Google Pixel 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL Review: Stellar Camera, Battery, AI

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Google Pixel telephones are sometimes lauded for his or her cameras and software program, however throughout the Android universe, they have not been high contenders for a while. Google is popping the tide with the Pixel 9 Professional collection, which has a much-needed redesign, useful AI-powered options you will not discover on different telephones, and the most effective battery life we have seen on a big-screen Android cellphone.

The Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL are enhanced variations of the wonderful Pixel 9. They embody a devoted 5x zoom lens digital camera, brighter shows, extra RAM assigned to additional efficiency, and a free 12 months of Google’s upgraded Gemini Superior AI assistant.

I examined each fashions for this overview. Each ship the identical efficiency and consumer expertise, besides the Professional XL has a much bigger show and battery. Our overview refers to each telephones as the identical besides the place famous.  

Design: A refreshing new look

One of many largest causes the Pixel 9 Professional fashions are extra interesting total than earlier Pixel Professionals is their refreshed appear and feel.

Earlier Pixel Professional fashions, together with the Pixel 8 Professional, had rounded frames and curved show edges that regarded dated in comparison with competing units just like the iPhone 15 Pro fashions and Samsung’s Galaxy S23 and S23 Plus. With their flatter frames and flat show edges, the Pixel 9 Professional fashions look extra trendy and in step with up to date high-end telephones from Apple and Samsung.

The Pixel 9 Professional fashions have a shiny polished aluminum body and a frosted rear glass panel out there in Porcelain (white), Rose Quartz (gentle pink), Hazel (heat grey), and Obsidian (black). I want the body additionally got here with a brushed metallic matte texture, just like the Pixel 9’s, but it surely’s a moot level when you place the cellphone in a case.

Google’s new oval-shaped rear digital camera design is an evolution of the signature digital camera bar launched within the Pixel 6 and contributes to the Pixel 9 Professional’s glossy new look. The digital camera oval protrudes fairly a bit, but it surely’s additionally centered, which implies the cellphone does not rock to at least one facet while you faucet on the display screen whereas it lies flat; it is a small benefit over the most recent iPhone Professionals, for example, which tilt in use when mendacity flat because of their off-center rear digital camera techniques.

Within the Pixel 9 Professional lineup, you possibly can select a mannequin with a 6.3-inch show (the identical because the common Pixel 9) or a 6.8-inch show. These sizes are barely bigger than the earlier Pixel 8 era (6.2 and 6.7 inches), however the Pixel 9 Professional fashions’ total dimensions are almost an identical to the Pixel 8 Professionals.

Efficiency: Quicker and smoother than benchmark scores counsel

Working Google’s Tensor G4 processor, the Pixel 9 Professional is not a powerhouse for those who base it purely on benchmark scores, that are bested by different Android telephones that run the top-tier Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, like Samsung’s Galaxy S24 collection.

Actually, the Pixel 9 Professional’s benchmark outcomes are extra similar to 2023’s Galaxy S23 working the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processors. Here is how the Pixel 9 Professional’s Geekbench 6 benchmark outcomes evaluate with Samsung’s Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S24.

However numbers alone do not point out precise efficiency. Google has designed its Android-based ecosystem to run effectively on Tensor processors. Frequent on a regular basis apps, like social media, purchasing, and streaming, open rapidly and fluidly. Even demanding video games like “Asphalt Legends Unite” and “Struggle Thunder Cell” run nicely on the highest graphics and frames-per-second settings.

It is unclear whether or not the Pixel 9 Professional will keep its fast and clean efficiency in years to return. However, based mostly on my testing historical past, Google’s Tensor processors keep contemporary for no less than three years. The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Professional from 2021, working on the unique Google Tensor processor and up to date to the most recent model of Android 15, nonetheless glide by means of apps and video games as if the telephones simply got here out of the field. “Struggle Thunder Cell” runs surprisingly nicely on the highest graphics setting at round 80 frames-per-second, which continues to be completely clean for most individuals.

