The REAL Reason I'm Switching to Pixel 11 Pro (from Galaxy S26 Ultra)

0:00 Is the brand new Google Pixel 11 Pro actually better than the top-of-the-line Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra? They're two incredible Android phones, and for the past week, I've been extensively testing them to see which is the best Android phone you can get in 2026. And I have to say, I'm actually really excited for this video. These two phones have wildly different features, like Samsung Dex that turns your Samsung phone into a desktop or the S Pen. And these two phones have extremely different design choices and different value propositions. So, in this video, we'll compare everything to find out which is actually the best one to buy. Now, to make this as scientific as possible, I'm breaking this down into 11 categories, and for each, I'm going to have to pick a winner. There's going to be no ties, and at the end, we'll see who got the highest score, and that's going to be the phone that my SIM goes in. So, this is the Google Pixel 11 Pro. It comes in

0:46 two different sizes, which I actually really like. I personally prefer the best tech in the smallest size. So, in this video, I'll be showing the Pixel 11 Pro non XL. And this, of course, is the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, which I've been using as my everyday phone since it came out in January. Now, starting off with category number one. This is a huge one. This is speed. So, these two have very different processors. In the US at least, the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is using the latest from Snapdragon, a very fast and very efficient chip. And the Google Pixel is using the Tensor G6, which has notoriously not really been a very fast processor. from my own tests like opening different apps and stuff like that. They both are, you know, pretty snappy. But when we get into a video export test, just insert 360 video

1:33 360 kind of reframed it and exported, you'll see it is significantly faster on the Samsung. So, anecdotally, and in my own experience, the Samsung feels significantly faster for most everyday stuff. When looking at actual Geekbench scores, according to sources online, I'll link them down below. The Pixel 11 Pro 2324 for single versus 3619 single on the S26 Ultra. So much faster on Samsung. And for multicore, 6587 on Pixel versus 11,000 on the Samsung. So significantly faster on Geekbench. And I think that kind of lines up with what I was experiencing. I have higher confidence as well. Like I I think this is a really important category. And if you're following along at home, keeping score, you might want to count this as two points. I'm just going to count it as one for this video, but I think

2:18 Samsung's going to last longer and remain a faster phone for longer despite whatever the support years actually say. So, not only do you want a faster phone when you get it, which I would say you have with the Samsung, but also, you know, think about three or four or 5 years from now if you're still using the same phone, you want it to really be able to keep up. And that's where I think Samsung pulls ahead here. So, so far, one nothing. Samsung's in the lead. Category number two is pricing. So, the S26 Ultra, I mean, to be fair, this is part of a lineup, the S26 and the S26 Plus. However, I'm not including those in this video. They're very different phones. They don't have any of the same features of this one. The cameras are inferior. It feels a lot more like the Pixel 11 versus 11 Pro. So, Samsung, for that matter, only really has one size of

3:04 this exact phone. And with that, you get 256 GB of storage at base, and that is $1299. The Pixel 11 Pro comes in two sizes, the Pro and the Pro XL. Same phones, just different size. Both of course start at 256 gigabytes, but the Pixel 11 Pro, which I think is actually a pretty good value. I, like I said, I like smaller phones, $1,99. So, you're saving $200 on this phone. And the 11 Pro XL is the same price as Samsung. Now, these both expand to 512 gigs of storage. On Samsung, they still give you 12 gigs of RAM, but Pixel goes up to 16 gigs of RAM when you get to that level. and Samsung goes up to $1,500 while the Pixel 11 Pro XL goes to $1,419 and the Pro goes to $1219. So, still cheaper on the Pixels. And then for the top of the line, if you're interested in 1 TB, both

