Google Pixel 9 overview: the telephone that Android wants

The Pixel 9 is the sort of gadget you get after just a few 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 vital. That’s the sensation I get holding the Pixel 9, and I prefer it lots.

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 a substitute of 16GB and doesn’t have a telephoto lens. It’s smaller than the aptly named Pixel 9 Professional XL, the identical measurement 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 screen is vivid 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 fee 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 just a few years to get right here.

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

The Pixel 9 comes with the identical most important 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 okay. 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 — approach various further pixels on the display screen or a handful of AI-enhanced video or photograph options.

Other than that, you don’t miss out on a lot. The display screen doesn’t get fairly as vivid because the Professionals, nevertheless it’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 a lot left within the tank by the top of the day, and I by no means felt like I wanted to offer 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 strong performer for every day duties and doesn’t appear to warmth up fairly as dramatically because the earlier era, although when you spend 20 minutes operating a media-heavy webpage, it will nonetheless double as a hand hotter. Nevertheless 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 approach 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, specifically, has been on a journey from the higher midrange to correct flagship, primarily by bettering the display screen refresh fee and including minor digital camera options alongside the best way. Each fashions gained some quality-of-life enhancements over time, too, together with the power to make use of face unlock for funds and — new within the 9 sequence — a much-improved fingerprint scanner. The sort of stuff that makes me really feel rather more comfy 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 have now to speak about AI. There are just a few 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 overview. A few of it’s so good that it’s problematic! However the TL;DR is that it appears like an actual combined bag proper now, and AI options are beginning to pile up in a approach that’s type 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 get together time or tackle? AI is meant to avoid wasting 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 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 shall 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 ought 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 function or the most effective 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 telephone.

There’s a purpose why so many individuals select a Samsung telephone: they’re actually good. However additionally they include a complete lot of stuff that most individuals don’t want, bordering on bloated. They’re highly effective instruments if you understand how to tweak them to your liking, however I believe lots of people purchase them for the great {hardware} and simply put up with the software program quirks. I’ve typically most well-liked the easier out-of-box expertise of utilizing a Pixel telephone, 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 telephone for somebody who simply desires a very good telephone. Somebody who doesn’t care in regards to the distinction between optical and digital zoom, doesn’t wish to fiddle with a number of customization choices, and who desires to keep away from fascinated with shopping for a brand new telephone for so long as they will. The Android ecosystem has that possibility now, and it’s a rattling good one.

Images by Allison Johnson / The Verge