Intro
With the Pixel 9 Pro XL, Google is reinventing the flagship. The new ultra-premium flagship delivers sensible upgrades and positions the Pixel as a proper and even better alternative to the iPhones and Galaxies of the world.
One of those rivals is none other than the Galaxy S24 Ultra, which is Samsung’s best conventional smartphone released in 2024 so far. The S Pen-clad flagship is one of the most versatile phones of the year, and could definitely give the Pixel 9 Pro XL a run for the money.
>>>EB-BS928ABY Battery for Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
Design and Size
From a design perspective, we get an aluminum and mostly flat design with the Pixel 9 Pro XL, which is the clear design choice these days. From a visual standpoint, it follows the signature Pixel design style.
There’s a redesigned camera strip at the back, a bold moving away from the distinct 3D Visor look of previous Pixels. The rear back panel is a classy matte one, while the frame has that glossy look going for it. We dig that, it looks quite mature and classy.
Meanwhile, the Galaxy S24 Ultra employs a mostly flat titanium frame, which still features an ever-so-slight curvature for enhanced ergonomics. It’s Samsung’s largest traditional phone released thus far in 2024, with a completely flat 6.8-inch screen up front. Of course, just like previous Galaxy devices, this one comes along with the S Pen tucked into its silo right out of the box.
The Pixel 9 Pro XL is lighter than the Galaxy S24 Ultra, but it’s slightly wider and taller. This essentially means that while the Galaxy S24 Ultra is technically the heavier phone, it’s slightly more single-hand friendly, as it is narrower.
Both phones match each other’s endurance against the elements with an IP68 water and dust resistance. This means you can dunk each phone for up to half an hour in up to 1.5m of water, and they’ll live to tell the tale.
>>>GS35E Battery for Google Pixel 8
Colors-wise, the Pixel 9 Pro XL arrives in Obsidian, Porcelain, Rose Quartz, and Hazel colors (black, white, pink, and green).
At the same time, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is available in Titanium Black, Titanium Gray, Titanium Violet, Titanium Yellow, Titanium Blue, Titanium Green, and Titanium Orange.
Display Differences
Although the displays of the two phones will differ slightly in terms of overall size, they aren’t that much different.
The Pixel 9 Pro XL features a 6.8-inchSuper Actua screen with a dynamic refresh rate of 1 to 120Hz. It’s a high-end QHD+OLED screen that can hit 3,000 nits of peak brightness, building upon the 2,400 nits that the Pixel 8 Pro could achieve. That’s spectacular and beats the Galaxy S24 Ultra in this one key area.
At the same time, the Galaxy S24 Ultra also comes with a 6.8-inch screen, also a QHD+ one with smooth 1-120Hz refresh rate. Samsung is also participating in the brightness wars, so its latest flagship can hit upwards of 2,500 nits of peak brightness in the right ambient conditions. However, that’s not enough to beat the new top Pixel.
As per our display benchmarking test, the Pixel 9 Pro XL crushes the Galaxy S24 Ultra in terms of peak brightness: we measured 2052 nits on the Google phone, while the Galaxy could only hit 1280 nits, which is a massive difference. However, the Galaxy has that anti-reflective coating over the display, which kind of evens things out.
However, the minimum brightness is lower on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, and the Pixel 9 Pro XL can’t really match it.
Display Measurements:
- Screen measurements
- Color charts
| Maximum brightnessHigher is better | Minimum brightness(nits)Lower is better | Color temperature(Kelvins) | Gamma | Delta E rgbcmyLower is better | Delta E grayscaleLower is better | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Pixel 9 Pro XL | 2052 (Excellent) | 1.9 (Good) | 6731 (Excellent) | 2.26 | 1.39 (Excellent) | 4.98 (Average) |
| Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra | 1280 (Excellent) | 1.1 (Good) | 6543 (Excellent) | 1.93 | 2.86 (Good) | 6.45 (Average) |
Regarding biometrics, the Pixel 9 Pro XL and the Galaxy S24 Ultra both come with a fast and accurate ultrasonic fingerprint scanner. That’s a major upgrade over the previous fingerprint iterations with older Pixels, which all had optical scanners (slow and not very accurate).
Performance and Software
Just like previous Tensor chips, this one is betting heavily on on-device AI and machine-learning, shifting the focus away from raw performance. AI is all the rage with the Tensor G4, delivering a specialized environment for all things artificial intelligence.
