Apple iPhone 16 Pro vs Samsung Galaxy S24: Tiny but mighty

Apple's new iPhone 16 Pro is now here, meaner than ever and scoring a ton of upgrades in contrast to the iPhone 15 Pro. It has a larger display, a nifty titanium build, a more powerful A18 chip built on a 3nm, a more powerful telephoto camera, Apple Intelligence support, and finally, an unchanged price tag. 

One of the main rivals of the iPhone 16 Pro is the well-established and pretty solid Android trooper in the face of Samsung's Galaxy S24 compact flagship. This one has been around for the better half of 2024. It comes with a pretty decent specs sheet for a compact phone

How do these compare in detail?

From a design perspective, the iPhone 16 Pro employs the same general design language that has been around on iPhones for years. The new phone scores a titanium frame, like the iPhone 15 Pro, but it's slightly taller and wider, while simultaneously utilizing much thinner bezels in comparison. 

This boosts the screen size from 6.1-inch all the way to 6.3-inch, a more than welcome upgrade in mostly the same-sized package. A win-win situation. 

The iPhone 16 Pro also retains the Action Button that debuted on the iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max, but also scores a new button called Camera Control. It unlocks a whole new level of interacting with the camera, which might come in handy. 

The Galaxy S24, on the other hand, employs an aluminum frame and has the same flat and modern design as the iPhone 16 Pro. It's Samsung's most compact flagship, barring the Galaxy Z Flip 6, and judging from the leaked iPhone 16 Pro dimensions, it seems like the Galaxy might be a more compact device––thinner, lighter, shorter, and narrower. 

And the verdict is in: the Galaxy S24 is a drastically more compact device, especially when we factor in the weight. You will definitely feel the difference in your pocket.

Here's how the two devices compare in terms of size and weight. 

  

Both phones have IP68 water- and dust-resistance, as well as USB-C ports at the bottom.

The iPhone 16 Pro is available in a range of classy colors: Black Titanium, White Titanium, Natural Titanium, and Desert Titanium. The Galaxy S24 is available in Onyx Black, Marble Gray, Cobalt Violet, and Amber Yellow. The Jade Green, Sapphire Blue, and Sandstone Orange colors are available when you buy the phone through Samsung.com.

The iPhone 16 Pro scores a larger 6.3-inch screen, as we mentioned. Part of this upgrade is courtesy of the bezel reduction: the iPhone 16 Pro has those tiny 1.2mm-thin bezels, a pretty strict diet in comparison with the iPhone 15 Pro's 1.71mm bezels. The Galaxy S24 has slightly thicker 1.5mm bezels. 

Aside from that, the rest of the iPhone 16 Pro display specs are mostly the same. We get a Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion 120Hz refresh rate, the same 2,000-nit peak brightness as the iPhone 15 Pro, and the Dynamic Island cutout. 

New here are only the new sturdier Ceramic Shield glass up front and the lowered minimum brightness, which can now hit a single nit, great for late-night viewing. 

Meanwhile, the Galaxy S24 has an ever-so-slightly smaller 6.2-inch OLED screen. It also supports 1-120Hz refresh rate and has pretty high peak brightness. It's a decent and pretty standard OLED display, as usual with Samsung's previous flagships. 

The Samsung phone has a pretty small punch-hole display, which houses the single front-facing camera, while the iPhone 16 Pro gets the Dynamic Island punch-hole, which is a universal iPhone feature… and an acquired taste for sure. 

The Galaxy S24 also has superfast biometrics thanks to the ultrasonic fingerprint scanner embedded inside the display. The iPhone 16 Pro relies on Face ID, which is equally fast and accurate.

The iPhone 16 Pro comes with a second-gen 3nm A18 Pro chipset, manufactured by TMSC. This chip also made its way to the iPhone 16 Pro Max; however, the more affordable iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus got a slightly less powerful, "regular" A18 chip. 

The Apple A18 Pro utilizes dual 4.05 GHz performance cores and four efficiency cores, and also boasts a 6-core GPU (whereas the iPhone 16/iPhone 16 Plus have a pentacore GPU on deck). There's also a sixteen-core Neural Engine NPU on board to handle on-device Apple Intelligence processing.

The iPhone 16 Pro also has an enhanced inner structure, which improves thermal management and will potentially boost the overall performance by minimizing thermal throttling. 

Meanwhile, the Galaxy S24 comes along with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy chipset. It's arguably the best chipset available for Android devices right now. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 achieves a pretty decent performance, though we expect the A18 Pro to outdo that. 

Memory-wise, the iPhone 16 Pro has 8GB of RAM, which is apparently the minimum needed for Apple Intelligence to be supported, while in terms of storage we're getting 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB versions, just like last year. 

The iPhone 16 Pro will also eventually support Visual Intelligence with the Camera Control button. Just point the phone to a specific point of interest, click the new button, and then you get relevant information delivered straight to you thanks to Apple Intelligence.

