iPhone 16 Pro Max vs Pixel 9 Pro XL camera shootout

An iPhone 16 Pro Max vs Pixel 9 Pro XL camera shootout carried out in a variety of indoor and outdoor lighting conditions has seen the iPhone declared the winner, albeit by a relatively slim margin.

You might not get that impression when you first start reading the piece, as Google’s flagship Android smartphone takes an early lead …

With the latest iPhone 16 line-up, Apple placed almost as much emphasis on the camera capabilities as it did on AI – with Camera Control the most visible hardware difference this year.

That’s not surprising, with many of us seeing our iPhones as pocket cameras first, pocket computers second. The same is true of Android smartphones, of course, so photography is a key battleground.

CNET’s Andrew Lanxon took a tour of Edinburgh, Scotland, to compare the two. To keep it fair, he used the stock Camera app on each, with default settings.

For the first set of outdoor fall photos on what looks like a typically overcast day for the city, he gives the Pixel the edge based on warmer and more vibrant colors.

Straight away I can see that those colors are warmer and more vibrant on the Pixel, with the iPhone’s shot looking a little drab and cold in comparison […] And the same remains true at 5x zoom, with the Pixel delivering bolder, warmer tones. 

Moving indoors, however, the iPhone edged ahead, with a brighter and more vibrant image.

It’s the same story when I switched to the ultrawide lens, with the iPhone’s image looking bright and colorful and the Pixel’s looking just pretty flat overall.

The iPhone also won when it came to panoramic captures.

The Pixel has an updated panorama function, but I generally found it disappointing. It’s not just that it’s produced a flatter image than the iPhone here, it’s also that its method of stitching still images together made it harder for me to center the view. The iPhone’s “sweeping” method of capturing the panorama allowed me start and stop the image capture process at exactly the points I needed to get an even view. 

The iPhone also offered shallower depth of field too, making for a more pleasing image in limited space.

Apple’s processing has long been noted for being better than most smartphones at preserving highlights, and there was no exception here.

The Pixel’s image overall is slightly brighter than the iPhone’s shot, but that’s not the whole story here. Zooming in, we can also see that the Pixel has totally blown out this neon sign, reducing it to just a blank, white square. The iPhone has done a much better job of balancing its highlights, keeping the sign perfectly under control.

Lanxon greatly preferred the iPhone’s handling of a blue-hour shot.

The Pixel’s night mode has artificially brightened the shadows so much in this street scene that it makes the whole image look quite unnatural. The iPhone, meanwhile, has maintained much more realistic shadows, along with more subtle tones in the sky, making its shot the clear winner for me. 

He said that the competition was very close, but he had to declare the iPhone 16 Pro Max camera the winner.

Overall I’d have to say I prefer the iPhone’s images, which tend to look more natural and therefore give me a better base for my own editing. There is, of course, the matter of the iPhone’s Photographic Styles, which provide a lot of room for tweaking your shots before you take them. I’ve really enjoyed using them — especially the high contrast black-and-white mode — and find this sort of aesthetic customization to be a key area that’s lacking in the Pixel. 

Check out the full piece for more, and to see the photos for yourself.

Photo: Google