The improved camera on the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL was an important part of its launch hype, so naturally we had to test it ourselves And there is no better candidate than one of its biggest rivals, the iPhone 15 Pro Max

The iPhone 15 Pro Max and Pixel 9 Pro XL, with 48MP and 50MP main cameras respectively, have similar primary sensor status However, the iPhone 15 Pro Max has 12MP sensors for the remaining three cameras (ultra-wide, 5x telephoto, and selfie), while the Pixel instead has 48MP ultra-wide and 5x telephoto cameras and a 42MP selfie camera, continuing the high-res party

This is a good thing

Given this, plus the differences in the two models' post-processing algorithms, we will need to explore many differences to determine which one deserves to be at the top of our Best Camera Phones list So, please make yourself at home with our samples until we find the winner

The first round is an early morning view across Beckenham Green, and the Pixel does a great job of rendering the colors throughout the scene, from the sky to the tanned areas of the grass It feels more accurate, if not as remarkable as the bright iPhone image

Winner Draw

Down the road, looking at St George's Church in Beckenham with the sun still low in the sky is a tricky test of these two phones' ultra-wide angle cameras the church is a bit dark in the iPhone image, which is understandable given that the light is coming from directly behind it Nonetheless, the Pixel manages to capture more detail in this scene

Winner: Pixel 9 Pro XL

The potted plants in this photo have rich colors in both phone photos The iPhone, however, comes out brighter; the Pixel does a better job of capturing the highlights in the image, but the darker colors, such as the flowerpots and fuchsia-colored flowers, come across as drab

Winner: iPhone 15 Pro Max

The two close-ups of this flower look similar at first, but the iPhone is actually a bit brighter As a result, subtle details like the veins running through the petals show up much better than in the Pixel image And subtle details are exactly what you want to capture in macro photography

Winner: iPhone 15 Pro Max

I had the opportunity to test the Pixel 9 Pro's 50MP main camera against the iPhone's 48MP shot on the busy Paddington Station bike park Again, the iPhone produced a brighter image, but the Pixel was sharper, which is contributed to the slightly higher pixel count and better lighting balance throughout the image

Winner: Pixel 9 Pro XL

Aside from the differences in the lens shape of the phone, which is responsible for some object distortion, there are two decent panoramas of the Sheldon Square Amphitheatre in Paddington The iPhone is still brighter, but it also beats the Pixel in terms of detail

Winner: iPhone 15 Pro Max

In the dimly lit room, the vases on the shelves are noticeably brighter in the Pixel's image the iPhone shot is not bad by any means, but it is much harder to identify what color these objects are, or elements like the gravel filling the vases much more difficult to discern Aside from the more dramatic-looking shadows, the iPhone image is the worse of the two

Winner: Pixel 9 Pro XL

The bright sunlit exterior and the shaded interior of this hedge show how well these phones can balance camera exposure There is not much difference between the two images when looking at the brightest areas, but the Pixel wins because of the warmer tones and better visibility of the inner branches

Winner: Pixel 9 Pro XL

When the test camera was pointed at a sign with a bright blue sky background, the Pixel 9 Pro XL's 5x zoom camera took the brightest picture However, the contrast of the photo taken with the iPhone makes details such as the text on the sign stand out more

Winner: iPhone 15 Pro Max

This distant road sign was shot at 25x magnification on the iPhone and 30x on the Pixel, but to facilitate this comparison, they were cropped to the same zoom level The text in the iPhone image is again sharper But to the Pixel's credit, colors are more accurate and details like rust streaks, while blurry, appear sharper the iPhone does a much better job than the Pixel, although it does not capture the edges of my glasses 100% correctly the Pixel's image is much sharper than the iPhone's, and the Pixel's is much sharper than the iPhone's, although it does not capture the edges of the Pixel's

Winner: iPhone 15 Pro Max

Finally, the second low-light image - a tricky shot of the full moon through the trees; the Pixel's shot is cleaner, with no lens flare and fewer artifacts around the moon itself However, the iPhone shot is brighter and shows more of the surrounding environment; if you combined the center of the Pixel shot with the edges of the iPhone shot and averaged the colors and brightness, this would be a great photo However, in this scenario, the Pixel wins because the focus is on the moon

The winner: the Pixel 9 Pro XL

And the winner is the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which wins in round 6 to the Pixel's 5 rounds

However, the Pixel is barely in second place, showing that it can perform phenomenally in difficult light conditions, especially with its main and ultra-wide cameras However, if the iPhone can come into its own with its superior color science, it will prove to be the slightly more stable of the two