I put the Samsung Galaxy S24 vs. iPhone 15 through a 7-round face-off — here's the winner

A Samsung Galaxy S24 vs. iPhone 15 face-off no longer compares the latest phones from both of the leading device makers in the smartphone space. While the Samsung Galaxy S24 remains Samsung's current flagship — at least until the Galaxy S25 surfaces in a couple of months — Apple has revamped its product line, pushing aside last year's iPhone 15 models for the new iPhone 16 lineup.

Yet, comparing the Galaxy S24 and the iPhone 15 is still relevant, as the older iPhone remains part of Apple's lineup at a reduced cost. Does the lower price make the iPhone 15 a more appealing option than the newer Galaxy S24? After all, the iPhone 15 features a very well-regarded camera that performs well against the best camera phones out there — the Galaxy S24, included.

Then again, Samsung's phone has something the iPhone 15 does not — support for AI features. While you won't find many major hardware changes from the Galaxy S23, the S24 introduces some new capabilities in the form of Galaxy AI features. These software experiences draw on artificial intelligence to speed up and simplify some pretty common smartphone tasks.

So which phone wins? Let's get into the thick of this Galaxy S24 vs. iPhone 15 comparison and show you how the phones differ. And for a more current look at how the different Apple and Samsung flagships fare, check out our Samsung Galaxy S24 vs. iPhone 16 face-off.

Samsung Galaxy S24 vs. iPhone 15: Specs

Samsung Galaxy S24 vs. iPhone 15: Price and availability

The Galaxy S24 went on sale at the end of January, roughly four months after the iPhone 15 launch. Both Samsung and Apple devices are widely available from retailers and wireless carriers, even after the iPhone 16 launch.

The Galaxy S24 costs $799, the same price that the iPhone 15 debuted at in September 2023. However, the iPhone 16's arrival means that newer phone now fills the $799 slot in Apple's lineup. The iPhone 15, still on sale at Apple, drops to $699.

Those prices reflect the 128GB base model. Another $60 gets you a 256GB Galaxy S24 from Samsung. Apple charges more for storage, but because of the price drop to the 128GB version, you can get a 256GB iPhone 15 for $799. Apple also sells a $999 512GB version of the iPhone 15.

Normally, we'd give the win to Samsung here, as it charges less for storage upgrades. But the price drop for the iPhone 15 changes the calculations, as you can now double the size of on-board storage for Apple's phone at the same price Samsung charges for its base S24 model. iPhone 15 deals and Galaxy S24 deals can help you save money on either device.

Winner: iPhone 15

Samsung Galaxy S24 vs. iPhone 15: Design

If the pricing category is close, picking a Samsung Galaxy S24 vs. iPhone 15 design is even closer. Both phones have straight edges and compact frames — the iPhone is a little taller and wider, though you'd need calipers to tell the difference.

An ultrasonic fingerprint sensor underneath the Galaxy S24's display lets you unlock that phone, while iPhone users turn to Apple's FaceID technology. Both phones are pretty durable, too, with IP68 water resistance ratings. Note that Apple says its phone can survive a 6-meter plunge while Samsung points to a 1.5-meter limit.

Samsung used to hold an advantage over Apple's device by using the more ubiquitous USB-C connectivity standard. As of the iPhone 15, though, that's no longer the case, as Apple's latest phone ditches the proprietary Lightning port for a USB-C port of its own.

Even the colors are pretty identical, with Samsung and Apple both offering softer shades as opposed to bright hues that pop. The Galaxy S24 has four standard colors — black, gray, yellow and violet — along with three exclusive colors available when you buy your phone directly from Samsung. The iPhone 15 comes in five colors, with pastel versions of blue, pink, green and yellow joining black.

Honestly, design comes to personal taste — especially with phones this evenly matched. Me, I prefer the Galaxy S24 for the way its vertically stacked cameras protrude ever so slightly from the back of the phone, while Apple's two rear cameras are set apart from the back of the phone in a raised array. You may prefer things the other way around, though.

