Galaxy S22 vs Pixel 6
Galaxy S22 vs Pixel 6
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| Galaxy S22 vs Pixel 6 |
Welcome to the Android Setup Blogger, today we have the Samsung Galaxy S22 a compact powerhouse with every reflective feature you'd ever want up against the Google pixel 6 a completely redesigned phone to give google.
its second chance in the ever so crowded phone market and coming in at just 5.99 this phone is 200 cheaper than the 7.99 price tag of the galaxy S22.
but the question is can it match up you see for the past
month or so I've been trying to decide on which of these two phones to keep for myself and it's becoming a really hard decision so today I'm going to be putting these two phones head to head in a series of categories to see which one is worth your money.
starting with the galaxy S22.
the first thing you'll notice is how well designed it is i got mine in phantom white and the phone just looks stunning this year they put a glass back on the galaxy S22 compared to the plastic on the s21 and it just makes the phone look and feel great especially with its silky smooth matte finish.
Samsung has also started to use flat edges on their phones with a slight bit of curve and the tough armor aluminum rails feel really smooth in the hand i also love the silver metallic finish for the camera housing that just melts into the top corner and best of all the size of the cameras look like the perfect ratio to the whole phone and the lenses are also magical with silver rings which makes them look gorgeous.
as for the pixel 6 google took a giant step forwards in terms of design they scrapped the cameras on the upper left and instead slapped on a giant horizontal camera board that goes completely across the phone making it look like an manga's character now i admit it does look a little weird at first but the design does grow on you once you get used to it and it gives the phone a little bit of character and all of the hardware is built pretty well.
there are some minor imperfections such as being able to feel a bump between the plastic and glass on the camera bar slightly rougher edges on the frame and usb-c and speaker holes that aren't centered and because of these imperfections and that bulky design the galaxy S22 easily takes this point looks are only half the story however as it's important to see how the phone actually feels with a 6.1 inch display the galaxy S22 can almost be described as a compact flagship and with flatter edges and only a weight of 167 grams this phone feels amazingly light and comfortable to hold.
on the other hand the pixel 6 is 30 grams heavier than the galaxy S22 and with a large 6.4 inch screen and a big camera bump it feels top heavy in the hand which does lead to some hand fatigue the camera bar does actually serve a purpose though by preventing wobble when the phone is on a table and it also acts as a ledge for your finger to rest on when holding the phone however that doesn't remove the fact that the pixel 6 has got to be the slipperiest phone I've ever used thanks to that glossy glass back haptics are another area where Samsung nailed it this year instead of the typical z-axis vibration motor Samsung used a new x-axis vibration motor which makes haptics feel much more controlled and precise than ever before.
the downside to this is the fact that you can't hear the phone buzz on the table or feel it in your pockets anymore when you get calls or notifications the haptics on the pixel 6 are excellent as well although it does feel ever so slightly more hollow and at the recent update the strength of the vibrations went down dramatically especially for notifications so you can't hear buzz or feel them just like the galaxy S22 pretty interesting maybe google is preparing to launch their pixel watch soon but uh yeah anyways Samsung dominates this category once again and for the last of the hardware section the display with the galaxy S22 you get a gorgeous 1080p 120hz 6.1 inch display with perfectly symmetrical slim bezels the corners are curved perfectly and there's only a tiny hole punch selfie camera on the top which maximizes the screen size on this phone the screen is sharp vibrant and punchy there's no color casting when you tilt the display it's 120 hertz makes the phone feel buttery smooth and it also gets extremely bright at up to 1100 nits, especially if their new vision booster technology that makes a huge difference in harsh sunlight I've also noticed that the auto brightness was working really well on this phone and i didn't have to keep adjusting the brightness which was great on the other.
hand the 6.4 inch 1080p panel on the pixel 6 is just average at best the bezels are quite thick on each side but at least the colors are vibrant and 90 hertz does feel pretty smooth although it's not as great as 120 hertz.
unfortunately where this panel really does take a hit is in brightness it can go up to 800 nits during short bursts but most of the time it drops down to an average of only 500 nits it's perfectly fine for indoors and gloomier days outdoors but once the sunlight starts coming out you're gonna have a hard time reading the display and did i mention the auto brightness is terrible on this phone as I'm constantly battling with it to pair up these great displays though both of these phones have great stereo speakers they both get equally loud despite the size of the galaxy S22 and the option to enable dolby Atmos on the galaxy S22 gives it a slight edge in audio immersion as for unlocking the phones the galaxy S22 uses an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner.
while the pixel 6 uses an optical reader the ultrasonic reader is definitely much better than the optical counterpart being much quicker being more secure and it's even supposed to work if your fingers are dirty or wet.
unfortunately both the galaxy S22 and pixel 6 fingerprint scanners don't work well with screen protectors in my experience luckily there's face unlock on the galaxy S22 that the pixel 6 doesn't have and now that we're finished talking about hardware you can see once again that the pixel 6 is absolutely being slaughtered by the galaxy S22 and that is to be expected since they are 200 in price but comparisons a comparison and there will not be any handicaps given you know what can protect your phones for being.
to you fenson all right so far the galaxy S22 has been dominating the pixel 6 in every way but it's still too early to call it as there's still time for a comeback.
