Google Pixel 5 vs iPhone 12! By Jon Rettinger

Thank you to sup case for sponsoring this video. The gap between phone lines is getting closer and closer. It used to be you've got budget on one end high-end flagships on the other, and there wasn't much that sort of took that middle ground. But now we have devices like the pixel 5 and the iPhone 12 that are so close to perfect and also surprisingly, similar and executed. Incredibly well. What makes the decision, even tougher, is not only that both phones are released within weeks of each other at incredibly similar price points.

So now, assuming you don't have an OS preference, the choice between the pixel 5 and the iPhone 12 is harder than ever. So when it comes to cameras, the pixel and the iPhones have been going head-to-head for years, and I guess you could say the pixel peaked in high school uh. It came out of the gate, incredibly good, so much better than really anything we'd ever seen on a smartphone, and it's been iterative updates since then, but since it was so good when it came out, it is still amongst the best, if not the best camera options out there and apple knew they had ground to make up their iPhone photos were always good, but it compared to head with pretty much anything from Google. It didn't hold a candle until last generation when, in certain instances the iPhone suddenly started to become better and this gap between those too much like the phones themselves has narrowed. Incredibly, so even down to hardware like both the iPhone 12 and pixel 5 have a standard, wide camera and a second ultrawide.

But the question I have and probably you if you're watching is like, which is better all right. So look at these pictures. I'm not going to tell you yet uh, which one is which, so this is obviously a really tough one right, you'd, be hard-pressed to see much of a major difference. Her works extremely well for highlights and shadows. Colors are really vibrant contrast is there, but still natural and the processing is very well done and then look at night mode shot, something that the pixel really helped make mainstream.

Both photos seem to come alive in relatively dark environments all right. So if you guessed it surprise, a way the iPhone 12 b or was it pixel 5. ? It boils down to for stills. You will not be disappointed with either of these. Every picture you take will be some version of the scale from good to awesome.

Those are still pictures, but where you still can see, a difference is video and prior to pixel 5. It seemed like video was a total afterthought to google uh. The iPhone was the video king. It wasn't even close with pixel 5, though it looks like Google has given video a pretty decent amount of love this time around and even given it a few new tricks, so the actual like video quality itself is pretty similar to what we saw with the four and the four XL. Although now you can shoot 4k video at 60 frames per second, which is awesome, but still not the ability to shoot 4k 24, which is a bummer, but Google has done a really solid job with things like stabilization, I've got different stabilization modes that, quite frankly, make the pixel 5 almost have GoPro level functionality.

This is perfect stabilization. On the iPhone side, video still has a leg up, but Google has bridged that gap. It's smaller now, uh the iPhone 12 has some new tricks, though this year, too, support for Dolby Vision, which, if you're watching video back on your phone, will look awesome. It's not necessarily going to play on many TVs or third-party boxes, but you have that option. The fact that processing can happen on the phone is perfect, and I think apple stabilization has always been top-notch, but I think google's actually has it beat this generation with the pixel 5.

So I'm really happy that google is taking video seriously. It's an important part of why people I think are using and buying these phones. This is a giant leap forward from what we had with the pixel 4 apple still clearly has a leg up with video, so taking all of these together, the fact that stills are now pretty close to parody, but video is still better on the iPhone somebody with kids who take a lot of video. I would pick the iPhone for the camera system versus these two and that's saying a lot of considering how amazing the pixel 5 can take still shots. So, if you're deciding, if you want to pick up an iPhone 12, the best thing you can do for that phone is to protect it.

I've said it many times, but glass is glass, no matter how much ceramic is in it and glass when it meets concrete, is going to break, but you don't have to spend 40 50 60 bucks to get a really good-looking case and awesome protection. The folks at subcase, with the unicorn beetle pro for 20, offer next level protection at a really affordable price. In fact, the case was so good. It won CNET's own drop test for the highest number of feet. This thing is incredibly durable if the up pros, not the style of case that you want.

There are other versions and other cases that they make that can sort of match your aesthetic style, and they're all available at perfect prices. Much, much less, usually almost half the price of what apple's own first party cases go for and oftentimes, offering much better protection and available for all the iPhones, whether you got a 12, a 12 pro 12 pro max or the little guy, the 12 mini, and for that 20 price, and it's available on Amazon, we'll link to it down below you not only get the case, you're also going to get a screen protector, you're going to get a belt clip you're going to get a finger ring loop. If you want to hold your phone with just your finger, you're also going to get a kickstand built in all of those things, usually cost more and more as you go up the case line all of that for 20 bucks and available on Amazon link to it down below all right. So when it comes to hardware, it's a bit of a different story, you've got a, I don't know it's called a sandwich of glass and aluminum or an uninterrupted curve a tactile little brick. Both of these phones take a very different approach to design the pixel, as it's always been, is super utilitarian.

Certainly not going to win any beauty, pageants uh, but it's also not getting in the way uh, and it has gotten better than recent years. You don't have that sort of bathtub silly notch we had on things like the pixel 3. Uh. We now have sort of a more uniform bezels around the phone, which is awesome to see that's a big improvement for sort of the weird things they've done in the past with the phones, but I think this is definitely the best looking pixel that we've had so on the iPhone side. It's like the first redesign that we've seen in three years, but I still think this is probably the best looking iPhone at the very least.

It's the best feeling iPhone those flat edges on the side make it feel awesome in the hand. The biggest, though I guess, design change, we're going to call it that uh is screens with the iPhone. I think if you were going to knock anything with the iPhone 11, it was the lcd and granted. It was a fine lcd. Things looked good, but it was still LCD.

We now have an OLED display, they've upped, the resolution, it's 2532 by 1170, it's much higher resolution screen, but I guess I got a hard time wrapping my head around there not being 120 hertz, displaying here at the very least, a 90 hertz display, like we have in the pixel 5, and I know the arguments of battery life price and fail rates at scale. I get it. I understand it, but somebody who's used. A lot of android phones and almost everyone coming out at this price point has a higher refresh rate. It's still disappointing to not have it in the iPhone 12.

I'll refresh rate aside, it's probably the best smartphone screen. You know this side of the Galaxy Note, 20. , colors, look great blacks are obviously black. How about this? The screen is, at the very least, no longer a reason to not get the iPhone 12 like it was for a lot of people with the iPhone 11. , so the pixel 5 screens is slightly smaller, 0.1, inches smaller at 6 inches, and it's a game of give and take it's a lower resolution at FHD plus, but it does have a better refresh rate of 90 hertz and I actually think that's a perfect compromise to have now. It's still OLED.

Maybe you don't have the battery drain of 120 hertz, but it's still noticeably smoother on things like scrolling uh than it is with the iPhone 12, and I have no problem at all with lower res and higher refresh rate. It might be a personal preference for you, but I really like the way they've executed on the pixel iPhone 12 has a notch. It's the same. Notch we've seen for three years: I've gotten used to it, but that doesn't mean that it's pretty or nice to look at it. Google has gotten rid of their face, unlocking with the pixel 5 bringing the price down.

You don't have a hole, punch and that's kind of becoming ubiquitous now for a lot of phones. I think the front of these phones, the pixel 5, clearly looks better just by the fact of not having a notch, but I do really like having face unlock. I use it all the time, despite wearing a mask, it's really easy to have with authenticating third-party apps there's a rear-facing fingerprint reader on the pixel 5, which is, I think, the best place for it, and it works incredibly well, it's fast responsive, no issues with it and, most importantly, it's easy to find. So when you get to the rest of the features, it's like staggering how much these phones have in common and again the give and take is here: both phones have wireless charging. The pixel 5 has reverse wireless charging uh the iPhone has MagSafe.

They both are ip68 both have edge to edge displays both have 5g in both flavors of 5g of questionable utility. At this point, but if you are going to keep phones longer than a year, I think it makes the devices more future-proof. So those features they're pretty similar, but there is one area out of everything with these phones, where you see the biggest difference and that's processor uh. I commend google for using the snapdragon 765 g here, instead of going for the flagship, 865 x65 plus it brought the price down, and I think it made the phone more accessible for a lot of people. I mean starting at 6.99 and that processor and everyday use is not only good. It is more than capable there's, maybe a stigma with not having a flagship processor.

I think it's time to change that. Maybe I'm guilty of sort of propagating that, but this is a very capable processor. On the apple side, this has the a14 in it and apple's processors are always absolute beasts. This is the same processor. That's in the new iPad Air same processor, that's in the pro line of iPhone 12s and probably be some version, the same processor that will be in apple's own laptops and desktops.

It is that good and that fast, but I don't think you're going to see that much of a difference for the first few months of both phones. I think where you might want to consider the iPhones, if you're going to keep your phones for let's say 18 months or two years, you might start to see the 765g and the pixel perhaps show its age in that period of time, and I think apple gives their processors a lot of headroom, but if you're keeping your phone for a year, despite apple, clearly having a more capable processor, the end user experience is what matters, and it's really similar with both for a lot of people, their buying decision as well. It should come down to price. The pixel 5 at 6.99, while still expensive, is a screaming deal. I know a lot of people have sort of been begging, google to bring the flagship, pixel price down to more accessible amount of folks, and they did that, and I applaud them for it now, on the iPhone side, it's 100 bucks, more.

It's 799! It's still more expensive, though, than the iPhone 11 but apple, has added new features. You've got a new design and a better display, so it's a trade-off, and we'll see by the sales numbers if the trade-off, a lot of people are willing to make both these phones despite being expensive, are still perfect values for what you're getting and this year, I think more than ever, because the features are so similar. It's going to come down to OS preference. Do you want Apple's ecosystem? Do you want the openness and freedom of android? I say this: if you don't have OS allegiance, and you only casually take video save 100 bucks, you will go with the pixel 5, and you will have an amazing phone and a great experience. If you take a decent amount of video like I do, the iPhone is still better, and it's significantly better for the quality of the video you are getting so for me, I'm picking up the iPhone 12, but for a lot of folks, the pixel 5 is the perfect combination of price performance and features.

Source : Jon Rettinger