Two small yet powerful smartphones. Two of the most popular handsets on the market. Two specimens from the world’s most famous mobile rivals. This is the Galaxy S24 versus the iPhone 15 Pro.
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The Galaxy S24 is easily recognizable as it has gone through minor changes over the last couple of years. It offers a clean no-nonsense design with two flat Gorilla Glass Victus 2 panels and a metal frame. It is IP68-rated for your usual dust and water resistance. What we like about the Galaxy S24 is its clean camera housing of just three simple rings.
On the other side we have the iPhone 15 Pro with Ceramic Shield glass, which looks a lot like the last couple of Pro models but brings a lighter body thanks to the new titanium frame. Other than that, it looks as stylish as ever, though the chaotic camera island is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea. It is IP68-rated, too.
For starters, you can compare the complete specs sheets or directly continue with our editor’s assessment in the text further down below.
Size comparison
There isn’t much to discuss about dimensions and weight. Both handsets are almost identical, with the iPhone 15 Pro being ever so slightly thicker. And we should applaud Samsung for fitting a slightly larger screen into the exact same body.
Even better, the Galaxy S24 is also the lighter phone, 20 whole grams to be specific, which is yet another great thing about the Samsung’s smartphone.
Then again the Apple iPhone 15 Pro has a supposedly more premium and tougher titanium frame, and its IP68 rating has been expanded, so it can survive in up to 6m-deep water.
Overall, the design is a matter of personal choice, but we can safely say both smartphones are of equally impressive build. The iPhone’s might be more solid, though.
Display comparison
The Galaxy S24 has the slightly larger display – 6.2″ vs. 6.1″ – but it is of the lower resolution – 416ppi vs 461ppi on the iPhone 15 Pro. The Apple screen has better streaming support – it has both HDR10 and Dolby Vision capabilities.
The Galaxy S24 also offers a much smaller cutout as the phone relies on a single front camera and under-display fingerprint scanner for biometric security. The cutout on the iPhone is huge as it comes with Apple’s FaceID, which works for secure unlocking, and Apple has found a way to add some clever functionality around it with the Dynamic Island.
The iPhone 15 Pro has a brighter display – the 15 Pro panel offers 845nits of manual and 1786nits of auto brightness, while the S24 OLED has 785nits of manual and 1,401nits of auto brightness.
For the untrained eye, this probably won’t make much of a difference, but there are some potential benefits from the extra 400 nits on a bright sunny day outside.
While the two devices have great screens, the iPhone 15 Pro does offer a slightly better one. Its notch, on the other hand, is quite large by today’s standards.
Battery life
The Galaxy S24 has a 4,000mAh battery, while the iPhone 15 Pro has a smaller 3,274mAh. And contrary on the expectations, the iPhone has the longer battery life.
The Galaxy S24 scored an Active Use Rating of 12:06 h., while the iPhone 15 Pro – 12:58 h. The iPhone is better at everything but calls. In fact, the iPhones have been knowb for their average or below average call times.
Charging speed
There has been no upgrade in the charging speed on either phone, so don’t expect fierce competition. The Galaxy S24 supports 25W fast charging over the Power Delivery standard, while the iPhone 15 Pro – 20W over USB-PD. This means both devices charge slowly compared to some of their competitors. At least they both support 15W fast wireless charging. The Galaxy S24 also offers reversed wireless charging, something Apple could not figure out and eventually scrapped.
So, the Samsung’s 25W charger takes the Galaxy S24 battery (4,000mAh) from 0% to 29% in 15mins, 59% in 30mins and up to 100% in 75mins. The Apple’s 20W Power Adapter recharges the dead iPhone 15 Pro battery (3,274mAh) from 0% to 32% in 15 mins, 57% in 30 mins and 93mins for a full charging cycle.
The Galaxy S24 recharges its larger battery a bit faster and it also offers reverse wireless charging and that is why it scores a win here.
Speakers test
Both the Galaxy S24 and the iPhone 15 Pro have hybrid stereo speaker setups. The one on the Galaxy S24 is a bit louder.
But the iPhone 15 Pro speakers offer richer sound with deeper bass and better vocals. The high frequency range is not that great, though.
Performance
The Galaxy S24 is powered by the most recent Exynos 2400 chipset by Samsung, while the iPhone 15 Pro runs on the A17 Bionic. Apple’s chips have been leading the performance charts for quite some time, but their development have slowed down significantly lately and the competition not only caught up, it can even outperform them.
With that in mind and the S24’s promised 7 years of software support (both major OS updates and security patches), the Galaxy S24 is the better bet if you’d rather not change phones for as long as possible. The iPhones have this unwritten rule of 5 years of iOS updates, which was a big trump card over any Android phone, but that is no more.
So, when it comes to raw CPU power, the Apple processor is a bit faster.
In the GPU tests the Galaxy S24 did better by 25% or higher margin.
The global Galaxy S24 is available in two memory configurations – 8GB RAM + 128GB and 8GB RAM + 256GB. The same options are available for the iPhone 15 Pro, but it can also be purchased with 512GB and 1TB storage.
As far as throttling is concerned – the iPhone 15 Pro throttles less – 85% CPU and 76% GPU stability versus 60% CPU and 50% GPU stability for the Galaxy S24.