The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Professional I used for reference are loaded with my regular apps, and their sturdy efficiency is shocking contemplating their decrease benchmark scores. My telephones nonetheless have optimum battery well being, however do not forget that any cellphone with a severely depleted battery would undergo lowered efficiency. Nonetheless, it is simply additional proof that benchmark numbers aren’t every little thing.

Show: Distinctive brightness and improved fingerprint unlocking

The Pixel 9 Professional fashions use Google’s premium Tremendous Actua shows, which assist as much as 3,000 nits of brightness, in comparison with the Pixel 9’s 2,700 nits on the fundamental Actua show. For reference, the iPhone 16 Pro’s show goes as much as 2,000 nits, and the Galaxy S24 telephones go as much as 2,600 nits.

The Pixel 9 Professionals are extremely vibrant, and every little thing on the display screen is clearly seen in vibrant shade beneath vibrant daylight. The iPhone 16 Professional’s 2,000-nit brightness is already lots, so the Pixel 9 Professional’s added brightness makes every little thing much more seen.

Google’s Tremendous Actua show on the Pixel 9 Professionals features a variable 1-120Hz refresh charge (VRR), which makes animations look fluid whereas navigating the Android working system, apps, and video games. It is common amongst premium flagship telephones, besides the bottom iPhone 16 fashions, which solely assist an antiquated 60Hz.

In comparison with the Pixel 9’s primary Actua 60-120Hz show, the Pixel 9 Professional’s VRR is meant to enhance battery life by dropping to 1Hz when the display screen is static or when the always-on show is enabled. Nevertheless, I did not see any enchancment in battery life. In a check the place I let each fashions sit for 12 hours with the always-on show enabled, each had expended 4% battery life.

The Pixel 9 Professional is about to 1080p decision by default, however it will probably assist increased resolutions — 1280p on the Pixel 9 Professional and 1344p on the Pixel 9 Professional XL, which is similar to the resolutions on the iPhone 16 Professional fashions and the Galaxy S24 Plus. If you wish to maximize battery life, I would advocate sticking to the default 1080p possibility; you would set it to full decision, see the way it impacts battery life in your every day use, and modify accordingly.

The Pixel 9 Professional makes use of a brand new fingerprint sensor that is quicker and extra dependable than the earlier Pixel telephones’ sensors. It additionally delivers a noticeably higher expertise than Samsung’s fingerprint sensor, which has at all times struggled to acknowledge my fingerprints.

The Pixel 9 Professional telephones additionally use facial recognition by way of the entrance digital camera to unlock the cellphone, which works rapidly and reliably. Nonetheless, I would argue that Google and different Android cellphone makers have to undertake higher unlocking expertise. No fingerprint sensor or facial recognition from an Android cellphone has crushed the general higher expertise of Apple’s Face ID for velocity, accuracy, reliability, and comfort.

For instance, the Pixel 9 Professional’s facial recognition struggles to acknowledge my face if the cellphone is at an angle or once I’m in a roundabout way trying on the cellphone. Apple’s Face ID additionally works seamlessly in a darkish room, whereas the Pixel 9 Professional’s facial recognition typically does not. And whereas the Pixel 9 Professional’s fingerprint sensor is an unlimited enchancment, it is nonetheless unreliable in case your thumb is moist.

Battery life: An unequalled outcome amongst Android telephones

After our intensive battery check, the Pixel 9 Professional XL had a 70% cost remaining. It is the most effective rating we have seen on any Android phone to this point and offers you the most effective likelihood to make use of a cellphone for a number of days and not using a cost.

Its rating is barely outdone by Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro Max (74%), but it surely’s an enormous enchancment over the 62% outcome from the Pixel 8 Pro with a 6.7-inch show. It additionally scored considerably higher than the Galaxy S24 Extremely (66%), which has a 6.8-inch show and beforehand held the most effective rating for Android telephones.

