Pixel vs Galaxy: Which Is the Right Android Phone for You?

If you’re looking to pick up one of the best phones on the market for your next upgrade, and you’ve settled on Android as the mobile operating system you want to go with. In that case, you’ll probably want to get one or two Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy handsets on your shortlist.

Although there are plenty of other fine Android phones—made by OnePlus, Motorola, Nothing, and several others—Google and Samsung are the most high-profile Android device makers outside of China. Of course, the Android you get on Pixels isn’t quite the same as the Android you get on Galaxys, which is what we’ll take a closer look at here.

We’re going to compare the Pixel experience to the Samsung experience ahead of the rollout of Android 15 and One UI 7 (which won’t change a huge amount). We’re also going to ignore the hardware in this particular article—which processor such-and-such handset has or how many cameras—for a more straightforward head-to-head comparison.

Pixel vs Galaxy: Interface and customization

There’s not much to choose between Pixels and Galaxys regarding the basics of home screens and app drawers: Android being Android, you can customize the home screens extensively with widgets and wallpapers (and even install a new launcher). Both phones let you tweak the home screen grid size, but only Samsung lets you remove the Google search bar from the home screen.

Both phones support gesture navigation or the old three-button navigation, and Google Discover is just one swipe to the left of the home screens. You can also organize apps into folders, rotate the home screen into landscape or portrait mode, display badges on notifications, and more.

There are a few differences. For example, Pixels have their own custom at-a-glance home screen widget showing the weather, calendar events, and more (you can sort of emulate this on a Galaxy, but not quite). They can also show a row of suggested apps on the home screen and the app drawer based on what you use most often.

Samsung, meanwhile, has a few more built-in widget options than Google, including a date countdown for the calendar and a system widget showing memory and storage usage. It also offers the option of the Edge Panel, a pane that pops out from the side of the screen and holds your favorite apps for easy access.

The Edge Panel is an example of what Samsung Galaxy phones do really well: It gives you a ton of options and features to play around with. You get more choices when it comes to font styles and color modes on Galaxy phones, whereas Pixel phones tend to be a little simpler and more minimal across the interface and the settings screens.

Both Pixel phones and Galaxy phones give you a wide choice of built-in wallpapers, of course (as well as the option to use AI to create new ones), while both phones also let you set the color palette based on the wallpaper (or on any other color combination you like). Overall, you’ll find a Pixel preferable if you prefer simplicity with some clever touches and a Galaxy preferable if you want as many options and features as possible.

Pixel vs Galaxy: Built-in apps and features

Google has some of the best mobile apps in the business: Gmail, Google Keep, Google Chrome, Google Maps, Google Docs, YouTube, and the like. It’s difficult to argue that the Samsung alternatives are better than these apps, but you get them all on Galaxy phones as well, and they all work in the same way.

If you’re spending all your time inside Google apps, you could argue that Galaxy phones have too much in the way of bloatware on them—but you can quickly uninstall apps like Samsung Health, Samsung Internet, Samsung Calendar, and Samsung Notes without too much trouble. There are some you can’t install as well, though, such as the Galaxy Store, Samsung Contacts, and the Samsung Gallery.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with preferring the Samsung apps and going with them instead (and you can install some, like Samsung Internet, on any Android phone). If you’ve got a Samsung laptop and a Samsung smartwatch, then you may want to stick with the Samsung options. If you’re all in on the Google ecosystem, you’ll probably want to go for the pure Pixel experience.

Pixels does have a few exclusive tricks: These include the Call Screen feature, which makes Google Assistant screen calls for you and helps you avoid scams and spam, and the new Pixel Screenshots app, which is exclusive to the Pixel 9 series and helps surface information from your screenshots. There’s also the excellent Pixel Recorder app for turning spoken text into transcribed text, but Samsung has its version in the form of Voice Recorder.

On the Samsung side, Galaxy phones let you control the volume of individual apps separately—something you can’t do on a Pixel phone. They also have a Modes and Routines section built right into Settings, which means it’s easier on a Samsung phone to set up helpful automation (like customizing the power-saving settings based on where you are or the time of day). Then there’s Samsung DeX, which lets you use your phone as a desktop OS via a keyboard and monitor.

We should also mention Android updates: Google is in charge of the whole Android project, so it’s no surprise that Pixels get major and minor updates before Galaxy phones do, as Samsung needs to get everything tweaked and aligned with its One UI code. If you want Android updates before anyone else, that’s a reason to go for a Pixel.

Pixel vs Galaxy: On-board AI tricks and tools

There’s now a pile of AI stuff on both Pixel phones and Galaxy phones—and your mileage may vary as to how helpful it all is. Both these handset series support Circle to Search, for instance, and its ever-growing suite of capabilities (you may remember the feature launched on the Galaxy S24 before any Pixel phone, in fact).

Pixels have long impressed in terms of their photo and video processing, even with limited hardware. You could argue they’re the best on the market in this respect: Night Sight for low light photography, Audio Magic Eraser for wiping out background sounds from video, Magic Eraser for removing objects from photos, Astrophotography for capturing the night sky, and so on. 

We’ve already mentioned some of the other Pixel AI features and tools above, but there’s also Now Playing—which identifies all the songs you come into earshot of automatically in the background—and the ever-improving capabilities of the Gemini assistant (which is easy enough to install on Galaxy phones too).

Top-end Galaxy phones have also been given a bunch of AI functionality recently: Tools for summarizing notes, webpages, and documents, translating between languages, turning sketches into works of art, and moving around (or erasing) objects and people in pictures. There’s already a lot under the Galaxy AI umbrella, with more to come.

There’s a lot of overlap between AI and apps here, and indeed a lot of overlap between Pixels and Galaxys—a lot of the AI tricks on Samsung phones are powered by the Gemini model that Google develops. Based on the most recent noise coming from Samsung, it won’t forget about Bixby either, even if it’s not really in the conversation as far as generative AI goes.

That’s a lot to read and take in, and we still haven’t covered everything that makes Pixel phones and Galaxy phones different. If you’ve got your reasons for preferring one over the other—and if you’ve settled on one of these options after trying both out extensively—then let us know in the comments.