Pixel 9 Pro vs iPhone 16 Pro: Let's take the battle to the AI grounds
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Intro
The Pixel 9 Pro is now official. After Google surprisingly announced that we'll get a bunch of new devices on August 13, things went as planned and we got four new Pixels, including the aforementioned Pixel 9 Pro. The iPhone 16 Pro, on the other hand, is still a couple of months away. Apple normally lifts the curtain before its new flagship phones around September 22.
Will the new Pixel 9 Pro be able to challenge a well-established entity in the smartphone Pantheon such as the iPhone Pro? Today we're going to try and find out. Bear in mind that, even though the Pixel 9 Pro is here, the iPhone 16 Pro is still tucked away in some secret lab and our info is based on leaks, rumors, and two decades of experience in the industry. With that in mind, let's do a preliminary comparison and see what's what.
Pixel 9 Pro vs iPhone 16 Pro expected differences:
Pixel 9 Pro | iPhone 16 Pro* |
---|---|
Similar size, probably a tad larger | A more compact phone |
6.3-inch display roughly the same size as the iPhone 16 Pro, 1-120Hz refresh rate | 6.3-inch display, ProMotion 120Hz |
Triple camera, including a telephoto, main camera is 50MP, 48MP ultrawide, 48MP telephoto with 5x optical zoom | Similar camera system, new custom-made Sony IMX803 48MP stacked sensor for the main camera, 48MP ultrawide, tetraprism telephoto with 5x optical |
More RAM at 16GB | Less RAM at 8GB but not that important |
128GB base storage | Double the base storage at 256GB |
Larger 4,700mAh battery that will potentially deliver better battery life | A smaller 3,577mAh battery |
45W fast wired charging, potentially faster than what the iPhone will get | Slow wired charging, MagSafe wireless charging |
*rumored specs
Table of Contents:
Design and Display Quality
Different yet similar
This year, the iPhone 16 Pro is expected to grow in size, due to the 6.3-inch screen we expect to see on the Pro model. The Google Pixel 9 Pro, on the other hand, has shrink to 6.3 inches to make room for the new addition to the lineup, the Pixel 9 Pro XL.
So, intentionally or not, these two phones will end up being very similar in size, weight, and display specs. What remains different is the design.
The Pixel 9 Pro features a reimagined camera bar on the back, the "bar" does not go all the way across the device but rather sticks out like an isle. The overall shape is different and gives the Pixel 9 Pro a different design vibe altogether. The sides are also flat, with no curvature on the front or back, which makes the Pixel feel similar to an iPhone.
Speaking of which, the iPhone 16 Pro is expected to maintain the overall design language of its predecessors, with a square camera bump housing three lenses and a flat front, back, and sides.
We also expect the iPhone 16 Pro to continue the titanium trend, while the Pixel 9 Pro went down the aluminum route once again.
The display tech on both phones should be quite similar, we expect the iPhone 16 to come with an LTPO panel capable of doing a 1-120Hz dynamic refresh rate (called ProMotion in typical Apple fashion), and decent peak brightness of 2,500 nits or more. Not much else can be said at the moment, the iPhone 16 Pro will probably retain the pill-shaped cutout for the front cameras and sensors with the additional Dynamic Island functionality.
The Pixel 9 Pro features a reimagined camera bar on the back, the "bar" does not go all the way across the device but rather sticks out like an isle. The overall shape is different and gives the Pixel 9 Pro a different design vibe altogether. The sides are also flat, with no curvature on the front or back, which makes the Pixel feel similar to an iPhone.
Speaking of which, the iPhone 16 Pro is expected to maintain the overall design language of its predecessors, with a square camera bump housing three lenses and a flat front, back, and sides.
We also expect the iPhone 16 Pro to continue the titanium trend, while the Pixel 9 Pro went down the aluminum route once again.
The display tech on both phones should be quite similar, we expect the iPhone 16 to come with an LTPO panel capable of doing a 1-120Hz dynamic refresh rate (called ProMotion in typical Apple fashion), and decent peak brightness of 2,500 nits or more. Not much else can be said at the moment, the iPhone 16 Pro will probably retain the pill-shaped cutout for the front cameras and sensors with the additional Dynamic Island functionality.
The Pixel 9 Pro already set the benchmark with its 6.3-inch LTPO panel, capable of outputting 2000 nits of HDR brightness and up to 3000 nits of total peak brightness, so the iPhone 16 Pro has something to fight for here.
Performance and Software
Surrender to the AI
Nowadays, the hardware is starting to get more and more irrelevant when it comes to smartphones. On the one hand, we have more than enough power for day-to-day tasks, on the other hand, AI is taking over as the main driver for innovation, and it's mostly software. However you want to put it, most of the AI tasks are done in the cloud, even though big companies are trying to push through "on-device" AI as the primary way to do it.
That being said, there's still some innovation going on, and it has implications for efficiency. The iPhone 16 Pro is expected to have the new A18 chipset, probably with the "Pro" moniker, and an improved NPU to handle some machine learning tasks. The Pixel 9 Pro comes equipped with the next-gen Tensor G4 chipset. The in-house developed Google silicon is designed with machine learning performance in mind, so despite some lackluster results in synthetic benchmarks for the past generation of Tensors, the AI performance, and everyday performance in general could be very similar between these two phones.
The RAM situation is again a bit hard to compare, as Android and iOS handle apps differently. In general, iPhone devices need less RAM to get the same performance, as apps are quite optimized and there's only Apple using iOS, as opposed to a huge number of brands using Android. That being said, the Pixel 9 Pro sports 16GB of RAM (probably to ensure smooth on-device AI operation), while the iPhone 16 Pro could get away with only 8GB, even though Apple might jump higher due to AI requirements.
