I took 100 photos with the iPhone 16 and Pixel 9: Here's what I learned
by Brady Snyder · Android PoliceQuick Links
For those who want an excellent camera phone, the choice is simple: Google Pixel or iPhone. Sure, Samsung's Galaxy S24 Ultra is one of the best Android phones, and it has the camera specs, but even our review's title reinforces the fact that it's the best "unless you take photos." More importantly, it and other high-end models from Apple and Google are expensive. The best base-model phone for camera performance will almost certainly be the Google Pixel 9 or the iPhone 16, which both start at $800.
I spent more than a week using the two flagship phones side-by-side, snapping over 100 pictures with each phone. They went with me to work, parks, hikes, night markets, and many more places over that time. All those photos have taught me a lot about how the Pixel 9 and iPhone 16 handle photography, and I know which one I prefer more.
Read our review
The Google Pixel 9 makes me question if I need to go Pro
The Pixel 9 has everything most people want from a phone
How the hardware stacks up
Both the iPhone 16 and Pixel 9 have impressive sensors
Before we dive into camera samples, let's quickly review the hardware each phone packs within its rear camera system.
The Pixel 9's main shooter is a 50MP, f/1.68 sensor, and the ultrawide lens is a 48MP, f/1.7 lens. By comparison, the iPhone 16's camera stack has a 48MP, f/1.6 main sensor and a 12MP, f/2.2 ultrawide lens. Neither phone has a dedicated telephoto, so both opt to use sensor crop to deliver optical-quality zoom at 2x.
In the groups of photos below, the first image in each series was shot on a Pixel 9, and the second was captured on an iPhone 16, unless otherwise stated.
The Google Pixel 9 narrowly beats the iPhone 16 in daytime quality
Both are great, but the Pixel 9 fights off shadows and overexposure better
Let's start off this camera showdown with daytime photography, since both phones should put their best foot forward in favorable lighting conditions. While I thought that would be the case, the Pixel 9 ended up running away with victory in this category.
The first pair of images tells the overall story. Google's computational photography helps capture clear pictures without haze or overexposure, whereas the iPhone 16 fell victim to shadows and bright sunlight, negatively affecting the quality of the entire image. You can see that clearly in the first set of photos, on the left side of the iPhone 16's mountain shot, which is completely blown out and overexposed by sunlight.
If you skip to the first and second pairs of photos in the gallery above, you’ll see similar issues. The Pixel 9 can capture photos of the trees and mountain landscape despite the large shadows carving through the center of the frame. The iPhone 16, on the other hand, produces images that are way too dark.
Scrolling through the results, it takes a keen eye to identify which photo is better. However, the Pixel 9 produced quality images in challenging lighting situations where the iPhone 16 faltered, and that’s a theme throughout this test.
The iPhone 16 wins in color accuracy
Sometimes the Pixel 9 photos look better, but they're not reflective of the real world
While the iPhone 16 struggles with lighting, the Pixel 9 similarly falls flat in terms of color accuracy. It simply isn’t up to par, and nearly all the images I took with the Pixel 9 were not reflective of the colors I was seeing with my own eyes. There were some gems, though, like how the Pixel 9 reproduced the colors of the railroad crossing sign (which, again, the iPhone 16 failed to do because of the shadows).
But the Pixel 9 strangely gave the majority of my photos a brownish-maroon tint. Take a look at the phone’s version of the railroad tracks and grass at the end of the gallery — it’s nowhere near color-accurate, and makes the iPhone 16’s iteration look like it was shot in a different place. The same goes for the photos of the park and the baseball field. It’s all a weird reddish-brown, and it’s comically inaccurate.
I think Google is trying — and often failing — to make the colors more vibrant. A good example of this is the set of photos of the lake. The Pixel produces the water as a gorgeous blue, but it’s really a gross-looking green; the iPhone 16 gets it right. If you want more accurate color reproduction from your phone, the iPhone 16 beats the Pixel 9. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if some prefer Google’s color signature due to its faux vibrancy.
