Technologies

iPhone 15 Pro Max Camera vs. Galaxy S23 Ultra: Which Is Best?

Apple’s latest iPhone has an amazing camera. But then, so does Samsung’s. Here’s our expert comparison.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max has one of the best cameras it’s possible to get on any phone, with its main camera and new 5x telephoto zoom lens letting you snag incredible images in any conditions. It’s an overall photography beast, but it isn’t the only great camera phone to buy. Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra has remained one of our top picks for photographers since it launched earlier this year. It can take glorious images, and its 10x zoom offers even more creative options.

But how do these two phones compare when it comes to photo-shooting prowess? To find out, I put both devices through their paces in a series of tests in London and Edinburgh, including night mode imagery, zoom tests and portrait mode challenges.

Read more: Best camera phone

The long story short is that both phones are incredibly capable when it comes to taking photos that’ll wow your Instagram followers, but read on to see how each phone fares under different conditions.

Both phones have captured this bright, vibrant scene well with their main cameras. But the iPhone 15 Pro Max has produced more realistic colors in both the sky and in the main building to the left of the scene. The S23 Ultra’s sky looks particularly oversaturated , with a yellow tinge to the scene that I’m less keen on.

It’s the same story when switching to each phone’s wide-angle lens. The S23 Ultra’s shot is more vibrant, but it looks almost unnaturally saturated as a result. The iPhone 15 Pro Max’s shot looks almost a little drab by comparison, but I prefer its more faithful reproduction of colors.

Beyond a slight shift in white balance, there’s very little to choose between either shot here.

I focused closer-up on these pretty pink flowers using the main cameras on each phone, and the iPhone is the clear winner. It’s provided an attractive out-of-focus bokeh to the background, while keeping the subject looking nice and sharp, which helps the foreground flowers stand out. The S23 Ultra doesn’t have the same depth effect and its colors are extremely saturated. The green leaves to the bottom left of the image in particular look almost toxic against the iPhone’s much more realistic tones.

Color balance isn’t an issue here, with both phones producing well-exposed shots and the vibrant artwork on this bridge looking well-produced in both images.

There’s not a lot of immediate difference here, so I really have to nitpick to draw any conclusion. On the one hand, I slightly prefer the brighter, higher-contrast exposure the S23 Ultra has managed. However, the iPhone 15 Pro Max has a more attractive shallow depth of field, with softer bokeh noticeable on the chairs and light sources in the background. As a result, we can call this one a tie.

Switching to the ultrawide cameras on both phones, the big difference is the shift in white balance on the S23 Ultra. Samsung’s phone has opted for an image with a strong magenta color cast that I’m not particularly keen on. While the iPhone’s shot is a little darker, its color tone is much more accurate.

Both phones have portrait modes that can be used with different lenses but still capture that attractive bokeh effect around your subject. Taken with the standard 1x lenses, the S23’s shot is wider than the iPhone’s, while also producing richer contrast and stronger colors. The iPhone’s looks quite washed out, either due to lens flare or simply through software processing, and the result is disappointing.

Things change when we look at the zoomed-in shots. The iPhone Pro Max’s 5x zoom lens has captured a lovely portrait here, with great exposure and a really natural-looking bokeh around the subject that could easily have been taken on a DSLR with a telephoto zoom. The S23 Ultra’s shot still looks good though, with rich contrast and deep colors.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max’s 5x zoom has delivered a much better-looking shot than the S23 Ultra’s 3x lens, with more natural-looking colors and exposure. Things improve for the S23 Ultra at 10x zoom though, with a far nicer color tone overall, not to mention being able to see more detail on the sign, thanks to the longer zoom range.

The S23 Ultra’s extended zoom range can be beneficial, especially for those occasions where you really want to fill your frame with a distant subject. However, I personally find 5x to be a real sweet spot. It allows me to find more interesting compositions than I could with a wide-angle lens, but without being too restrictive.