3:51 have 16 gigs of RAM. Samsung's 1,800 bucks. The Pixel 11 Pro is 14.49 and the XL is 16.49. So, I I'll have links below if you guys want to see exactly what the prices are. Samsung tends to have slightly better trading credits, um, enhanced trading credits, bonuses, things like that. And uh honestly I think no matter how you stack this up, Pixel has to win this category because they have more options and generally are a little bit cheaper for similar specs. So score now one to one tie game. Category number three, design and durability. This one's going to be a little bit more subjective. So ergonomics, I think the Pixel does feel a little bit more slippery, but I appreciate that there are two sizes. So, smaller hands are going to appreciate the Pixel 11 Pro. Whereas the S26 Ultra, a little bit more of a boxy edge. Kind

4:37 of digs into your palm a little bit more, but I personally like the flat edges. Gives me more to grip onto if you're not using a case. And I mean, the larger real estate is pretty nice for watching videos. The IP rating is the same on both of them. Same IP68 dust and water resistance. Samsung does have an S Pen. That is a big positive there. The Pixel, however, has a colored dot on the back that glows when different people call you or when you use Gemini. As far as I know, it that's all it does. No other customization. When you put these phones down, this is a big one in my opinion. You have no wobble on the Pixel, just a nice flat camera bar. And the S26 Ultra wobbles a lot. And if you're using the S Pen, I find that incredibly annoying. As far as materials go, both aluminum frames, Gorilla Glass Armor 2 versus Victus 2, not a huge difference there in in durability and materials. The Google Pixel has Pixel

5:22 Snap on the back, which is I mean, of course, they both have wireless charging, but it's basically Mag Safe. You have magnets to put this on, you know, different phone stands or in your car, different places. I really like that feature. That's a big win. As far as colors go, Samsung has more colors. You've got black, white, sky blue, cobalt, violet, which is this one right here, and then online exclusives like silver and pink gold. The Pixel has four colors. You've got a black color, a white color, um this olive color, which I think looks really premium with the gold accent. And then Canyon, which is more of an orangish color, again with a really nice gold accent as well. This one's subjective, but I like I said, I have to pick a winner. So, for this one, I'm going to give the win here to Pixel for the Pixel Snap for the two sizes, the lack of wobble, um, and the Mag Safe on the back or Pixel Snap. But all of that is really mitigated with the case

6:09 anyway. So, seriously, with whichever phone you're getting, these are expensive phones. They're definitely worth protecting them. And I used to be a no case guy until I broke some expensive phones. So, since then, I've genuinely been a full-time user of mouse cases. These cases look nice. They protect better than any case I've ever seen. They're not just some drop shift case. Like, there's actually a big team of engineers really doing a lot of work to make the best cases I've ever seen. So, Mouse makes four different cases in the range. They've got Limitless, which is super durable. It's got the Aeroshock bumper. We've got corners that are more reinforced. We've got grips on the side. This is the one that I use the most. Absolutely the most durable. So impressive. Then we have clarity, which still has a lot of the same protections as Limitless, but it's clear on the back. It either comes with or without the magnets. So, if you want to put a photo back there, you can do the nod

6:54 magnetic one. You have the super thin cases, which are actually color matched, and these feel so smooth on the back. I love the way that like the olive one matches the color almost perfectly. There's also this kind of oranges canyon one. There's also super thin clear, which the name explains perfectly. And of course, super thin aramid, which is the thinnest of all the cases. this thing feels like you don't even have a case. If you want to protect your phone, but still have the organic feeling of your phone's original size and feel, this is the one to get. And for the Pixel cases, the magnets are now even stronger than before with Chi 2.2 support. So, the new Pixel phones went from 15 watts to 25 watt wireless charging. And the mouse cases do support that fast charging speed. This is the fifth year mouse has been working directly with Google engineers to make this a perfect fit, to match the color, to make it made for Google certified.

