I shot over 200 photos with the Google Pixel Pro 9 vs iPhone 15 Pro — here's the winner
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A Google Pixel 9 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro camera showdown is just the latest skirmish in a long-running battle between two device makers renowned for their way with camera phones. When one company comes out with a new device, it usually leapfrogs the competition with improved hardware and new photo-processing features — at least until the other phone maker comes out with an update of their own.
This year, it was Google getting the jump on Apple by moving up the launch of the Pixel 9 Pro. This version of Google's Pro phone may be smaller than before — you need to get the Pixel 9 Pro XL for the big-screen model — but its cameras are more powerful than ever. In our Pixel 9 Pro review, we cited the cameras as one of the stronger features on Google's latest flagship for the way they handled color and shadow — particularly when compared to what Apple's current phones can do.
Of course, with the iPhone 16 models waiting in the wings, it won't be long before Apple gets its chance to best what Google just released. But for now, the most pertinent comparison is with the iPhone 15 Pro, a pretty impressive camera phone in its own right. Beat the current iPhone when it comes to cameras, and the Pixel 9 Pro will find itself well-positioned to take on whatever Apple plans to release later this month.
To get a sense of where the Pixel 9 Pro ranks among the best camera phones, I grabbed Google's latest flagship and an iPhone 15 Pro and shot more than 200 photos with each device. Here's how that Pixel 9 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro camera comparison shook out.
Google Pixel 9 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro camera specs
You'll find only a few hardware changes in this year's Pixel 9 Pro compared to the Pixel 8 Pro that came before it. There's a new ultrawide sensor that introduces a Macro Focus mode to that camera. Google also upgraded the front camera to a 42MP sensor instead of the 10.5 camera. The rear camera array on the new Pixel is still made up of a 50MP main camera and a pair of 48MP lenses — one for ultrawide shots and the other a telephoto camera that can deliver a 5x optical zoom.
The iPhone 15 Pro features three rear cameras — a 48MP main shooter accompanied by a 12MP ultrawide camera and a 12MP telephoto lens that tops out a 3x zoom. (It's the more expensive iPhone 15 Pro Max that can support 5x zooms with its tetraprism telephoto lens.) A 12MP TrueDepth camera handles selfie duties.
Comparing hardware specs only takes you so far, though. Both Google and Apple turn to computational photography to tweak and bolster what the cameras are able to capture. With the Pixel 9 Pro running on a new Tensor G4 chipset, Google's phone figures to have fine-tuned its own image-processing algorithms. The Tensor G4 supports some AI-powered photo editing tools as well, but we're primarily interested in comparing the shots these two devices are able to produce as opposed to the edits you can make after the fact. So we'll leave Pixel 9 features like Reimagine and Add Me out of this 200-photo face-off.
Google Pixel 9 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro cameras: Outdoor shots
I was lucky enough to do most of my photo testing on bright, sunny days with a lot of well-lit scenes that lend themselves to sharp images. That allows us to see how these cameras perform at the margins since there's not a lot of unfavorable lighting or strange angles for them to overcome. And at first glance, the Pixel 9 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro look pretty evenly matched with some nearly identical-looking shots.
But I think more of the iPhone shots look a fraction better than what the Pixel 9 Pro produces. For starters, they're a shade more colorful — the iPhone 15 Pro captures more of the pink neon in this sign outside of a famous San Francisco eatery. (Read your "Maltese Falcon," kids.) And if you scroll over to shots of the Oakland Coliseum, you'll see the floodlights standing out more sharply against the sky in the iPhone 15 shot. The fading sign for the Original Joe's restaurant looks more colorful, too, as the Pixel 9 Pro produces realistic, yet muted colors.
Other shots are more evenly matched. I defy you to spot any differences in those two cable car photos, for example. But I think the iPhone 15 Pro nudges just ahead of the Pixel 9 Pro in this category more often than not.