The Pixel 9 Professional completed our battery check with 62% remaining, a superb outcome for a cellphone with a 6.3-inch show that matches the considerably bigger Pixel 8 Professional and the 6.3-inch iPhone 16 Professional whereas beating the bottom Pixel 9’s 60%.

Solely the Pixel 9 Professional XL helps 37W quick charging speeds, whereas the Pixel 9 Professional helps the identical 27W charging speeds as the bottom Pixel 9. Charging occasions are about the identical for each fashions, because the Pixel 9 Professional has a smaller battery than the Pixel 9 Professional XL.

Cameras: A primary-rate system with spectacular AI options

Our high decide for the best Android phone digital camera, the Pixel 9 Professional fashions have a three-camera system that takes very good images with natural-looking colours, balanced lighting, and distinction. You’ll be able to select between a 50-megapixel (MP) fundamental digital camera, 48MP ultrawide, and 48MP telephoto (5x optical zoom). 

The bottom Pixel 9 lacks the Pixel 9 Professional fashions’ devoted telephoto digital camera. Photographs taken at 5x optical zoom are sharp, but it surely’s superb how they continue to be so at 10x digital zoom. It could go all the way in which as much as 30x, and whereas there’s clearly a lack of sharpness and element, it is nonetheless usable.

Pixel telephones are recognized for computational images options, the place software program is used to reinforce the images. Instruments like Magic Editor, Magic Eraser, and Finest Take assist differentiate Pixel telephones from the competitors.

The brand new Add Me characteristic is a two-step course of for inserting the photographer into a bunch picture. After taking the primary picture, somebody from the group swaps place with the photographer for the second shot. Add Me guides the second photographer on inserting a brand new topic, the unique photographer, into that group picture.

Add Me is a kind of options that might have been overly difficult and liable to producing unhealthy outcomes, but it surely’s surprisingly user-friendly and efficient. Some tell-tale artifacts may be discovered across the particular person inserted, however they don’t seem to be noticeable until you search for them.

Additionally new is the Reimagine characteristic in Magic Editor, which helps you to substitute components of your picture — just like the background, foreground, or each — with reasonable AI-generated imagery. You choose the components of a photograph you need to change and describe with textual content the way you need your choice to be “reimagined.” For instance, I modified the yard within the picture beneath to incorporate a river by utilizing the immediate “roaring river.”

The characteristic is attention-grabbing, however I wrestle to see why most individuals would need to add faux particulars to their images. It may very well be used for enjoyable, but it surely may be used to mislead individuals, whether or not innocent or nefarious. There is not any watermark or indication {that a} picture has been altered utilizing the Reimagine characteristic, so whoever is viewing the picture will not know it has been modified if the outcomes are reasonable sufficient. The one place I discovered data that reveals a Reimagined picture was altered with AI was in Google Photographs on the net within the Information part of the picture. Surprisingly, a Reimagined picture is not instantly indicated within the Google Photographs app on the Pixel 9 Professional.

AI-altered imagery is presently a grey space that might have harmful results. With that mentioned, Google’s AI has some limits on what sort of particulars you possibly can add utilizing the Reimagine characteristic, like its refusal to edit people or add harmful surroundings to a photograph. For instance, it would not generate a pack of wolves in a photograph of certainly one of my youngsters until I used the phrase “docile” to explain the wolves.

The Pixel 9 Professional’s 42MP entrance digital camera has a better decision than the ten.5MP entrance digital camera on the bottom Pixel 9. General, it takes nice selfies however falls flat on the expectations of such a higher-resolution entrance digital camera, like sharper selfies with extra element and perceptibly higher low-light efficiency.

The entrance digital camera additionally captures a wider 127-degree field-of-view (FOV) in comparison with the Pixel 9’s 95-degree FOV. This discrepancy enables you to match extra individuals in a bunch selfie or get a wider view of the surroundings behind you.

