AI translation face-off: I tested iPhone vs Samsung Galaxy vs Google Pixel and here's the winner
Each platform has its strengths and weaknesses when it comes to language translation. Google Translate is known for its extensive language support and accuracy. Apple Intelligence is praised for its seamless integration with other Apple products. Galaxy AI offers a user-friendly interface and quick translations. Ultimately, the best platform for language translation may depend on individual preferences and needs. It is recommended to try out each platform and see which one works best for you.
TG AI Phone Face-Off
This article is part of our AI Phone Face-Off. If you're interested in our other comparisons, check out the links below.
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Translation is one of those things that has benefited from AI integration for a long time now. It's not always about swapping one word for another, which is why companies like Google have been utilizing AI to ensure we get as few "all your base are belong to us" gaffes as we can.
The question is, how successful are they at doing this? To test out how different AI translation platforms actually perform, we put three different rivals to the test. A head-to-head between Google Translate on the Google Pixel 9 Pro, Galaxy AI on the Samsung Galaxy S25 and Apple Intelligence on iPhone 15 Pro Max.
We'll be testing all three phones in three separate languages: French, Spanish and Mandarin. We'll be looking at how well those three languages are translated with text translation, using camera/image translation tools and finally audio translating real speech. Which one does the best? Let's find out.
Text translation
Unless you're off travelling the world, or hanging out in particularly touristy areas of your hometown, the one place you're most likely to come across a foreign language is online. We've all been in that situation where we click on a link, and are suddenly met with a wall of indecipherable text.
Fortunately there are tools to help you figure out what's going on, and in a way that is significantly easier than copying it all into a translation app. Samsung, Google and Apple all have translation tools built into their respective browsers, and can convert entire webpages into a different language at the tap of a button.
For this test I utilized the Apple Newsroom, since Apple posts localized versions of different press releases in countries around the world. That means I had content available in French, Spanish and Mandarin, and an official English version to refer back to.
French
First French, where I translated this press release about Apple Maps updates released for the Monaco Grand Prix. All three phones were able to translate the entire page in a fraction of a second, which is a good start.
Spanish
For Spanish, I opted for this press release from the Mexican version of Apple's Newsroom — covering the official announcement of Apple's WWDC 2025 developer's conference.
Mandarin
Translating between English and romance languages is fairly easy. They share a lot of common ground, which makes sense given that English is essentially three languages in a trench coat that mugs other languages to cherry-pick their lexicon. Meanwhile, Mandarin, the main language spoken in China, is often referred to as the most difficult language for English speakers to learn.
Camera translation
Sometimes you need a quick and easy translation of something you're looking at, something that isn't already on your phone. This is where camera translation comes into play, with the iPhone 15 Pro Max, Galaxy S25 and Google Pixel 9 Pro all offering their own take on camera-based translation.
Other text translation tools to note
It's also worth mentioning that there are a lot of tools capable of doing the same thing. Apple Intelligence allows you to ask Siri to translate what's on your screen, which it does with the aid of ChatGPT.
Google Gemini isn't quite so helpful in that regard. You can ask it to translate URLs that you paste into the chat bar, but I found it defaulted to summarizing the webpage for me instead.
Speech translation
All three phones offer a bunch of different spoken translation modes, with support for individual lines and conversations where two different languages are being spoken. Unfortunately, as best I can tell, the built-in chatbots aren't able to do this for you.
In HONESTAI ANALYSIS, all three AI platforms have their own respective positives and negatives, and with performance that is roughly on par with everything except voice translation.
Plus, don't forget, Google's translation tools are not restricted to Pixel phones. Google Translate, Lens and the Chrome browser are all available on the Apple App Store and Google Play — giving Samsung and iPhone users access to all the same translation tools alongside their first-party options.