Winner: iPhone 15 Pro
Google Pixel 9 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro cameras: Indoor shots
Moving to indoor shots, the mains cameras on both the Pixel 9 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro have to work a little harder, as some overhead lighting can be unforgiving to images. You've also got the prospect of sunlight streaming in from windows, potentially backlighting the shot.
Again, both phones are even matched. The Pixel 9 Pro excels on a few shots like the neon sign above a local Mexican-Filipino eatery, which looks more artful and evocative than the iPhone's truer-to-life recreation. I also like how the light dances off the bottles of wine in the Pixel 9 Pro photo, giving the shot more depth than the iPhone 15 Pro's flatter look.
But overall, I think the iPhone 15 Pro does better indoors when there's tough lighting for a scene. A Negroni in a dimly lit bar looks sharper in the iPhone 15 Pro's photo, and the orange garnish stands out more in its shot. A plate of scrambled eggs looks backlit in the Pixel 9 Pro photo, while the iPhone 15 Pro does a better job accounting for the light coming in from the bag of the shot. The colors of a subway station wall also look richer when captured by the iPhone 15 Pro despite some rather harsh ambient lighting.
Winner: iPhone 15 Pro
Google Pixel 9 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro cameras: Dynamic Range
When it comes to balancing light and shadow, the Pixel 9 Pro shows the iPhone 15 Pro how it's done. Take the first photo of a Chinatown alley, where the Pixel 9 Pro shows off the bright red lanterns, particularly the ones hung vertically on the right side of the picture. Those same lanterns appear dark in the iPhone 15 Pro shot, and Apple's phone also has trouble with the light on the right.
There are other instances, like a mural on the side of a hotel in Oakland. With sunlight beaming into the shot, the Pixel 9 Pro still manages to show a colorful image while the iPhone 15 Pro photo gets lost in shadow. I'm not particularly fond of how either phone dealt with shadows around the Dragon Gate in Chinatown, but at least you can see the dragons on top in the Pixel 9 Pro photo.
It's not a complete washout, as the iPhone 15 Pro has a better shot of a cable car in shadow — look at how the Giants logo on top of the car stands out. I also like the richer colors of the Columbus Tower in the iPhone 15 Pro photo. But in most shots, the Pixel 9 Pro has the better dynamic range by some measure.
Winner: Google Pixel 9 Pro
Google Pixel 9 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro cameras: Color reproduction
Bright or natural? That's the question you have to ask yourself when evaluating the photos produced by the Pixel 9 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro. Generally speaking, the iPhone 15 Pro produces brighter, more vibrant colors in many shots. But I think the Pixel 9 Pro takes a more true-to-life approach to color that puts it ahead of the iPhone more often than not.
The Sun Yat-sen statue is a perfect example of how each phone approaches color. The iPhone 15 Pro picks up the brightness of the colors, creating a nice contrast with the trees in the background. But the Pixel 9 Pro's more muted look appears more realistic and makes for a better composed shot in my opinion. Similarly, the Pixel 9 Pro tones down the colors of Zoltar the Fortune Teller's face, making it easier to make out details than in the iPhone 15 Pro photo.
I prefer the darker shade of blue that the iPhone 15 Pro features in its photo of a ferry boat, while photos of a rose and jujubes are evenly matched between the two camera phones. But overall, the Pixel 9 Pro has a slight edge on color in most of the shots I took.
Winner: Google Pixel 9 Pro
Google Pixel 9 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro cameras: Macros
To test out the Pixel 9 Pro's new Macro Focus mode, I got up close and personal with a rose, and I think Google's close-up is much more striking since it kept the color throughout while also capturing details on the petals. The iPhone 15 Pro sacrifices some of the pink on the outer petals in the name of detail.
A close-up of a sunflower indoors lacks focus in the Pixel 9 Pro shot, so as a tie-breaker, I took a macro photo of a lemon. Both images are colorful, but the Pixel 9 Pro's is a little better balanced. I'd turn to Google's phone for these kinds of close-ups.
