Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “The BEST Android phone? Galaxy S24 Ultra vs Pixel 8 Pro”.
Previously, on the YouTube channel, you know what’s really good. We can both relate to this processor made by quala at Le the processors we make are actually getting good exos. Maybe it’s cuz. I spent a lot of time with the f23 ultra already and the pixel 8 Pro is newer, but both of these on a table I’m going to pick up the pixel 8 Pro all right, so that was 3 months ago.
The pixel 8 Pro one. It was a better phone, you compare those two, but now that I’m wearing the exact same sweater and we have the newest Contender the s20 Ultra does it have what it takes to Dethrone the pixel 8 Pro cuz. You know when I do my verses.
We always pick a winner, I feel like whenever I or anybody does versus it’s become almost a cliche to focus on cameras. So I’m going to focus on cameras to start this out cuz. I do think it is a big differentiator between these two phones. Sometimes cliches are cliche for a reason so, but you flip to the back clearly just by the sheer size cameras are very important to the phone. I mean look at the real estate. These cameras are taken up on the back, but they both take different photos. They could be almost a copout to be like well, Samsung’s photos are more Poppy and what Google’s doing are more true to life. That’S always been the case with pretty much every generation, pixel phone, every generation, Samsung phone, but there’s way more Nuance to it.
So let me walk you through kind of everything here, Google seems to be doing what they do best. They take great camera hardware and throw the app absolute best software at it, Samsung’s giving you a million different cameras, uh and options, but which one is a better Direction and which one takes better photos. Now most of my blind tests, I think, are usually pretty close. People have a hard time telling, but I’m going to imagine as you look at these photos popping up on the screen you can tell which one is which, but just for the sake of it, give a look leave in the comments down below.
Let me know what you think A or B was, and if you said a was a pixela Pro and B was the s24 ultra You’ be correct. Cuz, we don’t do this nearly often enough, also uh how about a blind test for video pick, which one is which it’s a lot tougher to decide, which is which and because I’m so clever, it’s the same. A was a pixel B was a Samsung. Both video look really good I’ll talk more about them in a minute all right so clearly, both of these are taking really good photos and I think it comes down how much flexibility you want in the camera. So Samsung’s got four cameras on the back. There’S the main 20 megap sensor, which is still insane to even talk about there’s a 12 map Ultra wide 10 map 3 times telephoto and a new 50 megapixel five times telephoto.
The pixel has three cameras: a 50 megapixel main camera 48 megapixel Ultra wide and 48 megapixel 5 times telephoto and in the history of pixel phones. They have never come out with the best hardware, yet every picture tends to always be the best. So clearly different takes on the hardare there. The pixel is giving you a very similar camera sensors for the focal length, while Samsung has a much like clearer hierarchy.
Let me kind of walk you through here are some examples: here’s just an inside shot. We took this picture around 1 p.m. here in California. You can see the white balance is way more accurate on the pixel, and this is a hard photo to do.
We’Ve got the inside light. We have clouds outside different white balances, happening uh. The Samsung, I think, is skewed a little bit more blue and if you look at the white balance outside, I think that’s where you see the difference. You can actually see the clouds on the pixel.
They appear to be a bit blown out uh on the Samsung. You would think that there was just full cloud cover, instead of actually being able to physically see the clouds that were out there. The things are usually true: Samsung tends to have darker blacks, poppier, whites, vibrant colors, things look a bit more sharpened. I don’t usually spend a lot of time in these verses talking about macro, but I did want to show them here. So here’s a rivan logo on my truck and you can see the Highlight reflection on Samsung T – looks to be blown out on the pixel way. Less so um, probably because it’s not sort of pumping out those whites and if I zoom in which probably shouldn’t do on a macro shop.
But if I did on the water droplet the pixel’s holding the detail more. I think because of the highlights and the Shadows. Samsung, though, did get the color of the car right, usually with Samsung photos they’re way brighter uh, it’s more true to actually the green color of the actual truck and look at all these shots pretty much all the pixel shots are warmer.
I don’t think either the Samsung or the pixel are true to life, which is kind of weird to say: one is poppier and more bright one’s a little more muted, but neither look how they’re actually supposed to uh. Also, if you have darker skin tone, it is very apparent which one of these is better. This pixel makes darker skin tone, actually look like darker skin tone, whereas on the Samsung it tends to almost skew it a little bit.
