The Pixel 9 Pro is now close to its unveiling date. Google surprisingly announced that we’ll get a bunch of new devices on August 13, so there are fewer variables going on. 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, as both of these are still not official, our info is based on leaks, rumors, and two decades of experience in the industry.
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 |
| 6.24-inch display roughly the same size as the iPhone 16 Pro, 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 12GB | Less RAM at 8GB but not that important |
| 128GB base storage | Double the base storage at 256GB |
| Larger 4,575mAh battery that will potentially deliver better battery life | A smaller 3,577mAh battery |
| Wireless charging, potentially faster wired charging | Slow wired charging, MagSafe wireless charging |
Table of Contents:
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 will most likely go down the aluminum route once again.
The display tech on both phones should be quite similar, we expect LTPO panels capable of doing a 1-120Hz dynamic refresh rate, 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, while the Pixel 9 Pro will have a single hole-punch camera cutout on the front.
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 will come 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, we expect the Pixel 9 Pro to sport at least 12GB of RAM, 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.
The Pixel 9 Pro will feature a very similar camera system in terms of lenses and capabilities. We expect the device to come 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!
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 4,575mAh cell we expect the Pixel 9 Pro to have.
There are some rumors pointing toward faster wired charging on the iPhone 16 Pro, with numbers as high as 40W circling around. We don’t have much on the Pixel 9 Pro front, Google might, in the worst case scenario, keep the 30W wired charging from the previous generation, which will be unfortunate. Stay tuned for real life battery and charging tests once we lay our hands on the devices.
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 | Pixel 9 Pro* | iPhone 16 Pro* |
|---|---|---|
| Dimensions | 152.8 x 71.9 x 8.5 mm | 149.6 x 71.5 x 8.25 mm |
| Weight | – | 194 g |
| Screen | 6.24-inch OLED 120Hz |
6.3-inch OLED 120Hz ProMotion |
| Processor | Google Tensor G4 (3nm) | Apple A18 (Pro) |
| RAM, Storage and Price | 12/128GB for $1,099 | 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 | 4,575 mAh | 3,577 mAh |
| Charging Speeds | 30W wired 23W wireless |
27W wired MagSafe wireless |
*-rumored specs
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!