That being said, there's still some innovation going on, and it has implications for efficiency. The iPhone 16 Pro is expected to have the new A18 chipset, probably with the "Pro" moniker, and an improved NPU to handle some machine learning tasks. The Pixel 9 Pro comes equipped with the next-gen Tensor G4 chipset. The in-house developed Google silicon is designed with machine learning performance in mind, so despite some lackluster results in synthetic benchmarks for the past generation of Tensors, the AI performance, and everyday performance in general could be very similar between these two phones.
The RAM situation is again a bit hard to compare, as Android and iOS handle apps differently. In general, iPhone devices need less RAM to get the same performance, as apps are quite optimized and there's only Apple using iOS, as opposed to a huge number of brands using Android. That being said, the Pixel 9 Pro sports 16GB of RAM (probably to ensure smooth on-device AI operation), while the iPhone 16 Pro could get away with only 8GB, even though Apple might jump higher due to AI requirements.
Speaking of AI again, the situation is very turbulent at the moment, and the fact that Apple struck a deal with ChatGPT to integrate the LLM into iOS, and that there are rumors that the Cupertino company is talking to Google to get Gemini on the iPhone 16 lineup shows that Apple is playing catch-up on that front.
So, we're not sure how this one will play out, but in the best-case scenario, these two will feature similar AI magic onboard, and if things go south, Google will still have an advantage. The same goes for the software support. Pixel phones now come with seven years of major OS updates, and that's two more years compared to what Apple is offering.
Camera
Closer than ever
Based on what we could gather over the past few months, the iPhone 16 Pro will most likely feature the same 48MP Sony IMX803 main sensor (there's potential to see the stacked design IMX903, but it will probably be reserved for the iPhone 16 Pro Max). We expect an upgraded 48MP ultrawide camera, as well as the same tetraprism zoom camera from the previous model, sporting 5x optical zoom. Rumors say there will be a new antireflective coating on the lenses to battle lens glare.
The Pixel 9 Pro features a very similar camera system to its predecessor in terms of lenses and capabilities. The device comes equipped with a 50MP main camera sensor, accompanied by a 48-megapixel ultrawide camera, and a 48MP periscope zoom lens with 5x optical zoom. Of course, post-processing algorithms will play a huge role in the final result and photo quality, so we will need to snap some samples and put them side by side for objective comparison. Stay tuned for that!
Battery Life and Charging
Milliamp-hours don't tell the whole story
Normally, you can't argue with or cheat physics. Larger batteries equal longer autonomy. When it comes to iPhone devices, Apple has managed to somehow optimize them to perform on par with their Android counterparts with larger batteries.
For example, the iPhone 15 Pro Max comes with a 4,422mAh cell but performs on par, and sometimes better than the Galaxy S24 Ultra and its 5,000mAh battery. With that in mind, we expect the 3,577 mAh battery in the iPhone 16 Pro to deliver similar battery life to the 4,700mAh cell the Pixel 9 Pro has onboard.
There are some rumors pointing toward faster wired charging on the iPhone 16 Pro, with numbers as high as 40W circling around. This will be a nice upgrade as iPhones nowadays lag behind when it comes to charging, and there are no excuses now that EU mandated the USB-C port on all future iPhones. The Pixel 9 Pro upgraded the somewhat slow charging of its predecessor and now offers 45W of wired charging, citing 0-55% in 30 minutes, which is actually not that impressive.
For example, the iPhone 15 Pro Max comes with a 4,422mAh cell but performs on par, and sometimes better than the Galaxy S24 Ultra and its 5,000mAh battery. With that in mind, we expect the 3,577 mAh battery in the iPhone 16 Pro to deliver similar battery life to the 4,700mAh cell the Pixel 9 Pro has onboard.
Audio Quality and Haptics
We can't comment on the audio quality and haptics, as these require some tet-a-tette time with the devices, but we haven't heard anything major on that front regarding upgrades. If we have to extrapolate, and also speculate that both phones will keep the speakers and haptic motors of their respective predecessors, then the iPhone should have a slight edge over the Pixel 9 Pro in both audio quality and haptics. But we need to test both to give a true verdict.
Specs Comparison
Here's a preliminary specs comparison table, you can see the full Google Pixel 9 Pro vs iPhone 16 Pro comparison on PhoneArena.
Specs | Pixel 9 Pro | iPhone 16 Pro* |
---|---|---|
Dimensions | 152.8 x 72 x 8.5 mm | 149.6 x 71.5 x 8.25 mm |
Weight | 199 g | 194 g |
Screen | 6.3-inch OLED 1-120Hz LTPO | 6.3-inch OLED 120Hz ProMotion |
Processor | Google Tensor G4 (3nm) | Apple A18 (Pro) |
RAM, Storage and Price | 16/128GB for $999 | 8/256GB for $999 |
Cameras | 50MP main 48MP ultra-wide 48MP telephoto, 5x optical 10.5MP front | 48MP main 48MP ultra-wide 12MP telephoto 12MP front |
Battery Size | 4,700 mAh | 3,577 mAh |
Charging Speeds | 45W wired wireless | 27W wired MagSafe wireless |
*-rumored specs
Which one should you buy?
It's too early to say which one will win this intense fight, and it will be down to the implementation of AI features and software magic, more or less. As things progress in that direction, and given the less impact pure hardware has on things such as performance and image quality, we expect the battle to be held on the AI grounds of machine learning, chatbots, and large language models.
As soon as we run our extensive battery, display, performance, and camera tests, we will update this comparison with some hard numbers and a final verdict. Stay tuned!
As soon as we run our extensive battery, display, performance, and camera tests, we will update this comparison with some hard numbers and a final verdict. Stay tuned!
Things that are NOT allowed: