When you look at the Google Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, it’s hard not to think that they are two of the best Android phones you can buy. Not only that, but the Pixel 7 Pro also won our Phone of the Year and Reader’s Choice awards in 2022, which are two of the greatest awards we can give to a smartphone.
These devices were made by experts, so they have great settings, unique software tricks, and a lot of great features that you can use. With such a big difference in price between the two, how do they compare? Is one Pixel 7 better than the other, or should you just get the cheapest one and be happy with it? What you need to know is listed below.
Pricing, availability, and specs
Just like last year, there is a huge $300 gap between these two phones. You get more “phone” with the Pixel 7 Pro, but that doesn’t mean the Pixel 7’s price isn’t attractive. When you consider that we’ve often seen it on sale for as low as $500, $600 for this level of speed is almost unbeatable.
Still, $900 isn’t too much to pay for a phone like the Pixel 7 Pro. It’s just not as good of a deal. This type has also been on sale, sometimes for as little as $750. When the Pixel 8 comes out in late 2023, you can also expect some price drops.
Both phones can be bought in 17 different countries, making this the biggest launch for a Pixel phone so far. You can get the Pixel 7 or 7 Pro in the US, Canada, Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK, and Taiwan. In the US, you can get both phones from all three major carriers, some MVNOs, and directly from Google as unlocked devices. This gives you a lot of choices.
Design
Since the Pixel 6, Google has made all of its phones, no matter how much they cost, look the same. At first look, the Pixel 7 or 7 Pro could be mistaken for either of its predecessors. However, the camera bar on the Pixel 7 or 7 Pro is different in a very important way. Google has replaced the open glass with a shell made of metal that goes past the frame. The Pixel 7 also has a matte finish, but the Pixel 7 Pro is made of metal that has been polished.
Even though they tried to make the Pro feel a little more high-end than its brother, the matte metal on the regular 7 looks much better and sets off the glossy glass back cover. We’ve also seen early scratches on the bottom of an uncovered Pixel 7 Pro’s camera bar, which suggests that the polished finish might not be as scratch-resistant as the matte finish on the standard Pixel 7.
Display
The Pixel 7 has a 6.3-inch, 1080p, 90Hz screen that looks pretty good. At this screen size, there’s no reason to make the quality any higher—even pixel peepers will have a hard time seeing individual pixels. The Pixel 7 Pro has a 6.7-inch 120Hz 1440p LTPO panel, which lets it scale down to 10Hz in some cases. Google ships the phone with a resolution of 1080p instead of its full resolution of 1920×1080.
This is to save battery life. Aside from writing, the Pixel 7 Pro’s 1080p and 1440p modes look the same to me.
Even though the screens on the two phones had different resolutions and frame rates, I had a hard time telling them apart. In either case, you get a great screen that is both bright and colorful. Still, it’s important to note that the Pixel 7 Pro panel had some problems right after it came out, like problems moving and high battery drain in direct sunlight.
In terms of the screens, the smaller, less expensive device still has flat edges, while the 7 Pro still has curved glass. Even though the rounded screen isn’t as bad as its predecessor, it’s still hard to hold when you’re not sitting up straight. Like the boring color options, this is another problem that can be fixed by putting a case on it, but the Pixel 7 is much easier to hold without a case.
Camera
The camera array is by far the most important change between these two phones. Both phones have the same main lens, which is a 50MP f/1.85 camera that can take great photos with a 12.5MP output. It also lets you crop 2x pictures, which looks just as beautiful. You’ll also have access to all the usual camera tools, like Night Sight, which is now better than ever, and Photo Unblur, which uses some great digital tricks to bring your old photos back to life.
But that’s the only thing they have in common. Both the Pixel 7 and the Pixel 7 Pro have ultra-wide cameras, but they aren’t the same. The Pixel 7 has the same 114° FOV as its predecessor, but the Pixel 7 Pro has a field of view that is almost 126° bigger.
As soon as you put the two phones next to each other, you can see the difference. In fact, the ultra-wide output of the Pixel 7 Pro makes the shots taken by its smaller sibling look like they were taken with a standard sensor.
Performance and Battery Life
In everyday use, the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro shouldn’t be too different in how they work. Both phones use Google’s Tensor G2 chip, which is a small step up from what came before. Even though these devices aren’t quite as fast as, say, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, based on numbers alone, they’re still fast enough for anything.
Still, both devices get hot, and not just when you play games on them. The back of each phone can also get hot when you browse the web or read through Twitter. It’s less obvious if you have a case on, but you should still know about it before you buy.
The only difference in how well the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro work is how much RAM they have. The more expensive Pixel 7 Pro has 12GB of RAM, while the Pixel 7 only has 8 GB. More memory is definitely a good thing, especially if you want to keep these devices for three, four, or even five years. So, even though the Pro has more memory, I don’t think it’s worth an extra $300 to buy it. Most people won’t notice a difference in how they use either phone.
Which is the Best Option?
The Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro are basically the same in almost every way that matters to smartphone users. But if you want to choose between the two, you should start by thinking about how much money you want to spend and how big of a phone you want to carry around. Once you know that, you can start thinking about other things, like how good a camera you need to take the pictures you want.
Yes, the Pixel 7 Pro does have a few more features than the Pixel 7. But it’s also bigger, with a screen that can be as big as 6.7 inches instead of the Pixel 7’s 6.3 inches. Because of this, people with smaller hands may find it harder to hold on to the Pixel 7 Pro.
