Google Pixel 9 evaluate: the cellphone that Android wants

The Pixel 9 is the type of gadget you get after just a few generations of incremental progress. 

One minor replace after one other doesn’t appear to be a lot year-over-year. A sooner fingerprint sensor? Uniform bezels? Not the stuff of headlines. However finally, the little stuff provides as much as one thing vital. That’s the sensation I get holding the Pixel 9, and I prefer it quite a bit.

The Pixel 9 is the one non-Professional cellphone within the 9 collection 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 brilliant 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 mainly the going charge for a non-Professional flagship cellphone. And for the primary time, the Pixel line feels prefer it has earned a spot proper alongside Samsung and Apple. Google simply wanted just a few years to get right here.

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

The Pixel 9 comes with the identical principal and ultrawide cameras because the Professional telephones, nevertheless it doesn’t have a telephoto lens. Not all flagship telephones include a telephoto, and the Pixel 9’s lossless 2x crop zoom is ok. However you don’t get the extra dramatic attain of the 9 Professional’s 5x zoom or the great portrait framing of a 3x lens just like the one on the Samsung Galaxy S24. It’s the factor I missed most once I switched from utilizing the Pixel 9 Professional to the Pixel 9 — method various additional 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 brilliant because the Execs, nevertheless it’s nonetheless ok to make use of in direct daylight. Battery efficiency is on par with the remainder of the Pixel 9 collection. It had loads left within the tank by the top of the day, and I by no means felt like I wanted to provide 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 day by day duties and doesn’t appear to warmth up fairly as dramatically because the earlier technology, although for those who spend 20 minutes working 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 method that earlier Pixels didn’t fairly obtain. The chipsets ran sizzling, the shapes felt wonky, and the screens weren’t fairly as good. The non-Professional Pixel, particularly, has been on a journey from the higher midrange to correct flagship, primarily by enhancing the display refresh charge and including minor digital camera 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 collection — a much-improved fingerprint scanner. The type of stuff that makes me really feel far 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 cellphone launched in 2024, so we have now to speak about AI. There are just a few options reserved for the Professional line, like Video Increase, 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 be able to examine in my Pixel 9 Professional and 9 Professional XL evaluate. A few of it’s so good that it’s problematic! However the TL;DR is that it looks like an actual blended bag proper now, and AI options are beginning to pile up in a method that’s form of hurting my head. 

What do I do with a JPEG of a child’s party 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 occasion time or handle? AI is meant to save lots of us from the latter state of affairs, and Google’s numerous AI instruments kinda work like that typically. For now, it stays unproven as the following platform shift. 

The Pixel 9 additionally comes with one thing extra essential however a lot much less flashy: seven years of OS updates. Positive, it ships with Android 14, which is bizarre since Pixels normally ship with the 12 months’s latest OS model. However the Pixel 9 shall be first in line for Android 15 when it arrives this fall, in order that doesn’t really feel like far more than an attention-grabbing 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 complete deal: it’s a cellphone 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 come back. It doesn’t have each fancy characteristic or one of the best digital camera {hardware}, nevertheless it has sufficient to make it a worthy various to Samsung’s base-model S-series, which is kind of the default Android cellphone.

There’s a purpose why so many individuals select a Samsung cellphone: they’re actually good. However in addition they include a complete 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 great {hardware} and simply put up with the software program quirks. I’ve usually most popular the easier out-of-box expertise of utilizing a Pixel cellphone, however the {hardware} by no means actually felt prefer it was on Samsung’s stage. 

That adjustments with the Pixel 9. It’s lastly a cellphone for somebody who simply needs a extremely good cellphone. Somebody who doesn’t care in regards to the distinction between optical and digital zoom, doesn’t need to fiddle with numerous customization choices, and who needs to keep away from fascinated by shopping for a brand new cellphone for so long as they’ll. The Android ecosystem has that possibility now, and it’s a rattling good one.

Images by Allison Johnson / The Verge