Apple's iPhone 16 Pro is the company's best iPhone yet, especially for those who need the best smartphone camera, but it's not alone on the podium. We've reached the point where most top smartphones have enough power and battery life to do everything you need to do in a day, and the pictures you take won't disappoint. You might love the crispness of a Google Pixel 9 Pro photo, or you might prefer the stronger saturation of Samsung's Galaxy S24. It's all relative.
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What's an Android fan to do? If you already like your Android life -- customizing your phone, installing whatever apps you want, or Android Auto -- then the iPhone 16 Pro won't be a fit. But if you're OK with switching platforms, which may include re-buying apps and/or switching cloud services for your photos and data, the iPhone 16 Pro is every bit as good as the very best Android smartphones.
Apple iPhone 16 Pro 9/ 10
Apple's iPhone 16 Pro is the phone to beat, with phenomenal cameras and custom styles to eliminate its photographic peculiarities. But Android's top-shelf smartphones are every bit as good, too. Are you willing to switch platforms entirely?
ProsSame price as last year's iPhone ProSlightly bigger OLED display that maxes out at 120HzApple AI is here (for better or worse)Solid battery and OS optimizations that focus on longevityPhotography Styles let you tweak the fancy camera's quirks ConsPhysical Camera button feels unnecessaryCan't lock display at a 120Hz refresh rateAI not as useful as marketing would have you believeTop-shelf Android phones are every bit as fast (and camera-filled) $999 at Amazon$999 at Best Buy$999 at Apple Price, availability, and specifications Don't cheap out on that storage
The "pro" version of Apple's latest iPhone costs as much as last year's, starting at $999 for the standard iPhone 16 Pro and $1,199 for the larger "Max" model. Unlike the saturated iPhone 16, the iPhone 16 Pro's color options are decidedly industrial: desert, natural, white, or black titanium. It starts with 128GB of storage, which you can upgrade to 256GB for an extra $100, 512GB for 300, or a whopping 1TB for $500.
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SoC Apple A18 Pro Display type LTPO OLED, 1-120Hz Display dimensions 6.3" Display resolution 2622 x 1206 Storage 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB Charge speed Unknown wired, 25W wireless Charge options USB-C wired, MagSafe/ Qi2 wireless Ports USB-C SIM support eSIM Operating System iOS 18 Front camera 12MP, f/1.9 Rear camera 48MP, f/1.78, OIS main; 48MP, f/2.2 ultrawide; 12MP, f/2.8 5x telephoto Wi-Fi connectivity Wi-FI 7 Bluetooth Bluetooth 5.3 Dimensions 149.6 x 71.5 x 8.25mm Weight 199g IP Rating IP68 Colors Black Titanium, White Titanium, Natural Titanium, Desert Titanium Price From $999 Expand Design We didn't need a camera button Close
The iPhone Pro's colors are decidedly business, more akin to what you'd find on Google's Pixel 9 Pro than the color splashes of Samsung's Galaxy S24. My jet-black titanium case looks gorgeous on the iPhone 16 Pro. However, a small part of me and the friends who have accompanied me to the Apple Store have been more drawn to the regular iPhone 16's saturated look. The pink, teal, and ultramarine aluminum frames absolutely pop.
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The iPhone 16 Pro is slightly taller (3mm) and wider (1mm) than its predecessor, but it retains the same depth (8.25mm). Its viewable screen size is up to 6.3 inches on the diagonal, thanks to Apple shaving slightly off the bezels of the 6.1-inch iPhone 15 Pro. That's as much screen size on a slightly smaller chassis than the Pixel 9 Pro and a slightly larger screen than what you'd find on the 6.2-inch Galaxy S24. You're unlikely to notice these subtle differences between the three phones, but you'd feel the display improvements if you're coming from a phone with an even smaller display.
Otherwise, the iPhone 16 Pro's screen is practically the same as the iPhone 15 Pro's screen: 120Hz maximum refresh rate, Super Retina XDR (Apple's "OLED" treatment), always-on display elements, a software-based Dynamic Island, and a peak brightness of 2,000 nits, to name a few specs.
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The Dynamic Island is the big display feature that separates the iPhone from its Android competitors. It's incredibly useful to get updates from various apps within this dedicated bit of screen space. As a college football fan, I especially love being able to glance at my favorite teams' scores without having to pull up a dedicated app to view what's going on each Saturday. It's much less annoying than getting a notification every time someone scores a point.
Most of these features exist on the iPhone 16, too. The two that don't are worth the upgrade to a Pro: an improved refresh rate, though adaptive, gives you a smoother experience you'll miss if you ever move to a 60Hz smartphone. Also, the always-on display is incredibly useful for pulling your phone out of your pocket to glance at information (or notifications) without powering it all the way up.
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The iPhone 16 Pro includes a new hardware button on its right side for launching its Camera app. You can then move your finger across the touch-sensitive button to quickly adjust the zoom. Pressing it once with your finger snaps a shot; holding it down triggers a video. The same functionality sort of exists on a Galaxy S24 or a Pixel 9 Pro; you just have to enable the setting that lets you double-tap your smartphone's power button to launch its camera.
