Google Pixel 9 evaluation: the telephone that Android wants | Digital Noch

The Pixel 9 is the form of machine you get after a number of generations of incremental progress. 

One minor replace after one other doesn’t seem like a lot year-over-year. A quicker fingerprint sensor? Uniform bezels? Not the stuff of headlines. However ultimately, the little stuff provides as much as one thing important. That’s the sensation I get holding the Pixel 9, and I prefer it rather a lot.

The Pixel 9 is the one non-Professional telephone within the 9 sequence at this level, which, as greatest I can inform, means it has 12GB of RAM as an alternative of 16GB and doesn’t have a telephoto lens. It’s smaller than the aptly named Pixel 9 Professional XL, the identical dimension and form because the common Pixel 9 Professional, and it doesn’t fold in half just like the different 9 Professional does.

However primarily, the Pixel 9 simply works. The display is vibrant and the battery goes all day. The fingerprint sensor is fast and correct, lastly. Though it’s pricier than final 12 months’s mannequin at $799 versus $699, that’s principally the going charge for a non-Professional flagship telephone. And for the primary time, the Pixel line feels prefer it has earned a spot proper alongside Samsung and Apple. Google simply wanted a number of years to get right here.

Let’s get it out of the best way: from the entrance, the Pixel 9 appears like an iPhone. The rounded display corners, the flat sides — it’s all iPhone and that’s fantastic. In comparison with latest Pixel generations, it feels about 80 % much less prone to fly out of my hand after I choose it up from a desk, which I respect far more than the distinct look the curved edges offered. The 6.3-inch display is just a little larger than the Pixel 8’s. Its 1080p display is on the low facet, resolution-wise, however appears sharp sufficient that it by no means bothered me. 

The Pixel 9 comes with the identical foremost and ultrawide cameras because the Professional telephones, but it surely doesn’t have a telephoto lens. Not all flagship telephones include a telephoto, and the Pixel 9’s lossless 2x crop zoom is okay. However you don’t get the extra dramatic attain of the 9 Professional’s 5x zoom or the good portrait framing of a 3x lens just like the one on the Samsung Galaxy S24. It’s the factor I missed most after I switched from utilizing the Pixel 9 Professional to the Pixel 9 — manner quite a lot of further pixels on the display or a handful of AI-enhanced video or photograph options.

Except for that, you don’t miss out on a lot. The display doesn’t get fairly as vibrant because the Professionals, but it surely’s nonetheless adequate to make use of in direct daylight. Battery efficiency is on par with the remainder of the Pixel 9 sequence. It had lots left within the tank by the tip of the day, and I by no means felt like I wanted to present it a late-in-the-day recharge, even with heavy use. 

Tensor G4, Google’s latest chipset, is on all 4 Pixel 9 fashions. It’s a stable performer for each day duties and doesn’t appear to warmth up fairly as dramatically because the earlier era, although if you happen to spend 20 minutes operating a media-heavy webpage, it will nonetheless double as a hand hotter. However it doesn’t really feel prefer it’s going to burst into flames, ? 

All of it provides as much as an expertise that feels polished in a manner that earlier Pixels didn’t fairly obtain. The chipsets ran scorching, the shapes felt wonky, and the screens weren’t fairly as good. The non-Professional Pixel, specifically, has been on a journey from the higher midrange to correct flagship, primarily by enhancing the display refresh charge and including minor digicam options alongside the best way. Each fashions gained some quality-of-life enhancements over time, too, together with the flexibility to make use of face unlock for funds and — new within the 9 sequence — a much-improved fingerprint scanner. The form of stuff that makes me really feel rather more snug recommending it to my mother and father or my hair stylist. 

Google sorted the {hardware} out, and the software program is as clear as ever. However it is a telephone launched in 2024, so we’ve to speak about AI. There are a number of options reserved for the Professional line, like Video Enhance, which makes use of AI within the cloud to bump up the brightness in low gentle video. That’s not an enormous loss, and the Pixel 9 has loads of different AI options, together with Reimagine, Screenshots, and Pixel Studio, all of which you’ll examine in my Pixel 9 Professional and 9 Professional XL evaluation. A few of it’s so good that it’s problematic! However the TL;DR is that it seems like an actual combined bag proper now, and AI options are beginning to pile up in a manner that’s kind of hurting my head. 

What do I do with a JPEG of a child’s celebration invitation? Add it to screenshots? Ask Gemini to place it on my calendar? Or simply discover it in my messages each time I must lookup the social gathering time or handle? AI is meant to save lots of us from the latter situation, and Google’s varied AI instruments kinda work like that typically. For now, it stays unproven as the subsequent platform shift. 

The Pixel 9 additionally comes with one thing extra necessary however a lot much less flashy: seven years of OS updates. Certain, it ships with Android 14, which is bizarre since Pixels often ship with the 12 months’s latest OS model. However the Pixel 9 might be first in line for Android 15 when it arrives this fall, in order that doesn’t really feel like rather more than an fascinating footnote. You’ll outgrow the Pixel 9 earlier than it stops receiving software program updates, which is how issues needs to be.

And that’s the Pixel 9’s entire deal: it’s a telephone that the Android ecosystem has wanted for some time now. It’s easy, well-made, and designed to maintain up for a few years to return. It doesn’t have each fancy characteristic or one of the best digicam {hardware}, but it surely has sufficient to make it a worthy different to Samsung’s base-model S-series, which is kind of the default Android telephone.

There’s a cause why so many individuals select a Samsung telephone: they’re actually good. However additionally they include an entire lot of stuff that most individuals don’t want, bordering on bloated. They’re highly effective instruments if you know the way to tweak them to your liking, however I think lots of people purchase them for the good {hardware} and simply put up with the software program quirks. I’ve typically most popular the less complicated out-of-box expertise of utilizing a Pixel telephone, however the {hardware} by no means actually felt prefer it was on Samsung’s degree. 

That adjustments with the Pixel 9. It’s lastly a telephone for somebody who simply needs a very good telephone. Somebody who doesn’t care concerning the distinction between optical and digital zoom, doesn’t need to fiddle with a variety of customization choices, and who needs to keep away from excited about shopping for a brand new telephone for so long as they’ll. The Android ecosystem has that choice now, and it’s a rattling good one.

Pictures by Allison Johnson / The Verge