Samsung promises 7 years of major OS updates for the S24, which certainly looks better than Apple’s unwritten policy of offering its phones 5-6 years of major iOS updates. However, the big question is how well the hardware in a 7-year Android phone would keep up with the software in terms of performance. Nobody needs an updated phone that may be borderline unusable due to lag, whereas iPhones have already proven usable devices for years after launch without colossal performance degradation. So, for now, we’ll call this one a tie.
Samsung has the upper hand by introducing Google’s latest mobile AI features on the S24 series. You can read more about those in our dedicated One UI 6.1 review but the list includes things like Circle to search; chat translations; Generative AI message creation; webpage summarization; language interpreting for live calls or in-person convos; recorded speech transcribing and summarization; and Generative AI wallpapers and edits in the Gallery such as content-aware fill or object moving and removal.
Camera comparison
The Galaxy S24 has the same camera hardware as the Galaxy S23, but the newer version promises better processing thanks to the improved ISP. This means there is a 50MP OIS primary, a 10MP OIS 3x telephoto, a 12MP ultrawide camera (fixed focus), and a 12MP selfie camera with PDAF.
The iPhone 15 Pro offers a similar camera kit. It has three cameras on its back – a 48MP OIS primary, a 12MP OIS 3x telephoto and a 12MP ultrawide with PDAF and macro capabilities. The selfie camera on the iPhone is a 12MP OIS with PDAF.
The iPhone’s primary camera offers 2x lossless zoom and it can even shoot at 24MP. We chose 12MP shots for the purpose of this comparison. It has a higher-res telephoto and a better ultrawide camera that can do closeups, too.
The ultrawide cameras from both smartphones produce equally pleasing photos. They offer quite wide field of view, a lot of resolved detail, low noise, wide dynamic range and good contrast. We can say that both UW cameras save a bit over-processed photos, even if in a different manner.
The iPhone’s camera offers more realistic colors and it can also capture macro photos, though.
We can draw the same conclusions for the primary cameras. The two smartphones capture great photos, detailed and sharp, noise-free, and of wide dynamic range. The Galaxy camera saves somewhat more natural photos, maybe not as processed as the iPhone’s, and that is why we like its samples more. The iPhone offers more natural color rendition, as usual.
The 2x lossless zoom is more advanced on the iPhone 15 Pro – its zoom samples are more detailed and more natural.
Finally, the iPhone also offers the higher resolution 3x camera (10MP vs. 12MP). The Galaxy S24 upscales its photos to 12MP, so it can match the output of the other cameras. Quite expectedly, the iPhone 15 Pro has the more impressive 3x zoomed photos – they are mode detailed and sharper, with more realistic colors.
Galaxy S24: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x
iPhone 15 Pro: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x
Galaxy S24: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x
iPhone 15 Pro: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x
The Galaxy S24 and the iPhone 15 Pro capture equally great selfies.
Galaxy S24 • iPhone 15 Pro
The nighttime photos are solid across both devices. The ultrawide, main and zoom cameras on the iPhone have better noise reduction, while the Galaxy’s photos sometimes offer wider dynamic range and better sharpness.
Galaxy S24: 0.6x • 1x • 3x
iPhone 15 Pro: 0.6x • 1x • 3x
Video recording quality
The video capturing on both smartphones is great, with all sorts of options available. The Galaxy S24 can do 8K videos, something the iPhone cannot. But Apple offers some neat options like Cinematic mode, which should come in handy if you are a video creator.
The three rear cameras on the Galaxy S24 and the iPhone 15 Pro shoot top-notch videos – the quality is very good across the board – detail, noise reduction, contrast, dynamic range. The colors are more realistic on the iPhone and sometimes its videos look a tiny bit more natural.
Galaxy S24: 0.6x • 1x • 3x
iPhone 15 Pro: : 0.6x • 1x • 3x
Galaxy S24: 0.6x • 1x • 3x
iPhone 15 Pro: : 0.6x • 1x • 3x
Verdict
We doubt many people will be having the Galaxy S24 or iPhone 15 Pro dilemma. Those two are parallel devices of totally different universes – the open Android OS with powerful One UI on the Galaxy and the closed Apple iOS with all sorts of restrictions and limitations. But for those who ponder on this predicament, here is what we found.
The Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro is the more tougher smartphone with a better display, more stable performance, longer battery life, better speakers and somewhat more versatile camera experience.
The Galaxy S24 is a lighter phone with a slightly larger screen with a smaller notch, it packs the more powerful hardware, recharges faster and it can do 8K videos if you need that. Oh, and Samsung’s extended software support gives a certain peace of mind, too.
Finally, and probably most importantly, the Galaxy S24 is at least €300 cheaper than the iPhone 15 Pro in Europe and at lest $200 cheaper in the US. Money is often the deciding say on a purchase and we understand why many people would go for the Galaxy S24 instead of the iPhone 15 Pro.
- The larger display with smaller notch.
- The lighter body and cleaner design.
- The longer call time.
- The faster charging.
- The reverse wireless charging.
- The more powerful chipset with theoretically longer software support.
- The 8K@30 and 4K@120 video recording.
- Android OS
- Lower price.
Get the Samsung Galaxy S24 for:
- The tougher build and better ingress protection.
- The higher-resolution and brighter display, Dolby Vision.
- Face ID security.
- The longer battery life.
- The better speakers.
- The better performance stability.
- The higher-res 24MP photos.
- Apple iOS.
Get the Apple iPhone 15 Pro for:
