The best Pixel yet and you shouldn’t buy it

I’ve been a Pixel user since before the Pixel even existed. When I first got into smartphones, I preferred the Nexus line for its clean Android and smart, helpful Google features. Those preferences have carried through the years, and I still find myself using Google phones daily. Even beyond the review period, when I have iPhones, Samsungs and more to put my SIM card in, I often choose a Pixel. The Pixel 9 line is Google’s best yet, and the Pixel 9 is an excellent device. As a fan, I love it, but I find it hard to recommend.

The Pixel 9 holds an interesting position in Google’s lineup. For the last few generations, there was a small Pixel and a big Pixel, with the big Pixel sporting the ‘Pro’ designation and offering some additional features, such as an extra telephoto camera, a higher resolution display and better specs. However, with the Pixel 9 series, Google has returned to form, offering two ‘Pro’ models at different sizes along with a regular, non-Pro model that’s a little cheaper and lacks some features, like the telephoto camera.

On the surface, this is a great change. Giving customers more options is always good and, for tech enthusiasts like me, having the option to get a smaller Pixel that still has all the Pro features is a big win. But it puts the regular Pixel 9 in a tight spot between the Pixel 9 Pro and the Pixel 9a that Google will likely launch around May 2025. There’s a $250 price difference between the Pixel 9 and 9 Pro, and while we don’t yet know the Pixel 9a price, if it keeps the same $679 price as the 8a, that’s a $420 difference. That means the Pixel 9 needs to be good enough to justify paying more for it over an A-series Pixel while also offering enough value that customers would be okay saving $250 compared to the 9 Pro. I’m not sure the Pixel 9 pulls off both.

Note: this review focuses solely on the Pixel 9, which we received from Google to test. For the Pixel 9 Pro XL, check out our review here. We did not receive a Pixel 9 Pro unit to test and stay tuned for a Pixel 9 Pro Fold review in the coming weeks.

Specs

New phone, who’s this?

The Pixel 9 (left) and Pixel 8 (right).

The Pixel 9 line sports the most significant design update since the Pixel 6, and I love it. The flat sides make the phone easier to hold and bring improvements to durability and repairability (though the latter still has significant issues). The new camera bar design keeps with the visor trend but gives it a new style, and the matte finish on the metal edges and the camera bar give a subtle version of the classic two-tone colour, though it’s not as vibrant as the Pixel 6.

Overall, the Pixel 9 is the most premium-feeling Pixel yet, and the flat edges help it feel less slippery despite the glossy back panel. (I still hate the glossy back and I wish Google would bring the matte glass rear panel to the non-Pro Pixels again). Haptics also feel great on the Pixel 9. They aren’t significantly better than the Pixel 8, but the difference between the Pixel 9 and the Pixel 8a I was using before is night and day.

Not everyone will appreciate the new design, but I honestly think it’s one of the best Pixel designs (and phone designs) in years. I hope Google sticks with it for a while.

Circling back to the durability aspect, Google claims the Pixel 9 series is twice as durable as the Pixel 8 line. While I haven’t put the Pixel 9 through any rigorous durability testing, it has survived some abuse during the review period before I got a case on it. That includes surviving a toddler who loves to throw things and even a tumble out of my pocket onto pavement. The latter left it with only a couple of small scratches on the metal finish, which unfortunately happened just hours before I had planned to take pictures of the phone for this review.

One of a few small scratches in the metal frame from a tumble onto my driveway.

The Pixel 9 display also got small improvements over the Pixel 8. It’s ever so slightly bigger at 6.3-inches to the Pixel 8’s 6.2, but boasts nearly the same resolution, 60-120Hz dynamic refresh rate and 20:9 aspect ratio. The Pixel 9 display is a little brighter (1,800nits HDR and 2,700nits peak brightness vs 1,400 HDR and 2,000 peak on the Pixel 8) and has a higher contrast ratio. The Pixel 9 display looks great, but it’s not a huge improvement over the Pixel 8’s excellent display. The biggest downside to the Pixel 9 screen is it lacks the 1Hz-120Hz dynamic refresh rate found on the Pro models, which may have helped get a little extra battery life out of the handset.

While there isn’t a ton of change going from the Pixel 8 to the 9, people coming from the Pixel 7 or 6 will feel the difference a lot more. Google’s Actua display, which debuted on the 8 and is improved on the 9, is significantly better than what we had on the Pixel 6 and 7.

