My mother had the audacity to ask me recently which phone had the best camera: Pixel 10 or iPhone 17 Pro? I assume she meant the Pixel 10 Pro, so for the sake of this post, I’ve gone ahead and put her question to the test. Now we can maybe all know the answer to the age-old question.
The rules: There is a very particular way my mother would conduct this shootout. It has to be a straightforward point-and-click, side-by-side comparison. She would also use her pinky finger to press the shutter button, which shouldn’t aggravate me nearly as much as it does. I have gone out into the world with both cameras, pointed it at objects, and then pressed the shutter button. It seemed like the most fair thing to do. I will say, there is a shot or two where I zoomed in, but made sure to use the same magnification.
The specs aren’t quite the same for these phones when doing a point and click. When utilizing the main 48MP camera, iPhone 17 Pro shoots at 24MP (5712 x 4284) by default. You can adjust this, but that defeats the point and click rule I gave myself. The Pixel 10 Pro defaults to 12.5MP (4080 x 3072). When shooting in a darker environment, the Pixel 10 Pro is also very quick to enable Night Sight, giving it what I think is the advantage, but the iPhone 17 Pro’s large sensor also brings in a ton of light without the need to hold your hand steady for a few seconds.
When looking over the photos, I think the main takeaway is the somewhat inconsistent experience you get on both phones. I absolutely expected the Pixel 10 Pro to come in and dominate this, but I don’t think it did. There are a few shots, like the pumpkin face one you’ll see below, where the iPhone 17 Pro seemed to have a much better handle on the contrast and brightness levels. However, the iPhone 17 Pro also has a tendency to make photos very cold with a blue hue. Ultimately, photography is art and art is subjective. A photo you think looks good may not look good to someone else.
Conclusion: Both phones are more than capable of snapping an Instagram-worthy shot. And both phones are more than enough for someone like my mom who only takes pictures of her dogs and random plants she sees. You hear that, mom?
I’m really big on letting people choose for themselves. Have a look at the results below. I have uploaded all photos taken on both phones to a Google Photos album here, that way you can view the full-res images and not deal with our site’s compression and also see how the HDR stacks up. Let me know what you think in terms of who “wins” down in the comments.
iPhone 17 Pro (left) vs Pixel 10 Pro (right)