If we were discussing the iPhone 16, we could mention the Action and Camera Control buttons that Apple has added to that phone, making it easier to launch shortcuts and capture photos, respectively. But the iPhone 15 lacks those additions that would give it an edge over Samsung's phone.

Winner: Draw

Samsung Galaxy S24 vs. iPhone 15: Display

Though the phones are the same size, the Galaxy S24 squeezes in a little more screen space as Samsung has shrunk the bezels for this year's flagship. The Galaxy S24 now features a 6.2-inch display, compared to 6.1 inches for the iPhone 15.

A key display difference between the flagship phones remains, as the Galaxy S24 continues to support a 120Hz refresh rate. In fact, the S24 can now slow down its rate to 1Hz to preserve battery life if on-screen activity is fairly static. The iPhone 15 remains stuck at a fixed 60Hz refresh rate, as Apple continues to insist that fast-refreshing displays should only be available on its pricier phones. The iPhone 17 is supposed to change that in 2025, but that won't help the iPhone in the here and now.

Phone makers are engaged in a game of leapfrog when it comes to display brightness. The iPhone 15 topped the Galaxy S23 for display brightness, so now Samsung is looking to best Apple's phone with the Galaxy S24. The S24 boasts a maximum brightness of 2,600 nits to the 2,000-nit peak of the iPhone 15.

In truth, neither phone approached those limits in our tests, though the Galaxy S24 is slightly brighter — 1,416 nits to 1,401. The Galaxy S24 captures more colors, too, though we found that the color accuracy is better on the iPhone 15's display.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S24

Samsung Galaxy S24 vs. iPhone 15: Cameras

Samsung chose to stand pat with its camera hardware, using the same setup on the Galaxy S24 that had proven so successful on the Galaxy S23. That means the same 50MP main camera aided by 12MP ultrawide and 10MP telephoto lenses. Instead, Samsung's big improvements come down to its Pro Visual Engine, which uses AI for better night and portrait photos.

Apple took a different route back when it launched the iPhone 15, updating the main camera to a 48MP sensor. There's still no telephoto lens on the iPhone 15, but you can zoom in with that main camera via cropping to create what is in effect a 2x zoom. More on the merits Apple's approach compared to a dedicated telephoto lens in a moment.

My Galaxy S24 review contains a bunch of Galaxy S24 vs. iPhone 15 photo comparisons, and you can check out my 200-photo comparison featuring the S24 and iPhone 15 to see how the cameras performed in all sorts of scenarios. But here's some more sample images that illustrate how the cameras approach similar shots.

An apple cart under an awing yields comparable shots from the Galaxy S24 and iPhone 15, as both phones did a good job balancing the different shades of color from the fruit on display. If you want to find fault with a photo, the S24 gives a yellowish cast to the Granny Smith apples in the center of the shot; the green looks much deeper and more pleasing from the iPhone 15's effort. It's close, but I prefer the iPhone 15's photo here.

My cat stayed in one place long enough to pose for a picture, and the results are pretty similar from both phones. His orange patches of fur look a little brighter in the Galaxy S24 picture, but I prefer how the iPhone 15 handles light streaming in from the window to the right of the shot. It bathes the right half of the cat's face in light, creating a more realistic look than the S24 shot, in which all the lighting has been smoothed out.

This window display featuring some stylish bowls stacked in front of a colorful background was one of the more challenging setups for these two camera phones. Not only am I shooting through a glass window, but the display is also in a shaded area without much direct light shining in.

Again, both phones excel at reproducing a wide range of colors, though they also struggle with the reflection off the store window. While the right side of each image has an unmistakable glare, I think the iPhone 15 does a better job of working around the reflections in the other parts of the image. In the S24 photo, the two bowls on the left are having their own issues with glare from the window, but that problem isn't in evidence with the iPhone 15 shot.