Winner: Google Pixel 9 Pro
Google Pixel 9 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro cameras: Ultrawide photos
The ultrawide lens on the Google Pixel 9 Pro has a slightly bigger field of view than the iPhone 15 Pro's camera, but only by a few degrees. For that reason, both phones capture near-equal levels of detail when you switch to a wider angle. You also get similar distortion around the edges, as you can see in the ultrawide shot of the monument in the middle of Union Square.
The iPhone 15 Pro renders sky darker in some photos, an issue that repeats itself in a photo from Chinatown of a storefront with terra cotta warriors poised on the roof. The Pixel 9 Pro better spotlights some lanterns hanging in the right of the photo, but we'll chalk that up to the superior dynamic range of Google's phone.
Overall, I think the iPhone 15 Pro's ultrawide shots are more colorful — note how lush the lawn looks in Washington Square in the iPhone 15 Pro photo. An urban garden looks brighter and more detailed too, even with my thumb creeping into the iPhone 15 Pro's lens. It's another close category, but I think the iPhone 15 Pro's ultrawide is the winner here.
Winner: iPhone 15 Pro
Google Pixel 9 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro cameras: Zoom photos
In nearly every category of this Google Pixel 9 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro face-off, the two phones have been evenly matched. I think the gap between telephoto lenses is quite significant, though, with the Pixel 9 Pro taking the better zoom shots at just about every length.
At 2x and 3x distances, like in the close-up of some terra cotta warriors from across the street, the Pixel 9 Pro zooms are simply brighter than the iPhone 15 Pro's. Push the zoom beyond the iPhone 15 Pro's 3x optical zoom, and you see the advantage of the Pixel 9 Pro's longer zoom. A pair of 5x shots of the Oakland A's mascot celebrating a win or the Oakland Tribune building from a nearby surface street are simply sharper when the Pixel 9 Pro takes the image.
Google's phone also benefits from a Super Res Zoom feature that takes the noise out of digital zoom thanks to AI processing. We have another shot of the Tribune building, this time at 15x from across a channel, and in the Pixel 9 Pro photo, the letters on the building remain in focus without any distortion.
Winner: Google Pixel 9 Pro
Google Pixel 9 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro cameras: Portraits
We're back to a coin flip when it comes to figuring out which phone takes the better portrait shots. Both the Pixel 9 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro produce striking portraits with stylish background blurs that really highlight the subject of your photo.
I would argue that the iPhone 15 Pro's portrait feature is a smidge better. In both the portrait of my daughter and one of the dragon statues outside the Dragon's Gate in Chinatown, the edges of the subject are sharper, which helps them pop out of the background a little bit better. I wouldn't turn my nose up at the Pixel 9 Pro's efforts, though.
Winner: iPhone 15 Pro
Google Pixel 9 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro cameras: Night photos
For the most part, I think the iPhone 15 Pro is the better camera phone to tote around when the lights are low. Its color reproduction is superior, as you can see in this photo of a mural that the Pixel 9 Pro added a yellow tint, too. The iPhone 15 Pro also manages to light up scenes very naturally, whether it's some stuffed animals in a dark backyard or the lettering on a nearby apartment complex.
One exception to the iPhone 15 Pro's low-light superiority emerges when there's any type of artificial lighting in your photo. Apple's phone really blew out a neon sign above a bar when I snapped a night shot, while the Pixel 9 Pro managed to adjust for the lighting and produce a well-composed nightscape.
Winner: iPhone 15 Pro
Google Pixel 9 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro cameras: Selfies
I'm very torn on which camera phone takes a better self-portrait. Normally, I'd be inclined to ding the Pixel 9 Pro, which gets overly aggressive with face-smoothing, as you can see in the group shot I snapped at the ballpark. Contrast that with the iPhone 15 Pro's effort, and it's clear that the iPhone photo looks more realistic.
