Pixel 11 vs. Pixel 11 Pro

The Pixel 11 models are now available and many are already shopping for their next Google phone. If you are looking for a compact yet powerful flagship, it’s inevitable to ask one question – should you get the Pixel 11 or the Pixel 11 Pro? At around €900, the Google Pixel 11 seems to be quite similar to the €,1100 Google Pixel 11 Pro. Is the price premium worth it then?

The Pixel 11 and Pixel 11 Pro are indeed quite similar – the main differences are found in the screen panel and the camera sensors. Let’s dig in and see if there’s more to it!

Table of Contents:

For starters, you can compare the complete specs sheets or directly continue with our editor’s assessment in the following text.

Size comparison

The Pixel 11 and Pixel 11 Pro share a common base and it’s so easy to tell. They look alike and if it weren’t for the different colorways, the only way to recognize them would be the finish – the Pixel 11 has a matte frame and glossy back, while the Pixel 11 Pro has a glossy frame and frosted rear panel.

Since the vanilla model uses a plainer anodized aluminum, it makes it grippier and that’s always a plus.

Both phones use Gorilla Glass Victus 2 panels and aluminum frame, both are IP68-rated for dust and water resistance.

We prefer the Pixel 11 for its slightly lighter body, the fresher colors, and the better grip. But we are certain there will be plenty of users who would prefer the mostly matte Pro model and its classier paintjobs.

Display comparison

The first and probably the most important difference between the two Pixels is the screen.

The Pixel 11 uses a 6.3-inch LTPS OLED panel with 1080 x 2424 pixels, fixed 120Hz or 60Hz refresh rate, and HDR10+ support. The advertised brightness numbers are 2,000 nits for auto and 3,000 nits for peak.

Then there is the Pixel 11 Pro’s 6.3-inch LTPO OLED screen with higher pixel count – 1280 x 2856 , dynamic refresh rate ranging from 1Hz to 120Hz, and HDR10+ support. Its official brightness specs are 2,400 nits for auto and 3,600 nits for peak.

The higher resolution of the Pixel 11 Pro is certainly not noticeable in real life. Then there is the matter of the refresh rate – while the Pixel 11 Pro switches between 1Hz – 120Hz on the go matching the frame rate of the app, the Pixel 11 uses 120Hz when interacting with the screen and 60Hz for when idling.

Finally, when it comes to brightness – both panels are quite capable. We measured 2,134 nits for auto and 2,842 nits for peak brightness on the Pixel 11, vs. 2,333 nits for auto and 3,118 nits for peak on the Pixel 11 Pro.

Winner: Pixel 11 Pro, but there isn’t too much in it.

Battery life

The Pixel 11 is powered by a 4,985 mAh battery, while the Pixel 11 Pro comes with a bit smaller 4,850mAh cell. Both phones use the same chip, so the screen should be the deciding factor for battery life.

Well, it turned out that both the Pixel 11 and Pixel 11 Pro offer absolutely identical battery life with a very good Active Use Score of 15 hours and 40 minutes. They posted similar endurance times across all four tests.

Winner: Tie.

Charging speed

Wireless charging on the Pixel 11 and Pixel 11 Pro has received a boost to 25W this year, but wired charging hasn’t budged from the max 30W rating. Google introduced a new Extreme mode for wired charging with the Pixel 11 series, though, which is supposed to boost the speed in the lower battery percentages. But it turned out to be quite a small boost, insignificant, some might say.

Anyway, both Pixels recharge at adequate if unspectacular rates, reaching 30% of charge in 15mins, 60% in 30mins, and 100% in 80 mins.

Winner: Another tie.

Speaker test

The Pixel 11 and Pixel 11 Pro have hybrid stereo speaker systems, where the earpiece is pulling a double duty.

It seems that both devices use identical speakers as they not only scored a Good mark on our test, but they also sound equally nice.

Winner: Tie.