Samsung says its Pro Visual Engine improves segmentation for portrait shots, which is why I think the S24 does a better job of separating my daughter from her background. The iPhone 15 leaves a kind of halo on the right side of her head, particularly where it's trying to separate all that hair from the background. That said, the warmer skin tone of the iPhone's shot is more pleasing overall, and the left side of the S24's photo is coming perilously close to being over-exposed.

I mentioned this in my S24 review, but I'm still shocked at how the S24 performed when I zoomed in on the Oakland skyline. This is a 3x which should be in the S24's wheelhouse, since that's exactly what its lens can support. Yet, the skyline — particularly the Tribune Tower — is a little out of focus compared to the iPhone 15 shot, which is turning to digital zoom to get to 3x. That may explain the darker colors in the iPhone shot, but overall, the iPhone does a better job keeping things in focus here.

I should note that the more I zoomed in, the better the Galaxy S24 performed, which may speak to the advantage of that dedicated telephoto lens. But for basic zoom shots, the iPhone 15 can keep pace. In particular, I tested the 2x zoom capabilities of the iPhone 15 and found that it produces comparable shots to phones with a dedicated zoom lens like the Galaxy S24.

Night time proves the right time for the iPhone 15, as its photo of some stuffed animals sitting on bench in an unlit backyard is the more colorful and composed of the two shots. The Galaxy S24 over-exposes the stuffie on the left, washing out some details of its face, and the background plants aren't as visible as they appear in the iPhone photo.

Overall, both the Galaxy S24 and iPhone 15 are excellent camera phones, but the iPhone did a better job overall with more of the images I captured during my testing. It's the camera phone I'd turn to if I had the choice between either device.

Winner: iPhone 15

Samsung Galaxy S24 vs. iPhone 15: Performance

In the past, performance face-offs between Samsung and Apple phones haven't been much of a contest. The A series chips designed by Apple handily out-paced whatever Samsung throw at the iPhone, and we chalked a big win to Apple's phone for processing power.

That's changed with this face-off, in part because of Apple's decision to use different chipsets on its standard and Pro models. The iPhone 15 runs on an A16 Bionic, certainly a capable system-on-chip, but one that's a year old. In contrast, the Galaxy S24 features a new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, and it rides that silicon to some big wins in benchmark testing.

While the iPhone 15 has the better single-core score in the Geekbench general performance test, the Galaxy S24 finished ahead of Apple's phone for multicore performance. Likewise on graphics testing using 3DMark's Wild Life Unlimited, the Galaxy S24 posts a result that's 67% better than the iPhone 15's score. It's only on the video transcoding test where the iPhone continues to dominate with the iPhone 15 needing a little less than 25 seconds to complete a transcoding task in Adobe Premiere Rush; the Galaxy S24 needs 41 seconds.

There's a caveat to the Galaxy S24's strong performance: It may not be present in every S24 model. Phones shipping outside of North America are using the Exynos 2400 chipset instead of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. When we ran benchmark tests on an Exynos 2400-powered Galaxy S24, we found that it trailed the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 model's results. Yet, on the multicore Geekbench and 3DMark graphics tests, the Exynos 2400 still posted better results than the A16 inside the iPhone 15, even if the gap wasn't as big as it was with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.

In other words, even if you get the Exynos 2400-powered Samsung Galaxy S24, you still get a phone that can out-muscle the iPhone 15 on some tasks.

If performance is a make-or-break category for you, you should consider the iPhone 16 instead of the iPhone 15, as Apple's newer phone runs on an A18 chipset. That's two generations ahead of what the iPhone 15 is using, and our iPhone 16 benchmarks reflect the boost that delivers in terms of speed.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S24

Samsung Galaxy S24 vs. iPhone 15: Battery life and charging

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 also helps Samsung's new flagship score big in battery life. Whereas the Galaxy S23 posted a time of 10 hours and 27 minutes on our custom battery test, the Galaxy S24 improved upon that by a full 3 hours. A bigger battery in the Galaxy S24 — 4,000 mAh versus 3,900 mAh in the S23 — only explains some of that gain. The rest boils down to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3's power management capabilities.