It's a tie in zoom performance
Google has more detail, Apple has more brightness
In the above group of photos, the first images in the series were shot on Google Pixel 9, at 1x and 2x zoom, and the second were captured with iPhone 16 at 1x and 2x zoom.
Both of these phones have great hardware, so it’s unsurprising that they are almost even sometimes. That’s the case with zoom quality. You won’t get telephoto-quality photos with either the Pixel 9 or iPhone 16, but both do fine at 2x zoom.
I thought the iPhone 16 produced a brighter 2x zoom image in the first series of photos, and the Pixel 9 did a better job at preserving the detail of the mountains in the second series. When you get into digital zoom, which Google calls Super Res Zoom on the Pixel 9, you can clearly see it’s not optical-quality zoom.
Detail shots were an even split
Each phone beat the other in color, brightness, and clarity on a few occasions
Detail shots, which I call the photos that aren’t captured close enough to be macro but also aren’t distanced enough to be landscape, were similarly split. There were instances where each phone beat the other. The Pixel 9 did a much better job at capturing the Fatman’s Loop sign without succumbing to shadows. On the other hand, the iPhone 16 produced more accurate colors of the trees and rocky terrain.
In many ways, the detail shots confirmed what we already knew. The Google Pixel 9 handles shadows and tricky lighting situations better, and the iPhone 16 is more color-accurate.
Neither camera offered stellar low-light performance
Especially when bright light sources were part of a dark landscape
The Pixel 9 and the iPhone 16 both struggled a bit when tasked with capturing night shots, especially when bright lights were in the midst. To be clear, this is a tough test for any camera. I thought the Pixel 9 brightened the photos too much, at the expense of clarity. Surprisingly, the results didn’t seem to change much with Night Sight enabled.
The iPhone 16, by comparison, provided more detail and better colors — but the photos were significantly darker. It’s up to you to decide which strategy you prefer.
The iPhone 16 wins in macro performance
Sometimes the Pixel 9 was too aggressive with bokeh, other times it lacked detail
When it comes to macro photography, it’s all about software. Sometimes, the Pixel 9 and the iPhone 16 would come up with great macro images. Other times, not so much. In the last series of photos, you’ll see the Pixel 9 fail to focus on the flowers correctly and overdo the bokeh to create a poor image.
The iPhone 16 didn’t add that bokeh effect, but it did provide more detail and vibrancy to macro shots on most occasions. The Heliomeris flower had yellow that really popped, and the batting cage had more texture and reflections. I’ve seen the Pixel 9 create excellent macro imagery, but I love the iPhone 16’s consistency.
I prefer the iPhone 16's rear camera
In the end, it all came down to color reproduction
The majority of the Pixel 9 photos I took didn't feature lifelike color reproduction, and on many occasions, the changes weren't for the better. I ended up preferring the iPhone 16's natural look, even if Apple's computational photography is bound to fail in certain situations with bright lights or shadows. If you like the vibrancy and "pop" factor of the Pixel 9's colors, you should absolutely choose that phone. If you want natural-looking photos, go for the iPhone 16.
Or, the more likely circumstance is that you'll choose the Pixel 9 or the iPhone 16 over the other for another reason. I think the takeaway here is that both the iPhone 16 and the Pixel 9 give you a great smartphone camera for $800, so you can't really go wrong with either.
Apple iPhone 16
The Apple iPhone 16 is powered by the A18 chip, has an updated design, 25W MagSafe charging support, and a 6.1-inch OLED screen. Plus, it features a camera system that we found to be incredibly color accurate in our testing.
Google Pixel 9
The Pixel 9 is Google's most affordable 2024 flagship, making a few compromises when compared to the Pixel 9 Pro and Pro XL while retaining the Google smarts the lineup has become known for. An upgraded 48MP ultra-wide camera is paired with a 50MP main shooter, and the selfie cam added autofocus.