Pixel 8 vs. iPhone 15: Which Should You Buy?

Google's pixel 8 and Apple's iPhone 15 might be extremely similar to one another on a spec sheet but one of these is a clear winner over the other and I'm going to show you which one that is by comparing them side by side appearance-wise they could not look much different the pixel 8 is more rounded and curvy the iPhone is more square and flat the pixel 8 has this rather polarizing camera bump the iPhone has a more traditional Square One the pixel 8 has slots for the speaker Grill the iPhone has dots the only thing that these phones share this year is the same USBC Port although the pixel 8 transfers data at a much higher speed I think both of them look quite nice despite the fact that neither of them have a decent selection of colors in my opinion both phones are ip68 rated for water and dust resistance and they both feel very nice in the hand the biggest difference between the two when you hold them is actually the weight the iPhone 15 weighs just 171 G it's very light and comfortable but the pixel 8 weighs 187 G and the difference is is immediately noticeable because of that extra weight the pixel ends up feeling a little more dense and even more expensive feeling if you're into that but I do prefer the lighter weight of the iPhone overall the design category is a bit of a tie I think both phones are very mature in their design language and neither of them loses points in this category the display of these phones is where things start to get interesting the iPhone 15 has a flat 6.1 in OLED screen with a resolution of 1179 by 2556 it's beautifully sharp and unsurprisingly the color and contrast are excellent it's great when it comes to watching movies or TV shows but it does fall down hard in one area it only runs at a refresh rate of 60 HZ compared to the pixel's 6.2 in OLED display that runs at 120 HZ the iPhone feels slow in comparison now the pixel does lose out ever so slightly in its resolution since the panel is 1080 x400 but it still looks nearly as sharp as the iPhone side by side you'd have to get your eyes very close to the two phones to be able to tell any difference at all at all both of these phones can get very bright they both max out at 2,000 nits of brightness with HDR content but the pixel 8 can actually get brighter for regular outdoor viewing 1,400 nits compared to the iPhone's 1000 the pixel 8 also doesn't have a pill-shaped notch when watching videos or playing games it just has a little hole punch I think you can see where I'm going with this the pixel 8 wins in the display category speaking of watching videos or playing games what about the speakers both the pixel and the iPhone have stereo speakers one at the top near the earpiece and one down at the bottom neither of these phones is going to give you the performance that a dedicated Bluetooth speaker can but I found that overall the iPhone 15 had the slightly better audio quality with a better mid-range Clarity and slightly less muddy low end I'm going to give the win to the iPhone but hey if you needed something with a little bit more oomph to it you might want to pick up a Bluetooth speaker like the one from the sponsor of this video soundcore this is the soundcore motion 300 the industry's first and only Bluetooth bluetoo outdoor speaker that's this small and that comes with full wireless high-res audio certification it is ergonomically shaped to be comfortable to hold and it comes with a little strap if you want to hang it off of something built into the motion 300 is a gyroscope that's able to tell what orientation the speaker is in using sound cor's smart tune technology if you switch the orientation from laying down to standing or from standing to hanging the software will adapt and retune the sound for the best sound quality there are dual 30 W drivers in this little speaker and they sound excellent it has three times the audio resolution of traditional Bluetooth speakers with that wireless highres audio certification there's several different presets to choose from along with a full nine band EQ to adjust the sound exactly how you like it in the app some Bluetooth speakers are okay with getting a little wet but this speaker is ipx7 waterproof so even if you dunk it in water it'll keep on playing music it also gets 13 hours of battery life making it the perfect portable speaker for just about any situation pick up yours today by clicking in the link in the video description below all right so the next category is performance and things get a little bit difficult to score objectively here both the pixel and the iPhone are running their own in-house-made silicon the pixel has the tensor G3 chip and the iPhone has the a16 bionic on the objective side I ran a couple of different benchmarks to get just a rough feel of how powerful these chips are and in both instances the iPhone one uped the pixel the wildlife extreme test also demonstrated that the pixel 8 has issues with thermal throttling performing worse and worse over the course of the 20-minute test the iPhone 15 did throttle as well L be it not nearly as badly but listen those are synthetic benchmarks where phones are pushed essentially to their Extremes in everyday usage I really could not tell the difference in speed between either of them in fact most of the time the pixel 8 was actually faster feeling because of the more