Performance

The entire Pixel 11 series runs on Google’s latest chip – Tensor G6. It’s based on the same 3nm manufacturing process as the previous Tensor G5 chip. With this new model, Google promises better efficiency and a 50% increase in AI computational power. It’s based on the same 3nm manufacturing process as the previous Tensor G5 chip, but omits one of the CPU cores.

The new Tensor G6 employs a 7-core CPU. The configuration packs 1×4.1 GHz ARM C1-Ultra cores, 4×3.4 GHz ARM C1-Pro cores and 2×2.65 GHz ARM C1-Pro cores. All seven cores are clocked significantly higher than before, though.

The GPU at hand is IMG CXTP-48-1536 by Imagination. Previously known as PowerVR, Imagination’s graphics chips are the proverbial underdogs in the Android market. And while Tensor G5 used a modern Series D GPU, the Tensor G6, for some reason, goes for older Series C architecture, which has even worse support across game developers and does not even support ray tracing.

Memory-wise, the Pixel 11 is available in 256GB and 512GB variants with both options having 12GB of RAM.

The Pixel 11 Pro has three storage options – 256GB, 512GB and 1TB. The 256GB variant is coupled with 12GB RAM, while the higher-tier models use 16GB RAM.

Benchmark performance

It’s not surprising that two phones with the same chip score the same across benchmarks.

There is no difference in the sustained performance either – both devices retained about 60% of their CPU and 70% of their GPU theoretical power during our stress tests.

Winner:Another tie, as expected.>

Camera comparison

The Pixel 11 gets a modest upgrade to its main camera and keeps the rest of the hardware unchanged. The Pixel 11 Pro, meanwhile, is treated to a slightly upgraded telephoto. Both phones feature largely similar camera systems in principle – the wide primary camera has the largest sensor of the bunch, and there’s an ultrawide on one end and a 5x telephoto on the other end of the zoom range.

Naturally, though, the Pro model’s hardware is superior – all four modules are better in one or multiple ways.

The main camera has a larger sensor (1/1.3″ vs. 1/1.56″), the one on the telephoto is both larger and higher-res (1/1.95″ 50MP vs. 1/3.2″ 10.9MP), and so too is the imager on the ultrawide camera (1/2.51″ 50MP vs. 1/3.1″ 13MP).

It’s similar with the selfie cameras – it’s a 42MP sensor that’s in the whereabouts of 1/2.8″ vs. a 10.5MP 1/3.2″ unit.

OK then, but just how much better are the photos from these superior cameras?

Image quality

Daylight

In daylight both Pixels take Pixel-y photos, so you can count on getting a similar overall look whether you’re using Pro or vanilla. Still, though, the plain 11 just might be a little warmer than the 11 Pro, which is itself not strictly neutral – maybe that’s the new Pixel look. The 11 Pro does have an edge in sharpness – it’s not a huge difference, but it’s there and it’s consistent.

Daylight comparison, main camera (1x): Pixel 11 • Pixel 11 Pro

Neither phone impresses at 2x – or, more accurately, both are pretty meh. For what it’s worth, they’re on a similar level of meh, which is sort of a good thing from the perspective of the cheaper vanilla 11.

Daylight comparison, main camera (2x): Pixel 11 • Pixel 11 Pro

The Pixel 11 captures okay shots with its 5x telephoto, but those from the 11 Pro are sharper and have better rendered fine detail – that’s more or less a clear victory for the higher-tier model.

Daylight comparison, telephoto camera (5x): Pixel 11 • Pixel 11 Pro

With that in mind, it’s only natural that the Pro wins and 10x as well and that’s indeed the case.

Daylight comparison, telephoto camera (10x): Pixel 11 • Pixel 11 Pro

The Pixel 11’s ultrawide is incapable of focusing close, so nearby subjects are bound to end up blurry – the AF on the Pixel 11 Pro’s ultrawide will get you sharp results in those situations. With distant subjects in bright conditions the 11 is at least as good as the 11 Pro though, sometimes even better.

