The Pixel 8 Pro is Google’s latest top-of-the-range phone, with a new processor, brighter display and better cameras than its predecessor. But it faces stiff competition from two other phones that dominate the premium smartphone market: the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. How do they really compare?
The Pixel 8 Pro runs on the new Tensor G3 chipset, the third generation in a series of silicon designed by Google to boost its on-device AI processing. In benchmarks like Geekbench, Tensor chips don’t seem to be quite as much of a powerhouse as the A17 Pro chip in the iPhone 15 Pro Max or the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip in the Galaxy S23 Ultra. We’ll have to wait until we can fully test the Pixel 8 Pro to see how it compares.
But the Tensor chipset does enable many of the Pixel family’s neat media-editing tricks, such as Magic Eraser for removing elements from photos, Audio Magic Eraser for reducing background noise, and Best Take for combining the best parts of a series of photos. These are the flashiest software advantages the Pixel 8 Pro has over the competition (among others), although Magic Eraser is technically available for other phones via the Google Photos app.
The Pixel 8 Pro’s other big advantage is its seven-year guarantee for Android OS and security updates. That’s a lot more than Samsung phones like the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which has four years of OS updates and five years of security updates. And Apple is unclear about how long phones will be supported – the just-released iOS 17 update, for example, leaves behind the iPhone 8 and iPhone X, both released in 2017, so five years of OS updates is the low estimate for a new iPhone.
The Pixel 8 Pro’s rear camera hardware includes a 50-megapixel main shooter, a 48-megapixel ultra-wide and a 48-megapixel telephoto with 5x optical zoom. On paper, these cameras should produce sharper photos than the 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle and 12-megapixel telephoto cameras on the iPhone 15 Pro Max, although we’ll have to test them against Apple’s unique ‘tetraprism’ technology in the zoom camera (the iPhone’s 48-megapixel main camera may be roughly comparable to the Pixel 8 Pro’s main shooter).
In terms of rear cameras, the Pixel 8 Pro’s biggest challenge could come from the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which has a 200-megapixel main camera. While it only has a 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera, Samsung’s top phone has two telephoto cameras: a 10-megapixel 3x optical zoom and a 10-megapixel 10x optical zoom with up to 100x digital zoom. But with the phone starting at $1,200, these souped-up camera specs make sense given the Pixel 8 Pro’s $1,000 starting price and the iPhone 15 Pro Max’s $1,100 price tag.
All three phones have pretty similar selfie cameras: the Pixel 8 Pro has a 10.5-megapixel selfie shooter, while the iPhone 15 Pro Max and Galaxy S23 Ultra both have 12-megapixel front-facing cameras.
In terms of design, the three phones have very different looks. The Pixel 8 Pro retains its predecessor’s wide horizontal camera block that spans the width of the phone. A metallic strip wraps around the phone’s three rear cameras, with a flash and new temperature sensor on the right (for checking food and, pending FDA approval, your own skin). The rest of the phone’s back is made of matte glass, and its sides are rounded.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max has the flat sides of its predecessor and a square camera block, with lenses that are larger and more protruding than on previous iPhones. The Galaxy S23 Ultra is the physically largest of the bunch, though its design tends towards minimalism, with only the five cameras protruding from the unadorned back (ie no large camera block), and rounded sides.
The Pixel 8 Pro’s 6.7-inch OLED display (3,120 x 1,440 pixels) is the same size as its predecessor, but it’s brighter, maxing out at 2,400 nits with a refresh rate of 1 to 120Hz. It has a slightly sharper resolution than the iPhone 15 Pro Max’s 6.7-inch OLED screen (2,796 x 1,290 pixels), and it’s on a par with the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s 6.8-inch AMOLED screen (3,088 x 1,440 pixels) (both Apple and Samsung phones have 120Hz adaptive refresh rates).
The phones are also pretty similar in terms of other hardware specs. The Pixel 8 Pro comes with 12GB of RAM and 128GB to 1TB of storage. Apple never specifies the amount of memory in its phones, although GSMArena says the iPhone 15 Pro Max has 8GB, and the phone comes with 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of storage. The Galaxy S23 Ultra starts with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, but can be configured for 12GB of RAM and 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of storage. None of the three has a slot for expandable storage, so you’ll have to store your extra files in the cloud or connect an external SSD.
Similarly, Apple doesn’t reveal the battery capacity of its phones, saying only that it will last up to 29 hours of video playback (in other words, it should last all day without needing to be recharged). The Pixel 8 Pro has a 5,050mAh battery, while the Galaxy S23’s battery has a capacity of 5,000mAh.
In a first for Apple, the iPhone 15 Pro Max has a USB-C port instead of the Lightning connector and has 25 watts of wired charging and 15 watts of wireless charging. The Pixel 8 Pro has up to 30 watts of wired charging and 23 watts of wireless charging, while the Galaxy S23 Ultra has the fastest speed with 45 watts of wired charging and 15 watts of wireless charging.