responsive 120 HZ display especially when it came to gaming now I'm I'm going to air on the side of objectivity here and give the win to the iPhone since it's technically the more performant device but realistically both of these phones should be able to give you what you need in terms of speed it's camera time this is the category I think most people are going to be interested in the two phones have nearly identical camera specs on paper Google has a 50 megapixel wide angle and a 12 megapixel Ultra wide on the back of the pixel and apple has a 48 megapix wide and a 12 megapix Ultra wide on the rear of the iPhone meanwhile on the front Google has a 10 megapix selfie camera while apple has a 12 megapixel one both of these phones take excellent photos if I had to give an edge to one or the other I'd probably give it to the pixel most of the time the photos are very consistently sharp with great color and that signature pixel contrast right out of the box I thought that the iPhone might win the selfie War but Google's post-processing takes their photos to another level to the point where I also prefer the front-facing cameras from the pixel the pixel also has some crazy software features like best take where they use AI to stitch together several photos taken in succession to give you the best overall shot the tables turn when we compare video though as usual the iPhone is the clear winner in that category with better colors more detail and less artifacting even the zoom of the iPhone is much better even though neither of these phones possess telephoto cameras the iPhone 15 also has 4K cinematic mode on the front-facing camera producing excellently realistic boka right behind me with the right settings as a whole though both of these camera systems are excellent if you're a photo person you're probably going to prefer the pixel if you're a video person you're probably going to prefer the iPhone therefore this category complete tie next up is battery life and before I even started testing this category I had a feeling which phone would be the winner the iPhone 15 has a 3,300 mAh battery inside of it while the pixel 8 has a much larger 4500 Mah Hour 1 even with the 120 HZ display mode turned on the pixel 8 outperformed the 60 HZ iPhone 15 in my 5-hour screen on time battery test at the end of the test the pixel 8 had 54% of its battery left while the iPhone 15 had 47% left if you were to turn off the 120 HZ mode I'm sure the pixel would have done even better Easy win to the pixel 8 in this category then there's the software now obviously this one's going to be a little more based on your personal preference software is often pretty subjective Some people prefer Apple's meticulously crafted ecosystem and then others prefer the customiz ation that Android offers I've been able to get a little bit closer to Android's level of customization on the iPhone using shortcuts and custom widgets video for that is up here somewhere if you're interested but it's still far easier on a phone like the pixel 8 where custom launchers are readily available what's not subjective though is software support now historically Apple has had a great track record they've supported their phones with major software updates for at least five or sometimes even six years Google on the other hand does not have the best track record the pixel 5 for example just released its last software update after only 3 years however they're going to try and change that with the pixel 8 and 8 Pro and they're claiming to support this phone for 7 years which is huge not only for customers who get to keep their phones for longer but also for the environment since they will take much longer to become e-w there's also just a myriad of other software features that Google has packed into the pixels like call screening and hold for me or the face unblurred and Magic Eraser features for example and for all of that I'm going to give the pixel the win in the software category the final category is value and as I say in all my tech rewind reviews it's also the most important one the iPhone 15 retails for 800 USD from a carrier or 830 unlocked directly from Apple for what the iPhone 15 offers it's not a bad deal I gave the iPhone 15 a thumbs up in my full review which you can watch up here if you're interested the pixel 8 is more expensive than the pixel 7 was last last year but if Google keeps their word about the 7 years of software updates I think that's warranted and besides that it's still a full 100 to $130 cheaper than the iPhone 15 it starts at $700 listen it might not be the best at absolutely everything but the pixel 8 is still the one to buy in my opinion it's been very enjoyable to use for my testing period And I'd recommend it to anybody who wants a near Flagship experience for a little bit less if this video was helpful at all hit that subscribe button it really helps me out hope you like the video thanks for watching and as always have a great day

Channel: Mark Spurrell

Views: 160,639

Keywords: pixel 8, iphone 15, pixel 8 vs iphone 15, pixel 8 or iphone 15, pixel 8 review, iphone 15 review, google, pixel, iphone, apple, mark spurrell, iphone 15 vs pixel 8, iphone 15 or pixel 8, review, tech, best phone under 800, best phone under 700, best phone under 1000

Id: TEvDhp2Yry0

Length: 9min 35sec (575 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 21 2023