Daylight comparison, ultrawide camera (0.5x): Pixel 11 • Pixel 11 Pro

Close-ups

On the Pixel 11 Pro you have no obvious good way for shooting closeups, with all of the rear cameras serving you a compromise of some sort. With the Pixel 11, it’s straightforward – the main camera, at 2x zoom, will get you pretty great quality and very large reproduction ratio.

Close-ups comparison): Pixel 11 (2x) • Pixel 11 Pro (2x) • Pixel 11 Pro (0.5x) • Pixel 11 Pro (UW, 1x)

Low light

In low-light, much as during the day, the Pixel 11 Pro’s main camera will get you better detail than that of the Pixel 11. The 11 is alright, yes, but the 11 Pro is generally superior. The Pixel 11 did prove more reliably neutral in its white balance than the Pro, though, at least in street lighting..

Low-light comparison, main camera (1x): Pixel 11 • Pixel 11 Pro

At 2x zoom, things get closer to a tie, as we saw in the daytime results.

Low-light comparison, main camera (2x): Pixel 11 • Pixel 11 Pro

At 5x zoom, the 11 Pro has the upper hand in terms of sharpness and detail, though it’s a bit inconsistent with its white balance, where the 11 just might have an advantage. That said, we’d probably choose sharpness over absolute color accuracy more often than not.

Low-light comparison, telephoto camera (5x): Pixel 11 • Pixel 11 Pro

At 10x, the Pixel 11 Pro continues to have the upper hand, in general, though on occasion the 11 is keeping up better than expected.

Low-light comparison, telephoto camera (10x): Pixel 11 • Pixel 11 Pro

The Pixel 11’s ultrawide leaves a lot of noise unchecked, but its shots are still quite sharp, which isn’t the case with the 11 Pro’s images – the vanilla model is doing better here.

Low-light comparison, ultrawide camera (0.5x): Pixel 11 • Pixel 11 Pro

Selfies

The two phones take similar-looking selfies, but it’s the Pixel 11 Pro that will get you that extra coverage thanks to its wider lens. Then again, the Pixel 11’s lens is quite wide itself – wide enough we’d say. Both feature AF too, so that’s not really a difference either. Oddly enough, the Pixel 11 does better in low-light than the 11 Pro.

Selfies comparison: Pixel 11 • Pixel 11 Pro

Video quality

Below we have a few framegrabs from the videos taken by the two phones at each focal length so it’s easier to compare to one another.

The Pixel 11 can record video up to 4K60 with the main and the telephoto camera on the back, as well as the selfie camera, while the ultrawide maxes out at 4K30. The Pixel 11 Pro adds 4K60 on the ultrawide and a cloud-based 8K mode on all rear cameras.

In daytime scenarios, you’ll end up with very similar video quality from the two phones. We’d give the nod to the Pixel 11 Pro for its ever so slight sharpness advantage on all three cameras, but the PIxel 11 is doing just fine itself and both are very close in their global properties.

Daylight video screengrabs, Pixel 11: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 5x • 10x

Daylight video screengrabs, Pixel 11 Pro: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 5x • 10x

At night, it’s a bit more of the same, at least on the main camera and the telephoto – the Pro has a small advantage in sharpness. On the ultrawides, quality is more or less the same and it’s great.

Low-light video screengrabs, Pixel 11: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 5x • 10x

Low-light video screengrabs, Pixel 11 Pro: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 5x • 10x

Winner: Pixel 11 Pro gets the win here for better telephoto camera and for all the small victories in plenty of the scenes we shot.

Verdict

Both the Pixel 11 and Pixel 11 Pro turned out to be great compact smartphones. They offer identical builds, the same Tensor G6 chip, similar battery life and charging capabilities, the same clean Android OS with all sorts of perks.

The Pixel 11 offers the premium Google experience at a lower price without losing anything meaningful.

On the other hand, the Pixel 11 Pro deserves its Pro moniker for its LTPO screen with higher resolution and dynamic refresh rate, plus the higher-resolution camera sensors and the overall better photo and video quality. You also get more RAM and storage, if you need it.

Overall, it all depends on you needs, but unless you are nitpicking, the Pixel 11 would do just fine.