That’s why I prefer the iPhone 15 Pro Max in this scenario rather than the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s closer 10x zoom. This largely comes down to personal preference, of course, but I find the iPhone’s zoom (as I did with the Pixel 7 Pro’s 5x zoom) much more useful on a day-to-day basis.

Night mode

Both the iPhone 15 Pro Max and Galaxy S23 Ultra can take excellent shots after dark, and these images from the main camera are fine examples. That said, the S23 Ultra’s image has a more yellow color cast to the image, while the iPhone 15 Pro Max maintains slightly finer details, especially in some of the brickwork on the buildings. The S23 Ultra’s image noise processing has smoothed out some of those details.

That detail smoothing is especially noticeable in this nighttime image of the front of a building. While the iPhone has clearly reproduced the details in the brickwork, with noticeable texture on the sandstone blocks, the S23 Ultra has recognized that texture as image noise and so has attempted to smooth it out. The result is an odd-looking smoothed appearance that lacks any of the realism of the iPhone’s image.

This scene is more of a mixed bag. The S23 Ultra has kept some of the bright highlights under better control, while the iPhone has achieved a brighter sky that gives better separation to the tops of the buildings. I don’t really feel either one is especially better than the other here.

Switching to the ultrawide lenses on both phones, it’s immediately obvious that the iPhone’s image is brighter, both in the sky and in the river below. However, it’s a less detailed image, with the S23 Ultra achieving sharper details on the buildings, better control of highlights and less image noise in the river.

However, I much prefer the iPhone’s 5x zoom shot at night to either the 3x or 10x zoom shots from the S23 Ultra. The iPhone has achieved a pin-sharp image here, with great colors and exposure, with even the bright clock face on the left being clearly visible. At 3x, the S23 Ultra is already losing some detail, and at 10x the image is disappointingly mushy and lacking in detail.

The S23 Ultra’s familiar magenta color cast is visible again in this night mode shot, with the iPhone generally producing more natural tones. Both shots are almost equally bright however, with almost nothing to choose between them in terms of clarity and detail.

While the iPhone’s ultrawide night mode shot isn’t quite as sharp as the S23 Ultra’s, Samsung’s phone suffers from some unpleasant noise artifacts in the sky — green-looking blobs where the digital processing clearly hasn’t performed as it should. It’s a disappointing result for the S23 Ultra here, as its shot is otherwise the better of the two.

The night mode zoom results here are the same as I found in the other test. The iPhone 15 Pro Max’s 5x zoom has produced a sharp and clear image with a good handle on image noise. The 3x shot from the S23 Ultra suffers from unpleasant noise artifacts, and the 10x is extremely muddy and lacking in detail.

iPhone 15 Pro Max vs. Galaxy S23 Ultra: Which takes better photos?

It’s been a very close-fought battle between these two powerhouse phones, and the reality is that either phone is superb for photographers wanting to take beautiful images under any conditions. It’s only when you really study the details of each shot side-by-side that you can you tell much difference. And even then, a lot of those perceived differences are subjective. Still, with both phones costing well into four figures, it’s important to nitpick at these details to make sure your money is well spent.

Overall I prefer the images from the iPhone 15 Pro Max. It delivered more-accurate colors in almost all my tests, with the S23 Ultra frequently producing unrealistic color casts from the auto white balance. Samsung’s phone also produces oversaturated images — something that’s been common on Samsung phones for generations — while the iPhone keeps its colors more true to life.

I Took 600+ Photos With the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. Look at My Favorites

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I also prefer the 5x zoom on the Pro Max, which produces better-looking images than the S23 Ultra’s 3x lens and is generally more useful than the Ultra’s 10x lens. And in night mode, I found the iPhone to deliver overall better-looking shots, especially when using the zoom.