The iPhone 15 has nothing to be embarrassed about when it comes to battery life, with a time of 11 hours and 5 minutes. That's more than an hour better than the average smartphone. But it's well short of the Galaxy S24's mark. This is another way where the iPhone 16 makes some progress over the iPhone 15, as it lasted 12 hours and 43 minutes in our testing — more than 1.5 hours better than the older iPhone. Even so, Samsung's entry-level flagship remains the longer lasting device.

The Galaxy S24 also has an edge in charging speed, though it's a marginal one. Samsung's phone charges at 25W to 20W for the iPhone 15. When we timed how much charge each phone could get after 30 minutes, they finished essentially in a dead heat, with the Galaxy s24 reaching 54% to the iPhone 15's 53%.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S24

Samsung Galaxy S24 vs. iPhone 15: Software and special features

The Galaxy S24 enjoys two big edges here. For starters, Samsung has promised seven years of software suport for this phone, meaning you should be able to hold on to this phone for as long as it stays in one piece. For another, there's the aforementioned Galaxy AI features that tap into the power of artificial intelligence.

Galaxy AI includes some pretty practical tools like the ability to autoformat and summarize notes. The Circle to Search tool, which brings up search results for anything you circle, has also proven to be quite useful in my testing. Other tools like Live Translate's ability to provide real-time translations during phone calls are better in theory than they are in practice, though I expect lots of these tools to improve over time.

Since the Galaxy S24 release, Samsung has extended Galaxy AI capabilities to older models via a software update. That doesn't take anything away from the Galaxy S24, though it does reduce some of the incentive to upgrade if you've got a recent Galaxy flagship that now sports the same AI-powered features.

Since we first published this comparison, Apple has launched Apple Intelligence, a suite of AI tools that promises improvements to Sir, image editing and more. Unfortunately, Apple Intelligence requires iPhones to have an A17 Pro chipset or later, essentially restricting the AI features to the iPhone 15 Pro models and the new iPhone 16 offerings. If you have the standard iPhone 16, you're shut out.

At least the iPhone 15 can upgrade to iOS 18, which came out in September around the same time as the iPhone 16 launch. Even without Apple Intelligence, it's a solid update that brings some welcome improvements to apps like Notes, Messages and Fitness. A redesigned Photos app has proven more divisive, though I've grown accustomed to the changes.

The iPhone 15 may not get seven years of software updates — Apple tends to provide five years of iOS support — but the phone you get now will be supported for a very long time. Samsung's edge isn't as significant as you might think, especially since the One UI 7 update bringing Android 15 to the Galaxy s24 likely won't arrive until early 2025 for most models.

Still, Galaxy AI gives the Galaxy S24 an edge over the iPhone 15, which will have to do without any Apple Intelligence improvements.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S24

Samsung Galaxy S24 vs. iPhone 15: Verdict

Even adjusting for the lower iPhone 15 price, the Samsung Galaxy S24 maintains a slight edge over Apple's phone in this face-off. The presence of AI features on-board the Samsung phone certainly help, but other factors propelled the S24 to victory — namely, the strong battery life and much improved performance delivered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset. We also can't overlook the S24's brighter display and fast refresh rate.

Don't dismiss the iPhone 15, which is the better camera phone overall even if it is more than a year old now. And the iPhone finished close in other categories to the point where iOS fans won't feel any need to switch over to Android.

But if you are contemplating a new Android device, the Galaxy S24 should be near the top of the list, especially considering its relatively low price tag and the fact that it boasts many of the same features as more expensive S24 models.

More from Tom's Guide

• 13 Galaxy S24 features to try first
• iPhone 16 vs. iPhone 15: What's different
• Circle to Search is my favorite Galaxy S24 feature — if Samsung and Google don’t screw it up