let's continue with software the galaxy S22 uses the latest one ui4 and to be honest it's still not my cup of tea in terms of how it looks and functions but i have to say Samsung has gone a long way to improve their software and as of right now it's probably the most functional and stable ui on android and that's coming from someone who's hated one ui for years the software has most of the ui elements pushed down to the bottom half of the screen making the phone very easy to use with one hand and everything just looks huge compared to other phones and with the newly released one ui 4.1 we get a lot of nice improvements like smoother and more fine animations new material you color theming a much nicer and simpler camera ui.
and finally a google discover page on the home screen there are still a couple minor complaints i have though such as notifications being too compact and hard to read no hotspot toggle on the notification shade which is annoying and also no option to search in the app drawer by default but overall the galaxy S22 has a very solid ui that's only getting better and you'll have no trouble using it at all best of all Samsung's committing to four years of android updates and five years of security updates which is even longer than Google's pixel phones themselves but as good as one ui got nothing beats the pixel experience and now that all the updates have fixed all the bugs this pixel is an absolute joy to use the aesthetic appearance of the whole ui and the material u theme that forms around the color palette of the wallpaper makes.
the phone feel more fun and personalized animations and general navigation around the ui is also probably the smoothest you'll ever feel and there's just so many small touches in the ui that really add to the experience such as a little bobbing effect when you get to the end of content or the way the black fades in and out from the power button when you click it the pixel 6 is also filled with awesome smart features too some of my favorite features include call screening which lets google assist and take the call instead and helps you avoid scam calls different categories in the notification bar and best of all the new voice typing thanks to the ai improvements in the tensor chip google is able to make transcriptions incredibly fast and accurate and all offline it can even fix grammar mistakes to auto punctuation and even send my voice for me it's actually replaced finger typing especially when my hands are busy and still blows me away every single time i use it by far my favorite feature on this phone and if you can't already tell the pixel launcher wins this category for me by far another big area of comparison are the cameras and surprisingly.
the pixel 6 blows away the galaxy S22 in the photo department google tends to nail photo processing consistently with natural colors and that punchy hdr look we've all come to love the galaxy S22 performs very similarly at first glance with similar color representation and the same great hdr but there are a couple things it does worse first there's this weird yellow greenish tint with the photos coming from the galaxy S22 which does make the image look slightly unflattering I've also noticed that the galaxy S22 had an issue of blowing out highlights during indoor photos which just completely ruined the image I'm sure Samsung will fix that in a future update cause they do have a good track record for that what I'm not so sure about is the lack of detail in the photos from the galaxy S22 Samsung claims that with this generation the camera takes one high resolution 50 megapixel shot.
for detail and one lower resolution 12 megapixel shot for brightness and then fuses them together for what Samsung is saying the best of both worlds however when zooming into photos you can clearly see the shocking difference in detail against the pixel 6. the 50 megapixel mode on the galaxy S22 doesn't improve the image by much either and more often than not it ruins the image with bad dynamic range and wonky artifacts especially with the sketchy detail enhancing mode now there are some areas where Samsung does take back the lead mainly with the telephoto camera which can zoom into objects at the pixel cat a wider ultra wide lens for more dramatic photos and a better selfie camera capable of recording 4k video in which the pixel is capped at 1080p i will also have to say that video does look slightly sharper and less noisy compared to the pixel as well but considering the fact that most people are taking photos of the main lens most of the time it's only fair that the pixel 6 wins its category unless you're someone who really values video quality and i know i glossed over many details.
but if you want a more in-depth comparison of these two cameras you can check out and finally we get to the biggest and arguably most important category in this whole comparison battery life now here's where the galaxy S22 takes a major l because Samsung decided to lower the battery capacity to 3700 milliamp hours compared to 4600 on the pixel 6 and that just might be the deal breaker for like 80 percent of you see such a small battery and power hungry trip like the snapdragon 8gen1 you would only be getting three and a half maybe four hours of battery life if you're lucky and that's only if you're using social media apps without any heavy apps.
and i absolutely cannot trust this phone to last me through the day and you're basically forced to bring a power bank and charger with you everywhere you go there's just been too many times where I've been left without a phone for the rest of the day because it just died the pixel 6 on the other hand has greatly improved in battery life of updates and is now consistently getting me around 6 hours of screen on time which is definitely enough to last you through the whole day.
both of these phones don't support any sort of crazy fast charging though so no advantages for both sides here and honestly because the battery life on this phone is so bad i should just like delete all the points it's earned so far and lastly price at 200 cheaper the pixel 6 offers exceptional value with great hardware excellent cameras and probably the best android phone experience right now after all the updates and yes it doesn't have all the fancy specs of the galaxy S22 but all those aren't necessary to having a good phone experience and the battery life just takes this phone out the running i honestly cannot recommend the phone that can't last through the day and it's expected to get even worse the long term.
and for this reason i officially crowned the google pixel 6 as the winner of this ultimate lower end flagship phone battle it was a great battle and i think what I'm going to do is use the pixel 6 as my personal phone and then try to use the galaxy S22 as my dedicated content creation phone and that marks the end of this comparison.
