Pixel 9a vs iPhone 16e: Five ways Google’s mid-ranger beasts Apple

Google has announced the Pixel 9a, and with it, the mid-range smartphone battlefield for 2025 has been set.

The Pixel 9a will go head-to-head with Apple’s recently announced iPhone 16e in a sub-£499 category also populated by the new Samsung Galaxy A56 and the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro. It’s a competitive field alright.

We’re here to focus on the two lead players in this royal rumble. After all, the Pixel 9a and the iPhone 16e are representing whole platforms – Android and iOS respectively – in this scrap.

We’ve already rendered judgement on the iPhone 16e (spoiler alert: it’s a good phone), but we’re not quite ready to offer up a verdict on the Pixel 9a just yet. Watch this space for our full review.

However, what we can do is analyse the specifications of these two phones to see how they stack up. There are some telling differences, five of which we think favour the Google model.

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Google Pixel 9a vs iPhone 16e: Superior colour options

Straight from the off, it’s apparent the Google Pixel 9a offers way more colour choice. I was a little disappointed when the iPhone 16e launched with just two boring colour options. The Pixel 9a matches the iPhone 16e’s black and white (with its own Obsidian and Porcelain shades), and raises it an Iris and a Peony.

Iris supplies a lavender/mauve kind of shade, while Peony is this year’s bold pink option. Both stand out a mile from the Pixel 9a’s more soberly attired rival.

The demographic of both of these phones is likely to skew slightly younger, and younger people tend to like both bright colours and a degree of personalisation. Google clearly understands that better than Apple.

Beyond the admittedly rather frivolous subject of colour options, the two designs share rather a lot in common. Google has clearly been taking classes in Apple’s design language, with a familiar flattened-out shape replacing the gentle curves of the Pixel 8a.

Even the camera module is giving us iPhone 16e vibes this year, with no visor motif attracting the eye. The Pixel 9a’s more subtle, integrated camera module looks quite a lot like the iPhone 16e’s discrete single camera module.

Talking of which…

Google Pixel 9a vs iPhone 16e: Two cameras are better than one

Design similarities aside, the Pixel 9a’s camera module is quite a bit wider than the iPhone 16e’s, and that comes down to a considerable shortfall on the Apple phone’s part.

While Google gives you a nicely rounded selection of two rear cameras – one 48-megapixel wide and one 13-megapixel ultra-wide – Apple only gives you a single 48-megapixel wide sensor.

That one camera is undoubtedly good at what it does, especially for the money. Our reviewer did notice some odd artefacts and tonal differences compared to the rest of the iPhone 16 family, but these snaps are generally “sharp, packed with detail and colours”.

What it can’t do is capture epic landscape shots with a wider perspective, unlike the Pixel 9a. We’d be willing to let that slide in many instances, as the ultra-wide camera is typically the weakest in such cheaper phones.

However, Google’s ultra-wide shots tend to look pretty good. Our Pixel 8a reviewer found this secondary camera “effectively translated the vibrancy and dynamic range of the main lens into the wide-angle shots”.

We’ll reserve judgement until we’ve had a chance to give the Pixel 9a a thorough test, but if the Pixel 8a is anything to go by, it will be capable of good things and it’s better than what the iPhone 16e delivers in this department, which is nothing.

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Google Pixel 9a vs iPhone 16e: Bigger, smoother, brighter display

We can’t judge the Pixel 9a’s display quality just yet, but we can already see that it has some clear advantages over the iPhone 16e.

Both are vibrant OLED displays with FHD+ resolutions. Indeed, the iPhone 16e screen is technically a little sharper than that at 1,170 x 2,532.

In every other respect, however, the Pixel 9a has the edge. It’s a little bigger at 6.3in (versus 6.1in), and it also gets a lot brighter. Google is quoting a top brightness of 1,800 nits in high brightness mode (HBM), with a peak HDR brightness of 2,700 nits.

The iPhone 16e display, by contrast, offers 800 nits in HBM and 1,200 nits peak HDR output. That’s a huge difference, and could really be a decider for those buying a phone as the days start growing longer and brighter.

But the real advantage the Pixel 9a screen has over the iPhone 16e is its refresh rate. It’s not that Google deserves particular praise for including a 120Hz refresh rate in its latest mid-ranger – almost all phones released today hit this mark.

Rather, it’s a criticism of Apple that it still finds it acceptable to offer a 60Hz peak refresh rate in a £500 phone. True, it’s not as annoying as it is with the £800 iPhone 16, but it’s still a major win for the Pixel 9a.

Google Pixel 9a vs iPhone 16e: Huge battery

We noted that the iPhone 16e’s stamina was considerably improved over previous SE phones in our review. But if the initial specs for the Google Pixel 9a are anything to go by, Google’s competitor is going to smoke it.

While the iPhone 16e packs a 4,005mAh battery, the Pixel 9a crams in a 5,100mAh cell. That’s more than 27% larger. It’s worth pointing out that iOS is traditionally a leaner and more efficient operating system than Android, but that’s a huge difference any way you cut it.

Indeed, the Pixel 9a has the largest battery Google has ever put in one of its phones. That includes the Pixel 9 Pro XL, which is a whopping great flagship.

We’re confident this is going to pay off in raw battery life, too. After all, the iPhone 16e dropped off more than an hour short of the Pixel 8a in our looping video playback test.

Compared to the Pixel 9a, the Pixel 8a has a smaller 4,492mAh battery and a less efficient Tensor G3 processor. Expect an even bigger stamina win for the newest Google phone, in other words.

Pre-order the Google Pixel 9a from Google

Google Pixel 9a vs iPhone 16e: Actual AI features

Apple pushed hard to get Apple Intelligence into the iPhone 16e, including fitting it out with the same generation of processor – the A18 – as the iPhone 16.

However, Apple’s AI offering pales into near insignificance next to Google’s. Siri is still missing promised AI-enhanced features and is still a frustrating system to use, despite some handy new features such as the integration of ChatGPT and the ability to type your requests to Siri.

Even the better parts of Apple Intelligence are limited. Its writing tools, for example, only work in Apple apps such as Safari, Notes and Mail. Email chain summaries, meanwhile, are well behind what Gmail has been capable of doing for years. Image-based searching, too, falls far short of Google’s implementation on Circle to Search (which works brilliantly on the iPhone 16e – awkward).

In case it needed spelling out, Google’s Gemini assistant is leagues ahead of Apple Intelligence, and is built deep into the modern Pixel experience. As a result, the Pixel 9a is simply way smarter than the iPhone 16e.