The Pixel 9 Professional is able to 4K decision at 60 frames per second (fps) or 8K/30 fps with Google’s Video Increase setting enabled (extra on that later).

The Pixel 9 Professional produces distinctive video high quality with just a few exceptions. It could generally wrestle with overly vibrant particulars, which might develop into white and void of element, however most telephones have the identical problem dealing with ultra-bright particulars. Movies look even higher while you allow 10-bit HDR (excessive dynamic vary) and watch the movies on a display screen that helps it, like different high-end telephones, tablets, screens, and TVs. One video captured in 10-bit HDR had points with shade, brightness, and distinction steadiness, but it surely appears to have been an remoted problem, as each different video I took regarded as anticipated.

My fundamental grievance is that movies can seem uneven at 30 fps in comparison with movies taken on the similar body charge with Apple’s iPhone 16 Professionals, the gold customary for taking movies with a cellphone and our best phone digital camera system total. You would change to 60 fps for smoother movies, however you lose the choice for 10-bit HDR (customary HDR stays), and the cleaning soap opera look is not for everybody. Plus, 60 fps movies take up quite a lot of cupboard space on the cellphone and the cloud, particularly for those who file at 4K decision.

Enabling Video Increase offers movies barely richer and extra vibrant colours and helps clean out the choppiness in 30 fps movies. It additionally allows extremely sharp 8K video recording, however until you have got an 8K monitor or TV, taking pictures in 8K has few advantages for most individuals, particularly when it takes up an enormous quantity of storage.

The tradeoff with Video Increase is that you need to allow it each time you unlock the cellphone to take a video, which is an simply forgotten step. It additionally requires the video to be uploaded to your Google Photographs library and processed within the cloud, which might take a while, relying on the size of the video. You’ll be able to nonetheless watch the unprocessed video instantly after recording it, although.

Whereas it is efficient, I did not really feel the necessity to consistently allow Video Increase, but it surely’s a pleasant possibility you will not discover on the usual Pixel 9.

Gemini AI: Highly effective and frequently bettering

Should you’ve heard of AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Microsoft’s Copilot, Gemini is Google’s personal model. I am going into extra element about Gemini in my Pixel 9 review, however Gemini is an AI assistant that may reply nearly any query you might need and supply helpful data. It could even carry a dialog on just about any matter.

Like different standard AI chatbots, Gemini has processed (and continues to be processing) an enormous quantity of publicly out there information from books, articles, web sites, and extra. It additionally pulls from data you’d discover in a Google search, like Google Assistant does, to reply your questions. But, whereas Google Assistant presents a search outcome and allows you to open articles and web sites that comprise the solutions you are in search of, Gemini summarizes the related components of these sources and presents a summarization to reply your query. It additionally makes a few of the sources it pulls from out there to view.

I am discovering myself utilizing Gemini on the Pixel 9 telephones and on-line rather than a guide Google search to assist with duties I discover uninteresting or uncomfortable doing. For instance, I used Gemini to search out issues to do in a city I am visiting on trip as a substitute of clicking by means of a number of articles. I even used it to assist me phrase an e mail I would discover agonizing to jot down, like citing a priority at my child’s faculty with out seeming confrontational.

Whereas the usual Gemini is spectacular and exhibits immense promise, it has proven that it is not persistently dependable, like different AI chatbots, for getting established info appropriate. Nevertheless, its accuracy is noticeably bettering over time.

In early testing, quickly after the Pixel 9 Professional’s launch, Gemini returned factually unsuitable solutions, like misguided particulars in regards to the Pixel 9 telephones themselves and even the time in a special nation. Just a few months later, Gemini returned the proper solutions to the identical factual questions I requested earlier. Regardless of this, my belief in Gemini to get factual data persistently is tainted; I am going to have to expertise higher reliability earlier than I can say Gemini can uniformly substitute a conventional Google search.