7:39 and I think they did an excellent job. If you prefer the clarity cases, there's magnetic and non-magnetic. Either one is going to be non- yellowing, scratch resistant, UV resistant. So, no matter which one you choose, check out the links in the description down below. Thanks to mouse for sponsoring this portion of the video. Moving on to category number four, and actually the next couple are focusing on the cameras. So, the cameras on the back, fairly similar array of cameras. I don't care about the specs. We're going to look at the actual results of these phones. So looking at the photos side by side, Samsung, first of all, is much more saturated when looking at this photo right here. Whereas Pixel, if you look at the underside of the leaves on the top, is much more contrasty, much darker. The ultra wide, you're going to see a similar story there. Although the skies do have really similar color here, I think there's not a huge difference in these photos in broad daylight. And they both did a really good job. Going to the

8:25 5x lens, Pixel does a better job of sharpening things up, making it look less hazy. Here's another example right here on the 5x telephoto lens. But on all these photos, I mean, you can catch a glare, as you'll see right here on the Pixel if you just catch the light at the wrong angle. Zooming in to 100x or 120x on the Pixel. You can see Google does a lot of AI enhancement here, looking at the blades of grass, looking at the wall in the background, the bush on the left. I don't personally really like that. I think Samsung is my preference. just a more natural photo because, you know, here's an example of where it added like weird siding and slats to the basement even though I believe it's probably just like a block wall on the bottom. But in general, some of my Samsung shots were just a little bit more hazy and they were just sharper on the Pixel 11 Pro.

9:11 Some of them may have been like enhancement afterwards sharpening. But here's an example looking at these chestnuts in my hand. Uh just way way sharper on the Pixel and the skin tones are a little bit less red, a little bit less oversaturated. Now, that's not to say I don't like Samsung's photos. Sometimes you have green grass and it looks really nice, uh, versus Pixel's a little bit more natural, a little bit more flat, a little bit less exciting. Of course, you can also adjust this on the phones. But looking at the white balance, the Pixel tends to be a little bit warmer, a little bit almost like iPhone like, whereas Samsung is a little bit cooler, a little bit greener in the tones right here. But generally, I have to give the win here to Pixel just because the photos are a little bit more natural, a little bit sharper, and a little bit more true to life in my opinion. Next up, let's look at some portrait shots. Here you can see the skin tones are a little bit more natural on the Pixel. I'm a little bit more red

9:56 on Samsung, but once you go into portrait mode, they both do a good job of having a gradual bokeh in the background. They both have 1x or 2x portraits, but looking at this one right here, I think the skin tones again just look a lot more accurate on the Google Pixel 11 Pro. Samsung kind of softened by hair a little bit. It kind of uh made my skin much more saturated than I think it should be. Even the highlights look like very yellow and the shadows look very red. So, I mean, I don't think it's the most natural look for for photos. Uh, same thing here. This is actually the first one where being a little more saturated did kind of look good. I think I was a little bit washed out on the Pixel, but it did probably look more true to life, to be honest. Okay, so here's a sample video using the Google Pixel 11 Pro. This is using the Instagram camera right now, just the default camera. Um, we're going to see

10:41 how the audio sounds, how it looks, the skin tones. I mean, I can see what it's looking like right now, but we're going to see how this processes and actually makes a story. Now, here's an Instagram story with the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra. Again, in the Instagram app, just on the top, just like tap the plus and start recording. If you're going to make a story, it would look like this. I don't know. Exposure is getting a little tricky here. Colors again. I'm going to be We'll see these side by side. We'll see how they sound and how they look, but I'll do another comparison with just the regular camera to see how different it is on social media. Okay, now a video test using both just the native camera apps. This is the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and this is the Google Pixel 11 Pro. Let me know how these compare. I don't know if it's that that different from a social media. It's hard to tell on the screen right here. Once we see it on a big screen, I mean, I imagine there

11:28 should be some difference. Nonetheless, on the Pixel 11 Pro, it is showing me like where out of bounds might be for social media. I have that enabled, but I don't have any kind of microphone uh enhancement going on or anything like that. All right, so little video test hanging out with the honeybees here. Let me know what you think of the color and the contrast on these. But Samsung does have this neat little zoom feature. Allows you to zoom fairly smoothly like this, almost like an old camcorder. I can also snap back to 1x Pixel. You have to slide your thumb kind of the perfect speed. It's not as it doesn't have the same feature. However, snap back to that. Stability on these. If I