And indeed, all Pixel 9 devices arrive with Gemini Nano with multi-modality, which is exclusively run on the Tensor G4. Google says this one is the most capable on-device AI model, which is capable of not only understanding text and speech, but also images and audio.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra, on the other hand, comes along with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, which is pretty much one of the top choices in 2024 as far as raw performance comes. Aside from besting our synthetic benchmark tests, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is one of the more efficient chips out there despite being based on a 4nm manufacturing process.
As per our synthetic benchmark tests, it’s the Galaxy S24 Ultra that decidedly takes the throne. Both in the CPU and GPU-centric tests, it’s the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 inside the Galaxy phone that’s much faster. However, the Tensor G4 isn’t that far off in the Geekbench single-core test, but the Google chip steps off on the wrong foot in the gaming tests.
There’s a massive amount of 16GB of RAM on the Pixel 9 Pro XL, more than enough to accommodate all on-device AI necessities. The Galaxy S24 Ultra comes along with 12GB of RAM, which is plenty-ish, but might not be quite future-proof given the massive hardware requirements of AI that will only grow in the coming years.
Storage-wise, the Pixel 9 Pro XL arrives with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage options, while the Galaxy S24 Ultra is available in 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB.
Both Samsung and Google now have a top-of-the-line seven-year software update policy in place. This means that the Pixel 9 Pro XL will be supported until 2031, which is just as long as the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Surprisingly, the Pixel 9 Pro XL doesn’t come with Android 15 out of the box. The next software update is coming this year, but the Pixel 9 Pro XL arrives with Android 14 out of the box. The same applies to the Galaxy S24 Ultra which comes along with One UI 6.1 (based on Android 14), but Samsung will probably release One UI 7 based on Android 15 not long after Google officially pushes the software out.
Camera
The Pixel 9 Pro XL is equipped with a 50MP primary camera that features an aperture of f/1.68 and a substantial sensor size of 1/1.31″.
Both the ultra-wide and 5X telephoto are 48MP cameras with fairly large apertures, measuring f/2.8 and f/1.7. Despite lacking dedicated cameras for those specific zooms, the Pixel 9 Pro XL boasts optical-quality zoom at both 2X and 10X, thanks to sensor-cropping and hybrid zoom.
The Pixel 9 Pro XL has a plethora of AI and software features on board: Pro controls, Add Me, Macro Focus, Night Sight, Astrophotography, Portrait Mode, Face Unblur, Long Exposure, Action Pan, Real Tone, Panorama, Top Shot, and Frequent Faces. Both devices also support the AI-powered Magic Editor, Magic Eraser, Best Take, Photo Unblur, Zoom Enhance, and Portrait Light.
In the case of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, we got the same camera as the one on the S23 Ultra… but with a twist. Instead of a 10MP periscope camera with 10X optical zoom, we got a 50MP telephoto with 5.0X optical zoom. This turned out to be an upgrade, as the device still hit the same 100X Space Zoom levels, but delivered arguably better zoom quality, which is key in such scenarios.
Battery Life and Charging
The Pixel 9 Pro XL comes with a 5,060mAh battery, which is just a negligible upgrade over the previous model’s 5,000mAh battery. Paired with the efficient Tensor G4, the next top Pixel phone should deliver excellent battery life, more likely than not better than the Pixel 8 Pro. Or, at least, we hope so!
The Galaxy S24 Ultra boasts a 5,000mAh battery which delivers superb battery life in concert with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. It fares pretty well in our custom battery tests, setting high standards for all other flagships to follow in 2024.
Summary
The Pixel 9 Pro XL shapes to be the phone to get if you’re into AI in 2024, with sensible upgrades and notable improvements in most key areas that matter. With a fresher design, decent performance, a pretty great camera, and the best AI suite in late 2024, the Pixel 9 Pro XL is undoubtedly one of the best phones of 2024 so far.
At the same time, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is undoubtedly the best alternative and easily one of the best phones released in 2024. It usually aces just about any category you can think of.
Which one is better? Objectively speaking, it’s the Galaxy S24 Ultra that’s the better all-around phone that brings more versatility to the table. That’s better bang for the buck, and that’s what matter at the end of the day.