Tensor troubles

From left to right: Pixel 9, Pixel 8, Pixel 8a.

When it comes to smartphone performance, I generally find that raw performance isn’t a big deal outside of specific use cases, like gaming or certain productivity tasks. Even low-end chips with middling performance can handle most day-to-day smartphone tasks like calls, messaging, browsing social media and more with minimal issues. Sure, the multitasking experience might not be as good, but how many apps do you really need open on your phone at the same time?

With the Pixel line, I’ve been fairly forgiving of Google’s Tensor chips for a few reasons. First, despite the worse raw performance, Google’s Pixel phones always feel smooth and fluid. Day-to-day performance feels great, apps run well, and generally, I don’t have many issues. Sure, games might not look as good as they would on a phone with a modern Snapdragon chipset, but I don’t do much gaming on my phone so I’ve been fine with how it handles titles like Magic: The Gathering Arena and Diablo Immortal.

The other reason is that Google has long claimed the main benefit of Tensor is it can run machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) tasks on device, which improves privacy, security and speed compared to offloading tasks to the cloud for processing. Coupled with Pixel phones historically being cheaper than comparable devices from Apple or Samsung, it seemed like a reasonable trade-off.

However, the Pixel line has gotten steadily more expensive without bringing significant improvements to the Tensor chip, which makes it increasingly difficult to forgive the performance. In Canada, the Pixel 9 is $30 cheaper than the iPhone 15, but the iPhone 15 runs laps around the Pixel 9 in performance. While I’m not a huge mobile gamer, I do play the occasional titles on my phone and it’s become increasingly clear that Tensor can’t keep up in raw gaming performance.

Benchmarks tell a similar story, though I don’t put much stock in those numbers compared to real-world experience. (Again, the Pixel 9 feels very smooth and works great, even with mediocre benchmark scores.) What surprised me most was that my Pixel 9 scored worse in Geekbench 6 than the Pixel 8, 8a and Pixel 8 Pro did. The Pixel 9 Pro XL reviewed by my colleague Dean Daley performed better, slightly beating out the Pixel 8 Pro, but it’s still far behind the competition. The Pixel 9 Pro XL scored close to, but slightly worse than, the iPhone 12 Pro with the A14 Bionic. Yup, the Pixel 9 Pro XL is barely competitive with a four-year-old iPhone, and the Pixel 9 performed even worse.

I also ran the new Geekbench AI test, which I felt was relevant given the AI focus of most smartphones. It’s something that’s hard to quantify in real-world use, so a benchmark that can give us an idea of how well an NPU performs should help. Well, the Pixel 9 did not impress in this test, scoring well below Apple’s AI-capable iPhone 15 Pro. It also performed worse than the iPhone 15 Plus, which sports the older A16 chip and won’t be getting Apple’s latest AI features because Apple says the A16 isn’t powerful enough. The Pixel 9 didn’t score much better than the Pixel 8 series, either.

All this is to say I think it’s past time for Google to put some work into making Tensor more competitive, especially if the company wants to price its phones at the same level as Apple and Samsung devices. With previous generations, I forgave Tensor’s performance because the phones were cheaper. But when it only costs $30 more for a phone with significantly better performance, it’s hard to recommend the Pixel 9.

Great camera gets a little better

The big change with the Pixel 9’s camera is the upgraded ultrawide sensor. For once, I’m actually excited about the ultrawide camera – in the past, I lamented Google’s choice to restrict the telephoto lens to the Pro series, but ultrawide photography has been growing on me. While I still think a telephoto camera would be more useful than an ultrawide lens, I’ve since come to appreciate the style you can get from ultrawide shots and I have a lot of fun shooting with it. Because of this, the new 48-megapixel ultrawide is a welcome improvement over the 12-megapixel sensor on the Pixel 8. It also boosts the quality of macro mode, which uses the ultrawide lens.

Beyond the ultrawide, however, nothing has changed with the Pixel 9 camera hardware. It’s still the same 50-megapixel main ‘wide’ camera sensor and 10.5-megapixel selfie camera as what was on the Pixel 8. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing since the Pixel 8 had a great shooter already and the Pixel 9 is more of the same.