Blue here’s also a comparison uh with the zooms, and you can see how it handles as we zoom in on Garfield. Here I love having the extra Zoom. I use the zoom all the time on my phones, that’s why I tended to gravitate towards Samsung phones. They give you the best zoom here and having that space Zoom to 100, while kind of looking bit like an oil painting is really nice to have at times, and I think my taste in cameras is changing and again totally subjective. Both of these are really top-notch camera systems, but the more photos we took and reviewed them to make this video. The more I found myself gravitating towards what the pixel was doing on the camera side, I think I pushing over the edge was actually the portrait shots. I think if I was going to pick one of these two pictures to use as a profile picture aside from looking very tired uh, I think there’s a bit more color in my face with what uh the pixel is doing. Both of these did an absolutely really impressive job with the cutouts on portrait mode, but I hold my hand up. That is usually really hard. It’S like Kryptonite for portrait mode and both did an awesome job doing these cutouts, but having to pick one of these, I think for the first time in a while in these verses, I’m picking the camera system on the pixel.
So before I keep going with the verses, I want to thank this. Video sponsor exola talk a little bit about the metaverse, a new book called once upon tomorrow. If you go anywhere on the internet like the word, metaverse is getting thrown around as much as AI. Nowadays, uh – and it’s often times talked about by people who don’t understand what it is. That’S like mostly why, when an expert in the field talks like I tend to listen and if the metaverse is going to be as big as advertised it’s going to play a giant role in her Futures, probably selfishly my career. I need to understand what it is now, but I think more importantly, what it’s going to be.
I don’t if you ever heard of a company called exola, but they are a huge video game. Commerce company, so their founder, sherik aapu wrote a book kind of unveiling. His vision for the future of the metaverse – and it’s called once upon tomorrow and the book presents a really thorough vision of the metaverse future, with a gigantic emphasis on decentralization, which I love. So it’s not owned by any sort of one entity: um user Centric experiences and really Innovative Revenue models. I think that’s the part that piqued my interest as a business owner the metaverse isn’t just about like fun avatars having virtual meetings. It is like way deeper than that, and I think shurik touched on a bunch of those aspects from his personal narratives Technical Innovations, positioning the metaverse, as is like transform ative force in digital landscape and his expertise, obviously in video games, and he used it as a Central theme in the book kind of help me understand it better to highlight how video games Ser spearheaded a ton of Technical Innovations. Things like the invention of new and extremely effective monetization approaches, and I agree with what he was saying. Sherik argues that video game technology and economics are inseparable from the future of the metaverse and kind of think about the Boon of in-game purchases and microtransactions, and there’s a ton of really interesting takes in the book.
It’S not that no crazy hard to understand Odyssey either. It’S like a 270 is Page really easy to read. If you got interest in work, technology is going how to best prepare for it kind of capitalize on exp the monetization and kind of realize that the future is now I’ll click. The link in my description and get your copy of Once Upon tomorrow and learn all about the metaverse future. So one of the top things that pixel Series has been known for since the very beginning is a software there’s one thing Google has done right, it has been the software and this is Google’s version of Android. It’S not stock, Android anymore.
If that even exists. This is what Google wants a phone to be and in many ways that’s been a gigantic Advantage when it comes to fluidity, features and ease of use. On the other hand, the Spectrum you have Samsung, who give you tons and tons of features, but typically without the Polish that some might have hoped for with the latest phones, each of them gets sort of best to Both Worlds. The pixel gets great features and Samsung gets great polish and vice versa. I think Samsung really brought a lot to the table with the s24 ultra in terms of software, especially with AI. We have things like Circle to search, live, translate, notices, generative, editing and photos.
All those features are pretty great and work surprisingly. Well, if you might be trecking to thinking you can only do those things on the s24 ultra, you can do all of them on the pixel as well, and these phones, I thought, were the more interesting of kind of any generation. If you look at the the history of where Samsung’s done with their sine even the note line before they tend to try to pull away from Google they’re trying to do more tieny things and I think with each generation kind of the s22 to here, it was Steps back towards Google culminating and what they have with the s24 line, especially the s24 ultra Google’s fingerprints, are all over this now they might have Samsung branding on top of them, but all these AI features that are amazing on the Samsung are really Google specific and Sometimes they’re even qualcom specific when it comes down to the processor, but it seems like Samsung is coming back to embracing the Googl of their phones. And now you kind of just have a choice with what appearance you like more or what software set is going to best be suited to your needs.
This one was tough. I’Ve tended to always skew towards what Samsung is doing with their software. I like having more options and flexibility in there. The Google side has been a lot cleaner. It’S almost been more minimal, which is strange to say, and I know you can do launchers and all that kind of stuff. This is the first category in a while they’re, like I don’t have a dog in this fight. I could pick either of these based on software and be extremely happy, even though their approaches might be a bit different. I think the Googl this back in Samsung, has made this a total draw, and I don’t think software is a determining Factor either way anymore. Aside from all the Googl n. Another thing these phones are sharing.