But bear in mind that I’m a professional photographer, so what I value in images is accurate color tone and a more neutral-looking image that I could boost manually with contrast or other adjustments in editing apps. If you prefer more vibrant, contrasty images to share with family and friends straight from your phone, then Samsung’s phone may be the better option.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Saturday, July 12

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for July 12.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? It’s one of those long Saturday puzzles, and a few clues are tricky. Read on for the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times’ games collection. If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Havana’s home
Answer: CUBA

5A clue: Last word in many bowling alley names
Answer: LANES

6A clue: Lots and lots
Answer: SOMUCH

7A clue: Left-leaning social media site
Answer: BLUESKY

8A clue: Hepburn of «Breakfast at Tiffany’s»
Answer: AUDREY

9A clue: Word after «break» or «banana»
Answer: BREAD

10A clue: Car loan figs.
Answer: APRS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: They always shoot their shot
Answer: CAMERAS

2D clue: Brand-new
Answer: UNUSED

3D clue: Woman with «the good hair,» in a famous Beyoncé lyric
Answer: BECKY

4D clue: In need of moisturizer
Answer: ASHY

5D clue: «We can’t hear you back here!»
Answer: LOUDER

6D clue: Drink noisily
Answer: SLURP

7D clue: ___ ghanouj
Answer: BABA

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for July 12, #292

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for July 12, No. 292

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition has one of those classic purple categories, where you probably won’t figure it out before you’ve answered all the others. Need help? Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Show Me State.

Green group hint: Old Line State.

Blue group hint: Gridiron greats.

Purple group hint: Names begins with a certain creature.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Missouri teams.

Green group: Maryland teams.

Blue group: Hall of Fame football coaches.

Purple group: Sports people or terms starting with an animal.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is Missouri teams. The four answers are Blues, Cardinals, Chiefs and Royals.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is Maryland teams. The four answers are Maryland, Navy, Orioles and Ravens.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is Hall of Fame football coaches. The four answers are Levy, Madden, Noll, and Shula.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is sports people or terms starting with an animal. The four answers are batter, Catchings, Cowherd and dogleg.

Technologies

CNET Daily Tariff Price Tracker: I’m Watching 11 Key Products for Changes, Here’s What’s Happened

The deadline for the start of Trump’s heaviest tariffs has been delayed until next month, leaving consumers stuck with more uncertainty over prices.

For the last three months, tariffs have been a hot topic, leaving consumers and businesses alike worried: Will they hike prices and by how much? It’s a question more relevant than ever this week, as President Trump punts another major deadline down the road and price-slashing Amazon’s Prime Day sales wind down as the week ends.

Amid those worries, I’ve been tracking prices every day for 11 key products likely to be hit by tariff-induced price increases, and the answer I’ve come to so far is this: Not so much, at least not yet. The winding road of tariff inflation still stretches before us into an uncertain future, so the threat of price hikes continues to cloud the horizon.

To date, I’ve seen two noteworthy price increases, one for the Xbox Series X and the other for a popular budget-friendly 4K TV. Some other products — including Apple’s popular AirPods and printer ink — have gone on sale for brief periods.

CNET Tariff Tracker Index

Above, you can check out a chart with the average price of the 11 products included in this piece over the course of 2025. This will help give you a sense of the overall price changes and fluctuations going on. Further down, you’ll be able to check out charts for each individual product being tracked.

We’ll be updating this article regularly as prices change. It’s all in the name of helping you make sense of things, so be sure to check back every so often. For more, check out CNET’s guide to whether you should wait to make big purchases or buy them now and get expert tips about how to prepare for a recession.

Methodology

We’re checking prices daily and will update the article and the relevant charts right away to reflect any changes. The following charts show a single bullet point for each month, with the most recent one labeled «Now» and showing the current price. For the past months, we’ve gone with what was the most common price for each item in the given month.

In most cases, the price stats used in these graphs were pulled from Amazon using the historical price-tracker tool Keepa. For the iPhones, the prices come from Apple’s official materials and are based on the 128-gigabyte base model of the latest offering of the iPhone 16. For the Xbox Series X, the prices were sourced from Best Buy using the tool PriceTracker. If any of these products happen to be on sale at a given time, we’ll be sure to let you know and explain how those price drops differ from longer-term pricing trends that tariffs can cause.