Unfortunately, that also means there isn’t a ton to talk about when it comes to the camera. For me, the Pixel 9 continued the trend of reliably capturing photos with a mix of solid camera hardware and Google’s borderline magic camera software. I don’t think anyone will be disappointed with the Pixel 9 in this department and I found it especially good for capturing photos of family and friends. While I don’t share the pictures online, I loved photographing my daughter with the Pixel 9 and the upgraded ultrawide makes fun, silly wide-angle shots look even better than before.

It’s also worth mentioning some of the new camera software features, though I won’t dive into them much since my colleague Brad Bennett already documented them at length here. Add Me, which lets you merge yourself into group shots, is definitely the most notable for the Pixel 9. As the resident photo taker in my family, this is a great addition since I often am not in the photo because I’m behind the camera instead.

Other features include Magic Editor’s new ‘Auto Frame’ capability to help improve the framing of a photo. There’s Reimagine, which uses text prompts and generative AI to completely alter photos in a way that’s kinda neat and also somewhat terrifying. And the improved Video Boost feature is still limited to the Pro Pixels, so there’s nothing to say about it here.

Battery, software and everything else

The new ultrasonic fingerprint sensor is a major improvement.

Google hyped up the Pixel 9’s battery as lasting 20 percent longer than the Pixel 8, thanks in part to a larger 4,700mAh cell (compared to 4,575mAh) and efficiency improvements on Tensor G4 compared to G3. In my testing, however, I didn’t notice a significant improvement.

I never had an issue making it through a day with the Pixel 9, and most days I plugged in at 10:30pm with between 20-30% charge left and three to five hours of screen time. On lighter use days, I was able to stretch the battery into a second day, but not past noon. Overall, I’d say the battery is a little better than the Pixel 8, but certainly not a huge improvement.

Also of note are several new AI-infused apps, including a fancy new weather app and Pixel Screenshots, which I already wrote about here. The new Pixel Weather app, in particular, is a much nicer version of the old weather “app” that was really just a part of the Google app. Except, that weather “app” is still there and the first time you boot up Weather, it asks you to go turn off notification settings for the old weather app so you don’t get duplicates. But it’s still there in the Google app, which strikes me as redundant and poorly implemented design. Plus, for the first few days I had the phone, tapping on any weather widget or the weather info in ‘At a Glance’ would shoot me into the old weather app, not the new one. It’s since changed over, but this is the kind of unpolished software one comes to expect from Google.

I don’t have much else to say about AI that I haven’t already said elsewhere, but the short version is there’s still a lack of useful AI, though Google has made some strides. The AI-powered Pixel Screenshots app is potentially useful, but I want to use it for longer before I make a judgment there. Beyond that, Gemini is still Gemini, so if you’ve used it on another Pixel, you know what to expect here. The Pixel 9 also doesn’t include free Gemini Advanced, so if you did want to try the better version of Gemini, you have to pay out of pocket for it. The Pixel Studio app for generating images remained unused on my phone because why would I want to generate an image when there are all kinds of amazing art made by real people? Likewise, tools like Reimagine walk the line between fun, playful image editing and potentially dangerous tool with unconsidered consequences.

Should you buy the Pixel 9?

Overall, I really like the Pixel 9 and I do think it’s one of the best Pixels Google has made in years. The hardware feels premium, the refreshed design is great, the software feels smart (despite leaning into generative AI too much) and the camera experience remains superb. There’s a lot to love with this phone.

At the same time, I find it tough to recommend. For existing Pixel users, there isn’t a ton here to justify an upgrade unless you’re rocking a Pixel 6 or older. And for non-Pixel users, it really depends what your current phone is. However, for anyone rocking a flagship device from the likes of Samsung or Apple released anytime in the last three years, chances are it already outperforms the Pixel 9.

And that brings us to the price. Like I mentioned at the top, the Pixel 9 starts at $1,099, putting it in the same range as the Galaxy S24 and iPhone 15, both of which handily outperform Tensor. Again, raw performance isn’t everything, and the Pixel 9 feels plenty fast and incredibly smooth in regular use. But that performance delta is there and it’s hard to ignore when the phone costs as much as it does.

A lower price makes that performance delta less of an issue, which brings me to my next point: Google has a tendency to put its phones on sale after a few months on the market, and I think it makes sense to wait for a deal. After all, the holiday season is coming up – maybe we’ll see some hot Black Friday offers on the Pixel 9. And if we don’t see deals, Google will eventually launch the Pixel 9a, and that phone will most likely offer a very similar experience to the Pixel 9 with a much cheaper price tag.