I tried a portrait mode with the front camera on both phones and thought the iPhone did a much better job. Part of my hair got caught up in the background blur in the Pixel 9 Pro photo, and once again, the iPhone wins on skin tone.
But the worst selfie of the bunch was captured by the iPhone 15 Pro when I tried a self-portrait at night. The image just isn't very focused and has a lot more noise than the Pixel 9 Pro's effort. The Pixel photo looks cleaner, even if it darkened the color of my shirt, which is more kelly green in reality.
So the iPhone is probably the phone to turn to in most normal conditions, but if you take a lot of low-light selfies, opt for the Pixel instead.
Winner: Draw
Google Pixel 9 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro cameras: Panoramas
I prefer the look of the Pixel 9 Pro panoramas, which I think have a less prominent curve than what the iPhone 15 Pro produces. My guess is that the different look boils down to how the two phones capture panoramas. With the iPhone, you move the phone horizontally, trying to keep an arrow appearing on your phone display level with the guide line; it's darn difficult to do, with the difficulty factor scaling up the wider an area you try to capture.
With the Pixel 9 Pro, you're also moving your phone horizontally, but you're moving it to line up with a series of dots that appear on the screen. At each dot, the Pixel captures more of the image, stitching the final image together. It creates a more seamless view, and you don't get weird artifacts like the cut-off people who appear in the iPhone 15 Pro panorama shot in Union Square. My Oakland Coliseum panorama also tilts abnormally in the iPhone 15 Pro version, probably reflecting my difficulty in keeping the phone level.
Winner: Google Pixel 9 Pro
Google Pixel 9 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro cameras: Video
I didn't do extensive video testing with the Pixel 9 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro, though I expect that Tom's Guide will be doing more in the future. For now, I can share a couple of clips that show a pair of pretty evenly matched phones, especially in this clip I shot of an incoming BART train.
That's the Pixel 9 footage above, which looks fairly smooth, without a lot of blur even as the train whizzes past.
The iPhone 15 Pro feels like there's a little more blur as the train gets closer — it's around the 8-second mark of both videos — though probably not enough to make any definitive conclusions about the iPhone's video capture capabilities. The iPhone 15 Pro footage does seem better lit, though that could be a matter of how I'm holding the phones as I shot the video.
I have skeletons down in my basement festooned with birthday paraphernalia — you mean you don't? — and the low-light video looks a little sharper in the Pixel 9 Pro version. I admit to a little bit of a cheat here, as that footage uses the Video Boost feature available to Pro phones. It keeps the skeletons in sharper focus throughout, even if the image is still pretty dark overall.
I will say that the iPhone 15 Pro footage is lit about as well as can be expected, but it does get blurry around the 7-second mark when I'm farthest away from the light.
Winner: Google Pixel 9 Pro
Google Pixel 9 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro cameras: Verdict
By my count, the Pixel 9 Pro finished on top in six categories to the iPhone's 5, with the two phones splitting honors in the selfie category. That speaks to how evenly matched the two devices are when it comes to cameras, though right now, I do believe the Pixel 9 Pro has an overall edge.
In most of the categories, the choice between one phone over another was pretty marginal, but there were two areas where the Pixel is well ahead of the iPhone. The zoom lens on the Pixel 9 Pro is much better, as you'd imagine given the 5x optical zoom support and the fact that the Super Res Zoom feature can tidy up those digital zooms. I was also impressed with the Pixel 9 Pro's dynamic range and how it balanced shadow and light.
This could all change very soon, as the iPhone 16 Pro has been tipped to get a 5x telephoto zoom lens of its own. Such an improvement would certainly put Apple's less expensive Pro model on more equal footing with the latest Pro phone from Google. But for now, this specific Pixel has leap-frogged over the equivalent iPhone when it comes to camera quality. We'll see how responds shortly.