I've gotten so used to having a camera widget on my Lock Screen that I found myself forgetting the physical camera button even existed. The few times I used it, I noticed that pressing the button can add the slightest bit of extra jiggle to your shot. This doesn't really affect your photos in the daytime, but it wasn't ideal when I was shooting in low-light environments. You also can't customize the camera button to launch any app you want, unlike a Samsung Galaxy S24, which gives you much more flexibility for its side button.
✕ Remove Ads Software More customizations with a sprinkle of AI
Though Android remains the more customizable, robust operating system for those who love tinkering the heck out of their devices, I've always enjoyed the smooth simplicity of iOS. I don't think either one is better than the other, but iOS feels a bit more Android now that you get more design adjustments for your Home screen in iOS 18. You can edit the look and feel of your iPhone's various pages more than ever before, including setting all of your app icons to a unified color, changing their size, or surrounding them with differently sized widgets.
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Apple has also upgraded the Control Center in iOS 18. I still like it more than having to launch a dedicated Google Home or Samsung SmartThings app. However, it's almost too crowded now, and you're still reliant on Apple (or app manufacturers) to unlock its full flexibility. For example, I can't control my Philips Hue lights natively from the Control Center; it all has to be done through a Hue-to-Apple-Home integration, which feels like an extra, unnecessary step.
RCS messaging is finally here in iOS 18, a feature Android smartphones have enjoyed for eons. You can now fire up read receipts with your Android friends and enjoy "someone is typing" teases within your text messages, assuming your cellular carrier supports the new feature.
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Apple's iOS 18 borrows another page from Android by slapping a dedicated password-manager app directly within the operating system. It's a huge upgrade for convenience and security, as you can now stuff all your complicated passwords into a single app and pull them up on any of your Apple account-connected devices. As always, Apple hasn't made an Android version of Passwords, so you won't get cross-platform convenience, but it's a welcome addition to iOS that's a well-designed, free alternative to third-party services.
And then there's AI, short for "Apple Intelligence."
A few AI features are sprinkled into iOS 18.1. Still, after all that wait and hype, the only real use of AI I've enjoyed has been my iPhone's ability to auto-summarize notifications. I've always felt that Android was way ahead of the game regarding automation and convenience, and Apple Intelligence hasn't changed my mind.
I've used the Pixel's "navigating a phone tree" and call-screening features much, much more than I've used Apple's "writing tools," which let you do things like create or edit text in a group chat or email. And while Apple Intelligence can now summarize emails you get via its Mail app, you can do the exact same thing in the Gmail app -- whether you're on Android or not.
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Over in the Photos app, you can use Apple Intelligence to "Clean Up" photos by tapping parts of the image you want to remove. It's a fun feature to play around with, but I wouldn't make serious use of it. Samsung's Galaxy S24 lets you similarly edit photos, but you can do so much more: moving objects around in the picture itself, adjusting spot colors, and fixing red-eye, for example. And the Pixel 9 Pro even lets you add yourself to photos that you were never in to begin with. (I think the phone's auto-framing AI features are a bit more practical.)
It's still too early to tell which smartphone manufacturer will win the AI race, so I wouldn't buy an iPhone, a Pixel, or a Samsung based on what AI features they currently offer. These are nice-to-haves, but hardly the main reason why you should pick one phone over another.
✕ Remove Ads Performance and Battery Smooth, seamless gameplay meets charging efficiency
The iPhone 16 Pro feels every bit as fast to me as my previous iPhone 14 Pro, even though Apple's latest now comes with an A18 Pro chip versus my former smartphone's A16. Apple also now throws an extra GPU core into the mix, bringing the chip up to six total.
For gaming, I had no issues romping through Diablo Immortal with all the quality settings maxed, and my phone was lukewarm, not burning hot, after an hour or so of gameplay. After that, my iPhone felt fluid for all the apps, browser tabs, and downloads it faced the rest of the day. I've had a similar experience using Samsung's Galaxy S24 Ultra, as well as Google's Pixel 9 Pro, so none of the three flagship smartphones stand out among the pack.
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We're at the point where device efficiency -- good-enough power that maximizes battery life -- is more important and noticeable than raw speed. To that, I found that I could easily make an entire day with the iPhone 16 Pro doing regular tasks with no problem. And even on my heaviest use days, I'd find I still had about half the battery remaining, which could easily get me through another half to full day's worth of use, depending on how much I needed my phone.
The biggest issue I have with the iPhone 16 Pro is that I worry how it'll act two years from now, or typically the point at which battery issues start to get a little obvious. Apple has new mechanisms in iOS 18 to further optimize an iPhone's battery life, including allowing you to manually set the iPhone to a maximum charge of 80 percent or higher instead of having the iPhone make these assumptions for you. Google Pixel owners can manually limit their battery to an 80-percent charge, too, if they don't want the phone to do it automatically.
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Thanks to a MagSafe upgrade, you can go from an empty iPhone to a half-full battery in about 30 minutes of wireless or wired charging. That's similar to what you'd get from a Pixel 9 Pro, although the iPhone 16 Pro lacks the Pixel's ever-awesome "Battery Share" feature that lets you use the phone to charge other Qi-compatible devices you place on top of it.