The 11 products we’re tracking

Mostly what we’re tracking in this article are electronic devices and digital items that CNET covers in depth, like iPhones and affordable 4K TVs — along with a typical bag of coffee, a more humble product that isn’t produced in the US to any significant degree.

The products featured were chosen for a few reasons: Some of them are popular and/or affordable representatives for major consumer tech categories, like smartphones, TVs and game consoles. Others are meant to represent things that consumers might buy more frequently, like printer ink or coffee beans. Some products were chosen over others because they are likely more susceptible to tariffs. Some of these products have been reviewed by CNET or have been featured in some of our best lists.

iPhone 16, 128GB
Duracell AA batteries, 24-pack
Samsung DU7200 65-inch TV
Xbox Series X
Apple AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C case
HP 962 CMY Printer Ink
Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank
Bose TV speaker
Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook, 256GB
Starbucks 28-ounce ground dark roast coffee

Below, we’ll get into more about each individual product, and stick around till the end for a rundown of some other products worth noting.

iPhone 16

The iPhone is the most popular smartphone brand in the US, so this was a clear priority for price tracking. The iPhone has also emerged as a major focal point for conversations about tariffs, given its popularity and its susceptibility to import taxes because of its overseas production, largely in China. Trump has reportedly been fixated on the idea that the iPhone can and should be manufactured in the US, an idea that experts have dismissed as a fantasy. Estimates have also suggested that a US-made iPhone would cost as much as $3,500.

Something to note about this graph: The price listed is the one you’ll see if you buy your phone through a major carrier. If you, say, buy direct from Apple or Best Buy without a carrier involved, you’ll be charged an extra $30, so in some places, you might see the list price of the standard iPhone 16 listed as $830.

Apple’s been taking a few steps to protect its prices in the face of these tariffs, flying in bulk shipments of product before they took effect and planning to move production for the US market from China to India. A new Reuters report found that a staggering 97% of iPhones imported from the latter country, March through May, were bound for the US. This latter move drew the anger of Trump again, threatening the company with a 25% tariff if they didn’t move production to the US, an idea CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly shot down in the past. This came after Trump gave a tariff exemption to electronic devices including smartphones, so the future of that move seems in doubt now.

Duracell AA batteries

A lot of the tech products in your home might boast a rechargeable energy source but individual batteries are still an everyday essential and I can tell you from experience that as soon as you forget about them, you’ll be needing to restock. The Duracell AAs we’re tracking are some of the bestselling batteries on Amazon.

Samsung DU7200 TV

Alongside smartphones, televisions are some of the most popular tech products out there, even if they’re an infrequent purchase. This particular product is a popular entry-level 4K TV and was CNET’s pick for best overall budget TV for 2025. Unlike a lot of tech products that have key supply lines in China, Samsung is a South Korean company, so it might have some measure of tariff resistance.

After spending most of 2025 hovering around $400, this item has now seen some notable upticks on Amazon, most recently sitting around $450. This could potentially be in reaction to Trump’s announcement of 25% tariffs against South Korea this week.

Xbox Series X

Video game software and hardware are a market segment expected to be hit hard by the Trump tariffs. Microsoft’s Xbox is the first console brand to see price hikes — the company cited «market conditions» along with the rising cost of development. Most notably, this included an increase in the price of the flagship Xbox Series X, up from $500 to $600. Numerous Xbox accessories also were affected and the company also said that «certain» games will eventually see a price hike from $70 to $80.

Initially, we were tracking the price of the much more popular Nintendo Switch as a representative of the gaming market. Nintendo has not yet hiked the price of its handheld-console hybrid and stressed that the $450 price tag of the upcoming Switch 2 has not yet been inflated because of tariffs. Sony, meanwhile, has so far only increased prices on its PlayStation hardware in markets outside the US.

