The Google Pixel 8 Pro is Google’s top-end flagship for 2023, boasting significant upgrades and new AI features that make it a particularly exciting release – but how does it compare to the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra?
The Google Pixel 8 Pro continues Google’s AI focus with new photo, video and editing features – including one that completely replaces your face with a happier version of you – and welcomes generative AI with open arms with features like AI wallpaper creation.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, on the other hand, is Samsung’s one-stop-shop for productivity and camera performance, boasting four rear cameras with varying levels of zoom as well as S Pen support that allows you to note-take and doodle to your heart’s content.
While we’ve spent a lot of time with the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, we’re yet to go hands-on with the Pixel 8 Pro. That said, here’s how the two compare on paper to help you decide which Android smartphone is best for your needs.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra has a larger display
When it comes to sheer display size, the S23 Ultra and its 6.8-inch display are the winners – though not by much, with the Pixel 8 Pro’s 6.7-inch panel close behind.
More specifically, the Galaxy S23 Ultra sports a 6.8-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with a dynamic 120Hz refresh rate with LTPO tech that allows it to drop down to as little as 1Hz to save battery life. There’s support for premium HDR10+ and, with a maximum brightness of 1750nits, it’s easily visible in bright outdoor conditions.
There’s also the S Pen stylus, built into the chassis of the phone, that allows you to sketch, doodle and take notes on the large 6.8-inch display with ease.
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On the other hand, the Pixel 8 Pro sports a 6.7-inch OLED display, also with an LTPO-enabled 120Hz refresh rate and top-end brightness of 2400nits. The only real difference, aside from higher brightness and lack of stylus support, is the shape of the display – the Pixel 8 Pro sports a flat display compared to the curved option from Samsung.
The Google Pixel 8 Pro has much better AI features
The Google Pixel range has always been an AI-first smartphone range, but Google has taken that a step further with the Pixel 8 Pro.
The secret sauce is, in part, Google’s custom Tensor G3 chipset that, as well as delivering solid everyday performance, looks to seriously boost the AI prowess of the smartphone. Previous Pixels have flaunted this tech, with camera features like Super Res Zoom and Night Sight alongside editing features like Magic Eraser, giving them an edge compared to the rest of the Android competition.
The Pixel 8 Pro enhances this experience with new features like Magic Eraser for Video that can remove annoying sounds – like sirens – from videos you’ve recorded, along with intelligent video compression that doesn’t have a knock-on on video quality.
There are also updates to Google’s Call Assist feature with more natural sounding voices available, and for the OpenAI fans, the phone can handle Generative AI tasks with ease too. In fact, the phone has built-in generative image AI in its new AI wallpaper functionality, allowing you to generate your own unique wallpapers with a few quick prompts.
While the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra has built-in AI tech to enhance camera quality and help deliver solid performance, it’s not on the same level as what Google is offering.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is more powerful
But while the Google Pixel 8 Pro has some pretty cool AI features that Samsung can’t compete with, the Galaxy S23 Ultra does have the Pixel 8 Pro pegged in one key area; performance.
That’s because, as mentioned, the Tensor G3 chipset is mainly focused on AI prowess, which allows the Pixel phones to do such cool tricks. However, that usually comes at the cost of overall performance gains.
While we’ve not benchmarked the Tensor G3 just yet, previous iterations of Tensor – be it the G2 or original G1 – tend to fall behind the equivalent flagship Qualcomm chipset. The Tensor G2, for example, fell well behind what the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 and newer 8 Plus Gen 2 chipsets could offer in terms of sheer performance.
That’s especially true of the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which sports a custom Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy with a higher-clocked CPU and additional GPU core to deliver even better performance than the competition.
That said, it’s highly likely that the S23 Ultra will dominate the Pixel 8 Pro in most benchmark tests – though, as with previous Pixel phones, you won’t notice much of a difference in general day-to-day use.
The Google Pixel 8 Pro has a higher-quality zoom lens
The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is regarded by many as one of, if not the best camera phone around right now, boasting a combination of a 200MP main, 12MP ultrawide and dual 10MP 5x and 10x telephoto lenses, with the latter able to zoom in up to 100x digitally – though results at that point are usually pretty bleak.
Still, we were thoroughly impressed with the S23 Ultra’s camera capabilities, especially from the main 200MP lens, using a combination of AI and pixel-binning tech to deliver some of the best photos we’ve captured, especially in low-light situations. The additional lenses allow for added versatility, allowing you to capture just about anything you see.
That all said, the Pixel 8 Pro could steal the S23 Ultra’s thunder with a combination of a main 50MP sensor, 48MP ultrawide and a 48MP 5x optical zoom lens, offering a much higher quality zoom than that of Samsung’s option – and that’s taken further by the AI-powered Super Res Zoom that we’ve been thoroughly impressed with in the past.
While we’re yet to go hands-on with the Pixel 8 Pro, the specs – and Google’s history with great photo performance – suggest that Samsung has serious competition on its hands.
The Google Pixel 8 Pro is cheaper
Despite the various benefits on offer from Google’s top-end smartphone, it still comes in at a cheaper price point than the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra – and by quite a bit too.
The Google Pixel 8 Pro costs £999/$999 – an increase of £150/$150 compared to the Pixel 7 Pro – but that still means it’s £250/$200 cheaper than the £1,249/$1,199 Galaxy S23 Ultra, and the price only rises if you want more than the base 128GB of storage.
The Google Pixel 8 Pro is available to pre-order now ahead of release on 12 October, while the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is readily available to buy following its release earlier this year.