Uh is 7 years of software support and updates. That is insane, I mean each of these phones will last way longer than before. Now I doubt anybody is going to fall to these phones until 2030 or 2031, but if you wanted to at least you know, they’ll be supported and it’s unlikely, Google or Samsung’s going to go away anytime soon to support these phones. Hardware, wise, both of these phones are again taking similar approaches so on paper, in the first glance, they are very similar to last year’s phones, not that’s always a bad thing, but they are.
If you look closely, though, you have to see more differences, I think people maybe give them credit for. On the pixel side, you’ve got the evolution of the visor. It feels thin. It feels light just based on feel of a phone without a case which you have to be a lunatic to do, which I know some of you are s24 Ultra with its titanium now feels like a much more premium. Phone inside. Both phones are rning.
The latest processors from their respective companies uh Samsung, is using Samsung specific Snapdragon 8 gem 3 uh by Qualcomm and Google’s using its in-house tensor G3. I was real tough on tensor G2. It caused a lot of overheating.
I don’t think it aged all that. Well, it appears the G3 has fixed a lot of those problems and is incredibly powerful. Processor uh anything I’ve thrown at it.
It can handle with great alacrity multitasking no issues at all. I know the Snapdragon 8 gen 3. I’M not entirely sure what the Samsung version means it’s hard to find information on, what’s actually specific, to Samsung again same things that the tensor G3 can do right now, but I trust the Snapdragon 8 gen 3 to suit me better, two or 3 years from now. If you’re going to keep your phone that long little alone, keeping it the Seven Years, it’ll be supported.
So if you’re going to keep your phone for just a year or even two, I don’t think to make a lick, a difference which processor you use. If you’re going to keep your phone longer than that, qualcomm’s got a history and how the Snapdragon 8 gen 3 benchmarks is unbelievable. I would trusted to have head room for years and years, regardless of how long you keep these phones. Both processors are trying to make sure each phone gets the best battery life and they’re both rocking equal 5,000 m hour batteries, and that leads to generally all day battery life and I’ve stopped talking too much about battery life on these phones cuz. It is the most subjective thing: what third party apps you’re, using how much you’re using them my experience on a phone that goes all day. It could be half a day with you, depending on what you’re, using in my experience this only consistent thing. I can tell you I was able to get through full days easily on both of these phones and that’s with a lot of social media.
A lot of pictures and video taking, but you shouldn’t, have to worry at all at least on how long these phones are going to last other than those Hardware features only a few other differences between them when it comes to Hardware side, obviously Spen on the s24 Ultra some people love it. You know who you are. I use it when I get the phone and I tend to forget that it’s there, but it’s something that you get with the s24 ultra that you are not going to get. Obviously with the pixel8 pro other difference here is screen. The pixel8 pro is rocking a 6.7 in super actual display up the 2400 nits Peak brightness 120 HZ s24, Ultra 6.8 in AMOLED display 120 HZ and 26 uh nits of peak brightness.
Now, when it comes to screen and listen, you might hate me for this. There are Samsung displays and there’s everybody else, and it’s generally not as close as you think, usually, if you’re not looking at a Samsung display next to any other phone display, you’re going to be like this phone is great. Samsung makes displays to every phone manufacturer. Almost every phone manufacturer for a reason they are absolutely incredible. This is kind of a random thing with the s24 ultra.
This is our third video that we’ve done on it and during the first two videos, the fingerprint reader worked perfectly. But as we were getting ready to film this verses uh, it went super wonky and Haywire. It was not working very well at all, and I tried to capture it on camera, but much like Tak your car in for service and the service light goes off when you bring it in. I couldn’t capture it, so I don’t know. Maybe it was me.
Maybe it’s ghost in the machine, I’m not in love with the fingerprint reader on the s24 ultra. I did not have any issues with the Pix toay Pro, but again it might have just been been a me thing. Now’S a big question right. We always pick a winner in these versus we never do like the whatever is best for you, and these phones came out at least in the phone world at relatively similar time frames. This one is tough when it came to the s23 ultra versus pixel8 Pro picked. The pixel 8 Pro when it comes to the s24 ultra versus pixel8 Pro. This is really tough and the urge to say which everyone you pick is going to be great was very overwhelming, but I’m not going to do it. I would pick up the s24 ultra.
I think overall is an incredibly well-rounded phone. There are a few caveats, exceptions that I talked about. I love the way it feels. I love the display, the camera really good and I think the extra head room you get from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is enough to push this one over the edge .