Pixel 9 Pro XL leak confirms new modem and 16GB of RAM

Ahead of its launch in less than a month, Google’s Pixel 9 series is being unveiled, and a new hands-on leak shows off the Pixel 9 Pro XL with its new Samsung modem as well as a heaping helping of memory.

Back in April, we learned two new details about the Pixel 9 Pro series. For one, a hands-on leak showed off the bootloader with the device packing 128GB of storage, but an upgraded 16GB of RAM. Prior to this, no Google Pixel device has offered more than 12GB of memory. Alongside that, reports also claimed the device would be using an updated Samsung modem, the Exynos 5400 which Samsung had unveiled that same month.

Now, we’re getting further confirmation on both of those.

Another hands-on leak posted to XDA forums shows what appears to be an early version of the Pixel 9 Pro XL (as seen by the codename “komodo”) which is equipped with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. There’s no way to know if this is Google’s base model, but it’s very interesting that we’ve now seen both 128GB and 256GB variations. It somewhat implies that Google might be equipping all versions with this much memory. That wouldn’t be all that unbelievable, though, as AI continues to be an increasing focus for Google, and on-device AI tends to be very memory-intensive.

Beyond that, this leak also directly shows proof that the device is using an Exynos 5400 modem. That’s visible under the “baseband” section, with “5400” shown in place of “5300” on the Pixel 8 series, which used the Exynos 5300 modem.

The Exynos 5400, as Samsung explains, is based on the latest 3GPP Release 17 standard with maximum data throughput of 14.79Gbps. You’ll surely never see those speeds in real life, but something we are expected to see Google use is the 5400’s satellite support. The new modem is also based on a 4nm process just like Tensor G4. This same modem is expected to be used across Google’s entire Pixel 9 series.

Google is set to officially launch the Pixel 9 series on August 13, with the company dropping official images of the Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro Fold at the end of this past week.