The iPhone 16 Pro also gets Wi-Fi 7 support, as well as a new Snapdragon X75 5G chip. The US version of the Galaxy S24 has the hardware support for Wi-Fi 7, but Samsung has seemingly disabled that in order to align with the international version of the Galaxy S24, which doesn't support Wi-Fi 7. 

This makes the iPhone 15 Pro a quite versatile device in terms of storage options. The Galaxy S24 also arrives with 8GB of RAM and either 128GB or 256GB of storage, a bit less impressive loadout. If you require more storage, then you will likely have to rely on external storage solutions, like an SSD or a cloud-based storage service.

The iPhone 16 Pro comes with iOS 18 out of the box. This software update brings major improvements to customization and revamps some core apps. However, the intriguing Apple Intelligence bits and pieces are not available in iOS 18––you will have to wait for iOS 18.1 (likely coming this October), which will bring only a handful of Apple Intelligence features. The more exciting ones, like the revamped and more capable Siri assistant, are coming in early 2025. 

The Galaxy S24 comes with One UI 6.1 based on Android 14 currently, but One UI 7 based on Android 15 is coming very soon. The Samsung flagship will enjoy seven years of software updates and security patches, so until 2031. In Apple's camp, the minimum is five years of updates, but we usually get seven to eight years of support.

The iPhone 16 Pro camera has scored some pretty notable upgrades over last year's iPhone 15 Pro. The main camera remains a 48MP Fusion one, but scores a larger and more capable sensor.

Meanwhile, the ultrawide camera is also pretty new. It gets a high-res 48MP camera with a wider aperture that should make ultra-wide scenes look way more detailed than before and deliver better low-light image quality. Finally, and most importantly, the 3X telephoto camera has been upgraded to a tetraprism 5X telephoto, similar to the ones on the iPhone 16 Pro Max and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

The iPhone 16 Pro is equipped with enhanced Photographic Styles, which give you a much better customization of the color and overall style that is output. 

Another important upgrade to the iPhone 16 Pro camera is the new Camera Control button, which enables you to control the whole camera experience with a simple click and swipe, without ever taking your finger off the Camera Control button. 

The iPhone 16 Pro also scores 4K@120fps video recording, which can be edited on the phone straight through the Photos app. There is a four-mic array on deck, along with intelligent noise reduction thanks to Audio Mix. 

Meanwhile, the Galaxy S24 utilizes s a 50MP f/1.8 main camera, joined by a 10MP telephoto with 3X optical zoom and a 12MP ultrawide. This camera setup is mostly similar to the one on the Galaxy S23, with Samsung mostly relying on software optimizations to improve the intergenerational image quality, without any major hardware shakeups.

We don't have the actual iPhone 16 Pro battery size yet, but Apple has been bragging that all of its new iPhones have scored a decent bump in battery life. In particular, Apple says the iPhone 16 Pro lasts 27 hours of video playback. Paired with the efficient and faster Apple A18 Pro chip, the iPhone 16 Pro's battery

Meanwhile, the Galaxy S24 with its efficient Snapdragon chip and large 4,000mAh battery delivered pretty decent battery life that punched above its weight. It definitely beat the iPhone 15 Pro in terms of battery life (check out the battery life comparison here).

One area in which the iPhone 16 Pro might score a surprising upgrade is charging speed. Rumors have it Apple will throw 40W wired charging and 20W MagSafe wireless charging on the flagship, which will possibly improve the charging speeds by a lot.

The iPhone 16 Pro doesn't score a wired charging speed boost, so you can assume it will charge at around 27W when charged with a 30W wall adapter. That's right up the alley of the Galaxy S24, which also has 25W wired charging.

One area in which the iPhone 16 Pro could be much faster is wireless charging. Apple has upped the speed of MagSafe from 15W to 25W, while the Galaxy S24 remains a phone that charges at maximum 15W wirelessly. Oh, and the iPhone 16 Pro is also Qi2-compatible and future proofed. 

The iPhone 16 Pro vs Galaxy S24 specs comparison is available right here, but we've summarized the essentials below:

Overall, the clash between these two is yet another episode in the endless Apple-Samsung confrontation that doesn't seem to have a peaceful resolution in sight. With each and every generation, it's back and forth between the flagships of these two giants on the smartphone market.

Presently, it appears that the iPhone 16 Pro might have a leg up in the competition due to the sensible upgrades, though we are yet to confirm that courtesy of our upcoming tests. The longer telephoto, larger screen, faster chip, Apple Intelligence, and the new Camera Control button could be a decent reason to upgrade for seasoned iPhone fans. 

However, the Galaxy S24 is a pretty decent, no-nonsense flagship device of its own. It might lack showstopping features, but is appealing thanks to its straightforwardness and simplicity. It also has a great camera, awesome performance, good battery life, and provides access to the Galaxy AI suite of features. A prime choice for Android fans.