camera is reported to gain a variable aperture, letting the user control how much light reaches the sensor — a mechanical change no iPhone has had before. Whether it lands on both Pro models or only the Pro Max is unsettled; some reporting suggests the variable aperture may be exclusive to the iPhone 18 Pro Max.
Treat the front-facing changes with more caution still. Under-display Face ID and a smaller Dynamic Island have been reported for months, but the reporting contradicts itself. One analysis concludes that Apple is reportedly exploring a smaller front cutout rather than shipping under-display Face ID, and that the available reporting does not establish which of the two Apple will actually do. A separate summary states flatly that full under-display Face ID is off the table for 2026. Nobody outside Apple knows.
Battery is the one area where the S25 Ultra can be judged rather than predicted. It carries a 5,000mAh cell with 45W wired charging, and Samsung rates it at up to 31 hours of video playback under its own lab conditions. Lab figures are not real life, particularly in a market where phones spend the summer moving between 45°C outdoors and heavy air conditioning, but the S25 Ultra comfortably clears a working day for most people. No comparable figure exists for the iPhone 18 Pro, because Apple has not published one.
Price and availability in the UAE
This is where the S25 Ultra makes its strongest case, and it is worth being precise about why. Samsung’s UAE launch price was AED 5,099 for the 256GB model, rising to AED 5,599 for 1TB. Samsung then announced the Galaxy S26 Ultra on 25 February 2026 and began general sales on 11 March 2026, which pushed the S25 Ultra into the discount tier. UAE retailers have listed the 256GB model substantially below launch through 2026 — one Dubai retailer promotion cut it to AED 3,599, a saving of AED 1,500 on the original AED 5,099 — though pricing moves constantly by store, storage tier and promotion. Samsung Gulf’s own Galaxy S25 Ultra product page is the reference point for current official pricing.
Apple has published nothing on UAE pricing, and will not until the phone is announced. The useful anchor is last year’s: the iPhone 17 Pro launched in the UAE from Dh4,699 and the 17 Pro Max from Dh5,099. Analysts Ming-Chi Kuo and Jeff Pu both expect Apple to hold US pricing flat at $1,099 for the iPhone 18 Pro and $1,199 for the Pro Max, which would suggest broadly similar dirham figures — but memory-chip costs have been rising, and other reporting expects increases. Our fuller breakdown of the expected AED prices for the iPhone 18 Pro tracks that.
One UAE-specific point worth more attention than it usually gets: where you buy matters as much as what you buy. Grey-market units sold at below-official prices frequently carry regional variants with different SIM configurations and no local warranty cover. If you are weighing a discounted S25 Ultra in particular, read our guide to buying from official retailers versus the grey market first. Dual physical SIM support matters to a lot of residents here, and it is one of the specifications most likely to differ between a Middle East unit and an imported one.
What Apple Has Actually Confirmed About the September 9 Event
Very little, and the gap between what is confirmed and what is circulating is the single most important thing to understand before Wednesday.
Confirmed by Apple: the date, the time and the venue. Nothing else. The widely reported iPhone 18 Pro release date of 18 September 2026 is an expectation drawn from Apple’s consistent launch pattern rather than a company statement. Pre-orders would normally open on the first Friday after the event, but that falls on 11 September this year — the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a date Apple has historically avoided — so reports point to pre-orders opening on Saturday, 12 September instead.
Anyone wanting to watch it directly can do so through Apple’s official events page, which carries the livestream. That is also the only place the specifications will stop being rumours.
Why the Galaxy S25 Ultra still makes sense in 2026
Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra is now the company’s current Ultra flagship, so the S25 Ultra should be viewed here as a discounted previous-generation alternative.
The obvious objection is that the S25 Ultra is now two generations old. That is true, and it is also the reason to consider it.
Nothing about the phone got worse when the S26 Ultra arrived. The Snapdragon 8 Elite still handles anything the App Store or Play Store can throw at it, which is why the S25 Ultra family remains a fixture in guides to the best gaming phones in the UAE. The 200MP camera and the 5x periscope are still among the most versatile in any phone. The S Pen is still the only built-in stylus in this class, with one caveat worth knowing: Samsung removed Bluetooth from the S25 Ultra’s S Pen, so remote-shutter and air-gesture tricks from older Ultra models no longer work.
Software support and how long each phone will last
Samsung committed to seven years of operating system and security updates for the Galaxy S25 series, which means a phone bought today should still be receiving updates towards the end of the decade. Roughly two of those years have already elapsed.
Apple does not publish a fixed support window. In practice, recent iPhones have received major iOS releases for five to six years and security patches beyond that. A new iPhone 18 Pro would start that clock from zero. For a buyer planning to keep a phone for four or five years, that difference partly offsets the S25 Ultra’s price advantage — the discount is real, but so is the head start Samsung’s clock already has.
Which one should you buy?
If you are already inside Apple’s ecosystem, use iMessage and FaceTime daily, and want the longest possible support runway, wait until Wednesday. Buying an S25 Ultra three days before a new iPhone is announced is a decision you will second-guess. Our broader iPhone versus Samsung comparison covers the ecosystem trade-offs in more depth.
If price is a major factor, compare the latest iPhone prices in the UAE before deciding whether to wait for the iPhone 18 Pro.
If you want maximum hardware for the money, the iPhone 18 Pro vs Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra choice is less close than the model years suggest. A discounted S25 Ultra gives you a 200MP camera, a periscope zoom, a stylus and a 6.9-inch display for what will almost certainly be well under the iPhone 18 Pro’s launch price. Photographers who shoot at long focal lengths, and anyone who genuinely writes on a phone, should look at it seriously.
If you are undecided, the cheapest option is patience. S25 Ultra prices have historically softened further after a new iPhone launch, and by Friday you will be comparing a real phone to a real phone instead of a real phone to a rumour.
Apple’s keynote at 9 p.m. GST on Wednesday, 9 September, followed by UAE pricing and pre-order dates from Apple’s regional store and local retailers. We will update this comparison with confirmed iPhone 18 Pro specifications once Apple publishes them.