Compact smartphones are rare these days, and if you limit your search only to the premium segment, the choice becomes even more limited. Still, Apple and Samsung have the Apple iPhone 16 and Samsung Galaxy S24 that meet the criteria. You could say these phones don’t check all the boxes for a flagship device, but they come pretty close.

Both competitors are also relatively cheaper than their more premium siblings, which is the sweet spot for some potential buyers. And after all, the Samsung versus Apple dilemma is still alive in some markets, even if the vanilla iPhone 16 is not off to a good start since it asks around €250 more than its direct rival in Europe and the gap is reduced. wider in the United States.

Table of contents:

To get started, you can compare the full technical data sheets or continue directly with our editor’s evaluation in the following text.

Size Comparison

Even though the iPhone 16 and Galaxy S24 are made by two very different companies, you’d be surprised by how many similarities you can find.

The two handsets are very similar in size, with the Galaxy S24 having a slight advantage over the iPhone 16 as it is a bit narrower, shorter and thinner, while still offering a larger screen with more surface area. ‘screen. In short, you get more display in the same footprint.

The vanilla iPhone 16 and Galaxy S24 also share a similar design language. The side frames as well as the front and rear panels are flat and the camera lenses protrude. The build quality is, for all intents and purposes, comparable. Both devices use Corning-made glass panels for the front and back, connected by an aluminum side frame. Both bodies are also IP68 rated, although Apple promises resistance up to greater depth (1m versus 6m).

Display Comparison

The iPhone 16 and Galaxy S24 make no compromises when it comes to display quality. Both panels support the same HDR standards and both can get quite bright. According to our tests, the iPhone has a slight advantage with 300 nits more.

However, the S24 wins this round by having a 120 Hz LTPO OLED. The iPhone 16 screen makes do with a far from ideal refresh rate of 60 Hz in 2024.

Battery life

When it comes to battery life, the iPhone 16 is the clear winner here. It dominates the Galaxy S24 on all fronts, but it’s particularly impressive in the web browsing scenario, where it beats the S24 with almost double the battery life. The iPhone 16 also shows significantly better video playback and call scores.

It is obvious that if you value battery life the most, the iPhone 16 is the right choice here.

Charging speed

The iPhone 16 and Galaxy S24 mostly offer equally fast charging solutions. Or should we say they are just as slow?

In any case, looking strictly at the total time it takes to charge the device, the S24 beats the iPhone 16 by almost 20 minutes. We’d say it’s noticeably faster.

However, the charging curve in the first 15-30 minutes is almost identical since both devices will give you back almost 60% of the charge in 30 minutes.

Speaker test

Both the iPhone 16 and Galaxy S24 offer equally powerful stereo speakers, but the former has the edge in terms of quality. It is quite obvious that the Apple phone has a warmer and deeper sound thanks to the well-pronounced bass. The voices are not muffled either.

On the other hand, the Galaxy’s speakers lack bass and sound downright flat.

Performance

The iPhone 16 runs on Apple’s A18 chip, while the Galaxy S24 gets the Exynos 2400. Apple’s new chip is making its way to non-Pro versions this year and promises a substantial increase in performance, efficiency and AI capabilities. Historically, Apple silicon delivers better performance than its Android counterparts, but the 10-core Exynos 2400 also packs a punch. It also uses a GPU co-developed with AMD.

Both handsets disappoint when it comes to basic storage. The S24 and iPhone 16 start from 8GB/128GB and go up to 8GB/512GB.

A small detail to keep in mind: the iPhone 16 has NVMe storage, while the S24 makes do with UFS 3.1 for its base 128 GB variant and UFS 4.0 for all others. In both cases, the S24 is slower than the iPhone 16. Either way, storage speed doesn’t matter much.

Benchmark performance

One might expect the iPhone 16 to be objectively the more powerful device. And that’s true for the most part. It beats the Galaxy S24 by 17% in Geekbench 6’s multi-core scenario, which is a purely CPU-bound benchmark, while in GPU-intensive workloads like 3DMark Wild Life Extreme it trails behind the S24’s 5%. Not a big difference, but noticeable.

Camera Comparison

The iPhone 16 and Samsung Galaxy S24 feature similarly capable main cameras, each using 48MP sensors. Where they differ most is in their telephoto and ultra-wide configurations. The Galaxy S24 is equipped with a 3x telephoto lens, giving it a slight advantage in optical zoom range compared to the iPhone 16, which does not have a dedicated telephoto lens.

On the ultrawide front, both devices offer high-resolution performance, but the iPhone’s ultrawide has the added benefit of autofocus, a feature the Galaxy S24 lacks, allowing the iPhone to handle close-ups more effectively.

The selfie camera capabilities are also well matched, with both phones sporting 12MP sensors and similar focal lengths, making them competitive for front-facing photos and video calls.

Image quality

There’s not a lot of competition here, to be completely honest. iPhone 16 produces better still images day or night with its main and ultra-wide cameras. Still images simply look cleaner, more detailed, sharper and with less noise, if any, at night.

iPhone 16: 0.6x • 1x • 2x

Galaxy S24: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x

The 2x crop zoom photos on the iPhone look so much better that it’s not unreasonable to think that the iPhone’s 3x crops will look better than the S24’s 3x telephoto photos.

iPhone 16: 0.6x • 1x • 2x

Galaxy S24: 0.6x • 1x • 3x

Perhaps the only good thing about the Galaxy S24 is the processing. Samsung’s phone produces generally nicer colors, even with the new, more natural processing of the S24 series. iPhone photos are flatter.

Video quality

The same goes for videos. Clips from the iPhone 16 are noticeably better. They are sharper, cleaner and resolve more detail.

Below we have some screenshots of the videos taken by both phones at each focal length so they are easier to compare.

iPhone 16 video screenshots: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 1x

Galaxy S24 video screenshots: 0.6x • 1x • 3x • 1x

Verdict

For the most part, the iPhone 16 is the better device. It lasts longer away from the charger; its screen is brighter (although it lacks high refresh rate support); it has better sounding speakers; it usually has a more powerful SoC and provides a better camera experience overall.

The Galaxy S24’s smoother screen, slightly faster charging, 3x optical zoom camera, and lower price are the only advantages. Your potential preference for Android could also help tip the scales, but if you’re one of those rare users who isn’t wedded to either ecosystem and has a spare budget, the iPhone 16 is the obvious choice for you .