Samsung didn't change the recipe this year; it just tried to improve it through some software and AI trickery. We are talking improvements in how we interact with Galaxy AI, performance and even camera optimizations.
A recent rumor claimed that Xiaomi would launch the Xiaomi 17 Ultra on December 26 in China. Well, that rumor has partly proven true. We say this because Xiaomi has confirmed that the Xiaomi 17 Ultra is coming next week without confirming the date. The Chinese brand also confirmed its collaboration with Leica for the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, and if the machine translation of Chinese is correct, the smartphone will bring improvements to the telephoto camera and night-time image quality.
It is, perhaps, most evenly matched with the vivo X300 Pro, which just launched in Europe earlier this week. There's also the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max, but that doesn't quite have the camera performance and battery life of the Oppo - and we don't even know whether it will be available globally. vivo X300 Pro * Xiaomi 17 Pro Max * OnePlus 15 * Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