12:15 jump around, they're both quite stable. I think they're both very capable of of basic videos. You're going to find the limit on these when you go to low light. When you get to fast moving things, people with unusual lighting, skin tones, that's all going to be a lot trickier. But I think for home videos, filming your kids at a soccer game, they both do a good job. So, for video, I think Samsung sounded a lot better. It looked a little bit less washed out, sharper overall. I think it just was a better video, and I also really like that zoom feature. So, that puts a score at 42. Pixel still winning, but we're not done yet. So, summarizing social media there, Pixel, I think, has to win that one. They had better skin tones, good contrast, good exposure. Samsung was kind of struggling on that on the Instagram app there. So, that puts us at

13:02 52. Pixel's really pulling ahead here. But category number eight, I think it's going to be a big one for Samsung. These are the displays. And if there's one thing Samsung does well, it is displays. But they go beyond just like colors and refresh rate. I mean, these both have good colors. They both have 120 Hz refresh rates. Pixel's technically a little brighter at 3,300 nits versus 2600 for Samsung, but Samsung has some huge tricks up its sleeve. One is the privacy display, which you probably have seen from a lot of commercials. Samsung's advertising it a lot. But you can basically set this to block either notifications, entire screens, certain apps. It's really customizable. It could even just be like the number pad when you're typing in a password or something. It's such an interesting and impressive feature that I mean, you have to give them points for this one. That

13:47 is so impressive. And on top of that, they also have an anti-reflective display. So, if there's a glare from the sun or from a light, it's really reduced on the Samsung phone here. So, no doubt a winner in this category. Samsung crushes it with their screen innovation. 53 Pixel still winning. Category number nine is the ecosystem. Now, Google does have an ecosystem, but it is pretty open with a lot of other devices out there. You've of course have like the Google Home things. You've got PixelBuds, Pixel Watch. A lot of those things work very well on Samsung phones. In fact, I've been using them extensively for the past few months. The same is not necessarily true in the opposite direction. For example, Samsung Galaxy Buds have a higher resolution codec on Samsung phones. Galaxy watches have a lot of features that are only working on

14:33 Samsung phones. a lot of the more like bio sensor ones, ECG, things like that. In general, Samsung also has more like laptops and tablets that have seamless file sharing and display sharing. And I mean, as much as I hate gatekeeping features, I have to say that if you're between these two phones, that is a positive for Samsung where if you're getting a Samsung phone, that unlocks more features with other Samsung devices in the future that if you got a Pixel phone, you'd otherwise kind of be missing out on. Score now 54. Pixel still winning. Category number 10 is the battery. So on paper, by the way, we've got two different models of the Pixel 11. So let's look at the same size, the 11 Pro XL. So on paper, 5,000 mAh on Samsung, about 5100 on the Pixel, and by the way, the smaller one is 4850. So a

15:20 little bit smaller, but also smaller screen on here as well. In practice, it's going to depend on how you use them. But Ben from Loverof Tech did a really great video. I'll link that down below. He compared the Pixel 11 Pro XL, the S26 Ultra for like gaming and videos and camera and everything. And in his testing, the Pixel 11 Pro actually beat out the Samsung. For my testing, the Pixel 11 Pro nonXL does really have a solid battery life. And because it has Pixel Snap on the back, I feel like I'm always just, you know, charging this up a little bit when I'm driving at my desk. So, I really never have any kind of low battery. Both are fantastic batteries, but I have to give a win here to somebody. And based on Ben's video, I'm going to give it to the Pixel. So that puts it at 64. Pixel is winning here. Category number 11, the last one.