Camera New Photography Styles make a world of difference
The biggest upgrades the iPhone 16 Pro gets over its predecessor are 48MP sensors for its regular and ultrawide cameras, a higher optical zoom (5x), and 4K video recording at a maximum rate of 120 frames-per-second. That's much improved over the regular iPhone 16 (12MP ultrawide camera, 2x optical zoom, and 60fps 4K video), but not as eye-opening as Google's Pixel 9 Pro (48MP telephoto and ultrawide camera, a 50MP primary camera, 5x optical zoom, and 60fps for 4K video).
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You'd have to bump up to Samsung's Galaxy S24 Ultra to get the same 5x optical zoom as an iPhone 16 Pro or Google Pixel 9 Pro, but that'll be a much larger phone to carry around.
That said, most people wouldn't notice a substantial difference in average image quality between the iPhone 16 Pro and its Android competitors. The subtle variances in how each smartphone captures images don't give any a knockout win. And it also depends what you're shooting: You might get more detail in one image on a Pixel 9 Pro, but prefer the color saturation of another image on a Samsung Galaxy S24.
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Your nighttime shots might look much better on an iPhone 16 Pro than a Pixel 9 Pro, but you might hate the Pixel 9 Pro's depth of field. I've used all three smartphones' cameras, and I'd say my skill (and knowledge of manual settings) is more the deciding factor than each phone's camera specs.
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The iPhone 16 Pro makes your life slightly easier by including new "Photographic Styles" that you can select before your shot. You can also manually create one yourself by manipulating the camera's tone (contrast and shadows), color (saturation), and "palette" (the style's intensity) via a grid interface, smoothing out anything you dislike about the iPhone's default camera. It's the most useful improvement to the iPhone's camera and all its software.
Close Competition Everyone has a great phone nowadays
The biggest Android smartphones rivaling the iPhone 16 Pro are the heavyweights: Samsung's Galaxy S24 and Google's Pixel 9 Pro. But I don't think there's a clear winner.
Read our review Samsung Galaxy S24 review: Small but super
Bright screen, flat sides, can't lose
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I've often felt that Samsung's native apps were a bit cluttered, and that the company had more of a "kitchen sink" approach to features and settings than the more refined presentation of Apple's iOS. I wouldn't say its hardware feels any faster or slower than an iPhone for the everyday tasks I'd use it for, and gaming has never been an issue on either device.
The phones have solid batteries, they charge quickly, and their OLED screens with high refresh rates are a delight to interact with. But Google's Pixel 9 Pro is every bit as good, and I'd probably pick it over an S24 for easier access to core Android updates and a less bloated OS experience. I also hate Bixby.
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But I've also used a Pixel 9 Pro, and I came away from the experience just as pleased as I've been with the iPhone 16 Pro. I think Apple has been much slower to integrate useful AI features into its devices than Google, and I think Android Auto is superior to CarPlay, but I also had a lot more connectivity issues with my carrier (Verizon) on my Pixel than I've ever had on my iPhone.
My Google-driven smart home works a lot better with Android than iOS. Still, my digital life revolves around Apple: iCloud, Messages, a larger-than-expected gift card balance in the App Store, et cetera. I probably wouldn't buy any of these three phones for their specs, more the overall experience they and their respective operating systems offer.
Read our review Review: The Pixel 9 Pro is Google's Goldilocks flagship
Not too big, not too small; just right
10 ✕ Remove Ads Should you buy the iPhone 16 Pro? You're buying an ecosystem, not a phone
You can't go wrong with an iPhone 16 Pro, but the same could be said for the Pixel 9 Pro or Galaxy S24. They're all great devices in their own right, and none of them suffer from a critical flaw that would make them a pariah among their peers. Android will always be more customizable than iOS, but Apple is starting to catch up (very slowly).
You'll take incredible photos on any of these three smartphones, play games on beautiful OLED displays, and enjoy a day's worth of uptime (and then some) for your email, text messaging, and TikTok addiction. You may encounter better, more up-to-date apps on iOS; you may have an easier time setting up your smart home on your Pixel 9 Pro or Galaxy S24. Every phone has its quirks.
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If you don't need a killer camera setup, the regular iPhone 16 is perfectly serviceable for your everyday tasks. And if cash is a concern, the Galaxy S24 gives you double the storage for a lower price than the iPhone 16 Pro or Pixel 9 Pro. Otherwise, familiarity is the most compelling reason to pick any of these smartphones. If you love your experience now, stick with that manufacturer for your next upgrade. If you don't, jump ship. Moving from Android to iOS may be more of a burden for your technological life, but the experience of Apple's powerful iPhone 16 Pro will ease the sting.
Apple iPhone 16 Pro 9/ 10
Apple's iPhone 16 Pro is the phone to beat, with phenomenal cameras and custom styles to adjust away its photographic peculiarities. But Android's top-shelf smartphones are every bit as good, too. Are you willing to jump platforms entirely?
$999 at Amazon$999 at Best Buy$999 at Apple Related Best Android phones in 2024
Top-tier smartphones with distinct capabilities
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