In the market for a new, premium Android smartphone? Luckily, there are some heavy-hitting options for you.
Namely, the Google Pixel 10 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. The former just hit the scene thanks to the big Made by Google event, while the latter's been on store shelves since January. Rather than sitting here and establishing more context, though, let's just jump right into the comparison so you can figure out which flagship appeals to you more.
Google vs. Samsung: The Pixel 10 Pro has the better price
Many of the differences between these two phones will come down to personal preference and will contain a decent amount of nuance. Price is not one of them.
The Google Pixel 10 Pro starts at $999 while the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra starts at $1,299. Perhaps the rest of this article will help you understand why Samsung's handset is more expensive, but the fact of the matter is that going with Google will save a bit of money.
Design: Neither phone is winning design awards
Ultimately, these are both smartphones, meaning they both look like smartphones. There's only so much that can be done within that framework, in terms of physical design. That said, both Samsung and Google have their own unique design languages that are worth talking about here.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra made a huge improvement over its predecessor by including rounded edges on the phone's frame, though they are notably still more angular than the Pixel 10 Pro. The arrangement of the rear camera modules accounts for the biggest design change between these two phones, of course. Samsung lets its triple-lens array float freely without any kind of housing or camera bump, instead opting to just let the three lenses sit on top of one another. Google, on the other hand, still uses the same horizontal camera bar for its three lenses, which makes the phone look kinda like Cyclops from X-Men.
Samsung will pretty much always "win" when it comes to color options, too, just because it usually offers a lot more to choose from. The Galaxy S25 comes in seven colors: Titanium Jadegreen, Titanium Jetblack, Titanium Pinkgold, Titanium Black, Titanium Gray, Titanium Silverblue, and Titanium Whitesilver. It should be noted that the first three colors in that list are only available online.
Meanwhile, the Pixel 10 Pro comes in four hues: Moonstone, Jade, Porcelain, and Obsidian.
Which flagship has better specs? Samsung.
Phones are for using and not for looking at, so let's talk specs. Here are the basic specs for the Pixel 10 Pro:
6.3-inch display with 1280x2856 resolution and 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate
Google Tensor G5 chip
16GB RAM
128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB storage
4,870mAh battery
And here are the equivalent specs for Galaxy S25 Ultra:
6.9-inch display with 3120x1440 resolution
Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chip
12GB RAM
256GB/512GB/1TB storage
5,000mAh battery
There are obviously a few things to discuss here. The S25 Ultra is a much bigger phone than the Pixel 10 Pro, with a higher resolution display and a bigger battery. It's actually closer to the $1,199 Pixel 10 Pro XL in these respects, perhaps making that phone a more directly comparable device. Having said that, it's a clear advantage for Google that a smaller, cheaper version of its Pro phone exists at all.
That allows Google to offer a 128GB storage option for those who want it, but it also means the display and battery are smaller. Life is all about compromises. Interestingly, Google's phone has more RAM, regardless of size. There are no benchmarks out there yet for the Tensor G5 chip, though if previous years are any indication, it will probably not score as well as the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. That doesn't mean the Pixel 10 Pro will have markedly worse performance, though. In my experience, they're usually pretty comparable.
Samsung actually has one major advantage in this department: an included stylus. The S Pen accessory comes with the S25 Ultra, and the phone has a built-in slot for it. You may or may not be the type of person who wants to use a stylus, but that's objectively added value over the Pixel 10 Pro.
Google has the edge on AI features
Now that we're a few years into the whole "every phone has AI features" trend, the differences between devices are starting to get a little more blurry. Both of these handsets are marketed as "AI smartphones."
To succinctly sum up these two phones in particular, the Pixel 10 Pro's biggest new AI features are meant to play catch-up with Samsung and other competitors. That's not hard for Google, which has a full suite of AI tools powered by Gemini. And since the Pixel 10 Pro comes with a free year of Google AI Pro (if you purchase at the Pixel store, at least), Google may have the edge.
Namely, the Pixel 10 Pro has live language translation during phone calls, theoretically enabling seamless vocal communication across language barriers (we're still testing the Pixel 10 series). The Galaxy S25 Ultra could already do this in January, though Google samples your voice for a more natural conversation and performs the translation on your device for privacy. Google also added Daily Hub, a new one-stop-shop for your daily schedule, weather forecast, to-do list, and relevant news. Samsung, believe it or not, also had that earlier this year.
Google does have some advantages in terms of AI photo editing. Pixel 10 Pro can edit photos based on text prompts, in case your ability to describe things is stronger than your editing finger. Camera Coach is also an intriguing new feature that can potentially teach you how to properly compose photos. Aside from that, many of the AI editing features across both of these phones are pretty similar.
We also have to mention Google's new Magic Cue tool. It's an AI assistant that finds information from apps like Gmail, Calendar, Screenshots, and Messages so it can automatically make recommendations. Texting someone about a dinner reservation? Magic Cue will pull up the booking and add a link to the text for you.
Pixel 10 Pro vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: Which phone has the best camera?
Which flagship is better for photography? We can't render a verdict just yet.
At Made by Google, the company claimed the Pixel 10 Pro has the best camera on any phone in the world. While the S25 Ultra offers a way higher megapixel count on its main rear camera, the Pixel 10 Pro supposedly closes the gap with strong AI zoom, high-quality nighttime photography, and motion stabilization for video.
The Pixel 10 Pro's camera specs are as follows:
Rear cameras: 50MP wide, 48MP ultrawide, 48MP telephoto with 5x optical zoom
Front camera: 42MP
And here's what you get with Galaxy S25 Ultra:
Rear cameras: 200MP wide, 50MP ultrawide, 50MP telephoto with 5x optical zoom
Front camera: 12MP
It's also worth mentioning that both phones now offer up to 100x digital zoom, though it remains to be seen how well it works on Pixel 10 Pro. On Galaxy S25 Ultra, it's pretty obvious that the phone is doing some digital trickery to fill in the blanks.
Regardless, 200MP vs. 50MP for the main rear lens is a pretty stark difference, although we need to do detailed testing to see if it manifests in a meaningful way. The Pixel 10 Pro might make up for that with a 42MP selfie cam, depending on how much you like taking selfies.
At the end of the day, you're probably going to be able to take pretty good pictures of your pets and/or meals for Instagram, no matter which phone you choose.