16:07 These are the features. Now, Google has a lot of features that are more like day-to-day features. Google call screening, I think, is a big feature. When you're getting unknown calls, you just tap screen call. You know, Google's going to do an AI answering for you. You can see the transcript and choose to answer it if you want. Hold for me, is awesome. If you're on the phone with like the IRS, they put you on hold. You can just turn that off. if you don't have that music playing and it'll show up and let you know when some human's back on the line. Call notes records your calls and, you know, saves notes for you. There's a ton of other call assist features on Pixel. They've been doing those for a while and every time I switch back to a Pixel, I love those features. You also get AdMe and a lot of other camera features for that matter. So, ADM Me is a really cool one when you take a photo of a group and then someone else comes over and takes a photo of the group and you're in it. It'll stitch it together and you have everyone in the

16:53 group in the same photo. I've genuinely used that. I'm not a big fan of like AI photos, but this is one that is done well and I actually really like it. Pixel also has Magic Q, which gives you context suggestions for like calendar, emails, chats. Samsung really basically does the same thing. Now, Pixel has now playing, so it'll identify songs around you. If a song stuck in your head and you're like, "Man, I was just in Home Depot. What was that song?" You can look at your phone, it'll tell you what it heard in the past hour or something. And uh you can listen to that song again, get it out of your head, hopefully if that works for you. The LED dot, as I said, technically a feature. I don't use it at all. Rambler is a new one that allows you to go speech to text and kind of it filters out like the ums and the h and the random words in there and it gives you a more concise statement. I don't know, I just type. I don't really feel the need to do that that often. And

17:39 a cool one is creator suite. So, in the camera app, if you go to creator suite, you can add a teleprompter on there. Microphone improvements, just some different things that make it better for filming for social media. Both of them do have face unlock, but I think Pixel goes a little bit deeper in where they let you use the face unlock. So, more biometric unlocking. It feels a little bit more Appleike in the face unlock. Both have satellite SOS. But now, let's switch over to what Samsung does better. Now, they have some real heavy hitters for features. Samsung Dex is a huge one. I forgot my laptop when I went to the office one time, actually many times, and I'll just plug in my phone. Turns into a full desktop interface on my monitors. In fact, I've made videos about using Samsung Dex to replace my laptop. It's very impressive. You also have multi-device Bluetooth audio on the S26 Ultra connecting to, you know, two

18:26 different speakers, two different pairs of earbuds, headphones, whatever. Very useful if you're on a flight. Bixby routines are very advanced on here. You can have stacked widgets on the home screen. The morning brief and the now bar, I personally don't use them a ton, but they are there. You also have some, you know, a mix of Google's Gemini, so like circle to search and stuff is on here, but also Samsung adds their own like AI select and AI gallery and AI settings and a bunch of other things that some of them are useful, some of them are not, but there is, you know, there are more features on here. And while I mentioned that Google has the call assist suite, like a lot of really cool features, Samsung has been adding those as well, allowing Bixby to answer the phone for you. uh transcribing things, recording things, like there's a lot of stuff that it does do that is starting to catch up to Google. Also,

19:12 Good Lock allows you extensive customization of your Galaxy phone and Smart Things ties together the whole Samsung ecosystem. So, I mean, even though I think Google is a little bit better at subtle day-to-day features that I appreciate like the phone features, add me now playing, I mean, personally, I think Samsung has to be the winner here. They're catching up on a lot of those everyday features, but Samsung also has far superior power user features like the S Pen, Good Lock, Dex, and things like that. So, for that, I'm giving the win here to Samsung, which brings our final score to 65 Pixel. Now, that's just my scoring in this video. Uh overall winner then is going to mean I'm putting my SIM and or keeping my SIM in the Pixel. I have my SIM in there already as I've been testing for the past week. But that's said, if you

19:57 really value like speed or photos or battery life or anything like that, feel free to add up these scores on your own and add a 2x or a 3x multiplier to whatever categories matter the most to you. I think in summary, it's pretty clear Samsung is the more performant phone with better hardware innovation, uh, a faster processor, a lot of things that are really, really well done as an everyday phone, and it's better for power users in general. But I think Google does a better job with the camera and that at least for me was enough to push me over to the Pixel at least for the next couple months. So, let me know what you think in the comments down below between these two phones. I was honestly surprised. I really thought Samsung was going to win this one uh because it is a more powerful phone. However, I'm excited to use the Pixel a little more. Thanks for watching, guys. And I'll see you in the next