With the Pixel 9 Professional, you get a free 12 months of the Google One AI Premium plan, which prices $20/month and contains Gemini Superior and 2TB of cloud storage for Google apps. Gemini Superior is just like the paid model of ChatGPT or Copilot in that it is meant to be smarter, extra correct, and extra superior than the usual Gemini that comes free with the Pixel 9. In our testing, Gemini Superior’s accuracy was usually similar to the usual Gemini’s newest iteration, however the former provided extra detailed solutions and solutions, as illustrated within the comparability above.

The Google One AI Premium Plan additionally contains Gemini Stay, an enhanced manner of interacting with the Gemini AI entity along with your voice. It permits you to have a real-time dialog with Gemini with out prompting while you’re about to talk, and Gemini sounds and speaks nearly as naturally as an actual particular person. It is surprisingly efficient in its comprehension in that you do not want to consider the way to particularly phrase a query for the AI to know and reply precisely.

Google Assistant, the unique good assistant in Google’s Pixel telephones (and most Android telephones), is built-in into Gemini however stays out there individually. Should you desire the older assistant’s easier presentation of search outcomes with out prolonged generative responses, you possibly can disable Gemini and use Google Assistant completely.

Different AI options: Organizing screenshots and creating photos with phrases

Google’s Pixels have lengthy provided attention-grabbing and helpful AI options, as earlier Pixel telephones included notable options like Magic Eraser, Magic Editor, Name Display screen, Stay Translate, and Summarize that stay out there for all Pixel 9 fashions.

Along with Add Me talked about within the digital camera part, the Screenshots app is one other worthwhile new Pixel AI characteristic. It enables you to search screenshots like images in Google Search. It is a superb reminder instrument for those who take a screenshot of one thing you need to keep in mind, like a film you need to watch later or a product you noticed in an article. Screenshots is not solely good, because it missed some related screenshots in my assessments and even added an irrelevant screenshot. Nonetheless, it is efficient total, and I am assured it’s going to enhance over time.

The brand new Pixel Studio app creates AI-generated photos based mostly in your textual content prompts. It is nice if you cannot discover a picture (or kind of picture) you are in search of in a Google search, whether or not it is to precise a sentiment otherwise you need to visualize a humorous thought. Getting the appropriate prompts to realize what you are searching for in a picture may be finicky, but it surely’s a discovered talent that comes extra simply the extra you utilize it.

Must you purchase it?

The Pixel 9 Pro XL, with a 6.8-inch show, is a no brainer for anybody who prefers bigger Google Pixel telephones or bigger Android telephones. I’ve reviewed each Pixel cellphone to this point and almost each high-end Android cellphone out there within the US within the final 10 years, and it is simply the best Android phone with a big display screen I’ve reviewed.

I would advocate the Pixel 9 Professional XL over its fundamental opponents, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus and Galaxy S24 Extremely, due to its superior cameras and battery life. Plus, as a cellphone reviewer and occasional Android consumer, I discover Google telephones provide a extra consolidated and fewer complicated expertise than Samsung telephones, which comprise an incomplete set of Google options on high of Samsung options.

In the meantime, recommending the Pixel 9 Pro with a 6.3-inch show is a extra nuanced affair as a result of the bottom Pixel 9 delivers an analogous expertise, and the latter is our best Google Pixel phone for most individuals. The primary causes you’d go for the Pixel 9 Professional are its devoted 5x zoom digital camera and barely higher battery life. In any other case, minor variations in show brightness, refresh charge, and RAM for efficiency haven’t any discernible influence.

In our testing, the free 12 months of Gemini Superior is not a compelling sufficient cause for most individuals to spend $200 extra on the Pixel 9 Professional, particularly as the usual Gemini out there to the bottom Pixel 9 is frequently bettering in high quality.

See our guides to the best Pixel 9 Pro XL cases and best Pixel 9 Pro cases for additional safety.