iPhone 11 Pro vs. Samsung Galaxy S10: Which flagship phone should you buy?

Apple just took revenge trio of flagship iPhones, putting Samsung's latest Galaxy S10 devices in defense. The two medium-sized business options, the 5.8-inch iPhone 11 Pro and 6.1 inches Galaxy S10, may be the middle children of their respective families, but both have a lot to offer in terms of design, display, cameras, performance and battery life.

The iPhone 11 Pro needs to be tested to see how it compares to the Galaxy S10 in the real world, but on paper it's almost too difficult to call. Here's how the iPhone 11 Pro and the Galaxy S10 compare.

iPhone 11 Pro vs. Galaxy S10: Compared Features

iPhone 11 Pro vs. Galaxy S10: Design and Size

The iPhone 11 Pro, which measures 5.7 inches tall and 2.8 inches wide, fits more easily in small hands than the Galaxy S10 by 5.9 inches. Like other recent Apple phones, the Pro also has a notch, which makes its 5.8-inch screen easier to navigate with one hand than the S10's 6.1-inch screen. (More information on this display in a minute.)

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Size matters, but when it comes to style, Apple and Samsung have adopted very different approaches to smartphone design. The two flagship vehicles are equipped with triple cameras at the back, but Apple has grouped its telephoto, wide-angle and ultra-wide-angle lenses into a triangular formation inside a bump square. The effect has polarized the Internet and even provoked a physical revulsion in people with trypophobia. Samsung has taken a more conventional approach with its camera layout, focusing its lenses horizontally.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The two phones also differ in color. The iPhone 11 Pro has a more matte finish than the ultra-glossy Galaxy S10, which makes it more resistant to fingerprints. The range of shades of the iPhone, which includes a new (for Apple) Midnight Green, in addition to the classic gold, gray and silver, is more tamed than that of Samsung. The Galaxy S10 comes in an ultra-brilliant Flamingo Pink, prismatic white and black and a brilliant blue. It's definitely the brightest of the two flagship brands.

What is the most aesthetic? It depends on your tastes. And if you are afraid of holes placed in groups of three. Sorry, the trypophobes.

First winner: Tie

iPhone 11 Pro vs Galaxy S10: Screen

Apple has transformed the back of its latest iPhones, but from the front, it continues as if nothing had happened. The display of the iPhone 11 Pro is identical to that of iPhone X and iPhone XS: a 5.8-inch OLED panel with a notch coming down from the top to hide the front camera. The screen resolution of 2436 x 1125 is also unchanged compared to the iPhone X, released in 2017.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Samsung has been daring with the Galaxy S10 in designing what the company calls an Infinity-O display: an expansive, beautiful, incredibly high-resolution display (3040 x 1440), almost without a bezel. Samsung's solution for the front camera is a die cut directly in the OLED panel, which is not the most elegant solution, but leaves more space than the iPhone 11 Pro allows videos, photos, games and browsing the web.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

According to rumors, Apple is considering a redesign of the display for the 2020 iPhoneBut this year, the Samsung Galaxy S10 has the screen to beat, at least until we have the chance to watch them side by side.

First winner: Galaxy S10

iPhone 11 Pro vs Galaxy S10: performance

Every year, Apple designs a more advanced processor for the iPhone. This year, it is the A13 Bionic, which, according to the company, offers processor and GPU performance 20% faster.

MORE: Best phones of 2019

This is bad news for Samsung. The A12 Bionic of last year's iPhone easily outperforms the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chip in many flagship Android products, including the Galaxy S10. On the overall performance test of the Geekbench 4 system, the iPhone XS scored 11,420 points against 10,813 for the S10. If the A13 is 20% more powerful than the A12, the S10 has no chance.

First winner: iPhone 11 Pro

iPhone 11 Pro vs Galaxy S10: Cameras

The iPhone and Galaxy feature a trio of rear-facing lenses: a wide-angle, ultra wide, and telephoto lens for dynamic landscapes and detailed portraits. On paper, the S10's lenses seem a bit more advanced, as the wide-angle and wide-angle lenses each have 16 megapixels. The wide-angle and ultra-wide-angle lenses of the iPhone 11 Pro measure 12 MP in comparison. The main lens of the S10 also has a variable aperture, moving to a wider aperture when you need to let more light to enhance a photo.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

But under the hood, the iPhone's A13 processor powers a host of photography features that can propel it even ahead of Google's Pixel 3. year will be able to create the best possible photo using machine learning, or what Apple calls Deep Fusion, by assembling nine images into one.

The Galaxy S10 takes solid photos with its trio of lenses. Its 10 MP front lens also takes good selfies, although the placement of the camera is a bit awkward. Samsung wanted the camera cutout to be discreet by placing it at the top right of the screen. So you have to retrain to look up and right rather than directly to the center.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The 12 MP front camera of the iPhone 11 Pro offers a new tip: it records slow motion video, or what Apple calls "slofies," which could turn out to be a gadget or become a must-have Instagrammers.

If the deep fusion and night mode of the iPhone can produce photos that rival the excellent images supported by Google's artificial intelligence, the 11 Pro will be a much better camera phone than the S10.

First winner: iPhone 11 Pro

iPhone 11 Pro vs Galaxy S10: Battery

According to Apple, the iPhone 11 Pro lasts four hours longer than last year's iPhone XS, which is based on the company's tests of talk time and video playback. We're testing the new iPhone with the Tom's Guide battery test, a continuous LTE web browser, to see if its battery life is longer than the iPhone XS, which lasted below average for 9 hours and 41 minutes. For comparison, the Galaxy S10 3400 mAh battery lasted 10h19 in our tests.

MORE: Smartphones with the longest life of the battery

The Galaxy S10 has a battery feature that is missing from the iPhone 11 Pro: the inverted wireless charging, which allows S10 owners to charge other Qi compatible devices by simply placing them at the same time. back of their smartphone. According to rumors, the iPhone would benefit from this feature this year, but this has not been the case.

At least, the iPhone now matches the Galaxy S10 in another area because Pro phone models include a quick charger in the box. According to Apple, the 18-watt charger can charge the iPhone 11 Pro at 50% after 30 minutes.

First winner: too early to say

iPhone 11 Pro vs Galaxy S10: Awards

It is not difficult to find one phone or the other, as the new iPhone and S10 are widely available from operators and retailers. It is just as easy to detect a price disparity between the two handsets.

The iPhone 11 Pro retains the price of $ 999 from the iPhone XS. Samsung's flagship phone is $ 100 cheaper at $ 899. In fact, you can get a Galaxy S10 Plus, with its large 6.4-inch screen, for the same price as an iPhone 11 Pro.

Perspective; view; vision; horizon

We plan to test the iPhone 11 Pro to see how its autonomy, cameras and performance compare to those of the Galaxy S10. Stay tuned for our full review to see if the higher Pro price is worth it.