AirPods Pro 2

The latest iteration of Apple’s wildly popular true-wireless earbuds are here to represent the headphone market. Much to the chagrin of the audiophiles out there, a quick look at sales charts on Amazon shows you just how much the brand dominates all headphone sales. For most of the year, they’ve hovered around $199, but ahead of Prime Day sales this week they are currently on sale for $149.

HP 962 CMY printer ink

This HP printer ink includes cyan, magenta and yellow all in one product and recently saw its price jump from around $72 — where it stayed for most of 2025 — to $80, which is around its highest price over the last five years. We will be keeping tabs to see if this is a long-term change or a brief uptick.

This product replaced Overture PLA Filament for 3D printers in this piece, but we’re still tracking that item.

Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank

Anker’s accessories are perennially popular in the tech space and the company has already announced that some of its products will get more expensive as a direct result of tariffs. This specific product has also been featured in some of CNET’s lists of the best portable chargers.

Bose TV speaker

Soundbars have become important purchases, given the often iffy quality of the speakers built into TVs. While not the biggest or the best offering in the space, the Bose TV Speaker is one of the more affordable soundbar options out there, especially hailing from a brand as popular as Bose. You can currently get this model at a healthy discount for Prime Day, down to $200 from $280.

Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush

They might be a lot more expensive than their traditional counterparts but electric toothbrushes remain a popular choice for consumers because of how well they get the job done. I know my dentist won’t let up on how much I need one. This particular Oral-B offering was CNET’s overall choice for the best electric toothbrush for 2025.

While this product hasn’t seen its price budge one way or another most of the year, there is a $10 coupon listed on Amazon right now.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook

Lenovo is notable among the big laptop manufacturers for being a Chinese company making its products especially susceptible to Trump’s tariffs.

Starbucks Ground Coffee (28-ounce bag)

Coffee is included in this tracker because of its ubiquity —I’m certainly drinking too much of it these days —and because it’s uniquely susceptible to Trump’s tariff agenda. Famously, coffee beans can only be grown within a certain distance from Earth’s equator, a tropical span largely outside the US and known as the «Coffee Belt.»

Hawaii is the only part of the US that can produce coffee beans, with data from USAFacts showing that 11.5 million pounds were harvested there in the 2022-23 season — little more than a drop in the mug, as the US consumed 282 times that amount of coffee during that period. Making matters worse, Hawaiian coffee production has declined in the past few years.

All that to say: Americans get almost all of their coffee from overseas, making it one of the most likely products to see price hikes from tariffs.

Other products

As mentioned, we occasionally swap out products with different ones that undergo notable price shifts. Here are some things no longer featured above, but that we’re still keeping an eye on:

Nintendo Switch: The baseline handheld-console hybrid has held steady around $299 most places — including Amazon — since it released in 2017. Whether that price will be affected by tariffs or the release of the Switch 2 remains to be seen. This product was replaced above with the Xbox Series X.
Overture PLA 3D printer filament: This is a popular choice on Amazon for the material needed to run 3D printers. It has held steady around $15 on Amazon all year. This product was replaced above by the HP 962 printer ink.

Here are some products we also wanted to single out that haven’t been featured with a graph yet:

Razer Blade 18 (2025), 5070 Ti edition: The latest revision of Razer’s largest gaming laptop saw a $300 price bump recently, with the base model featured an RTX 5070 Ti graphics card now priced at $3,500 ahead of launch, compared to the $3,200 price announced in February. While Razer has stayed mum about the reasoning, it did previously suspend direct sales to the US as Trump’s tariff plans were ramping up in April.
Asus ROG Ally X: The premium version of Asus’s Steam Deck competitor handheld gaming PC recently saw a price hike from $799 to $899, coinciding with the announcement of the company’s upcoming Xbox-branded Ally handhelds.