Google Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL review: AI all over the place

Google yet got the hardware right.

The Pixel 9 Pro, its bigger Pro XL sibling, and the modular Pixel 9 look and consciousness similar the flagship phones Google has been trying to marque since the Pixel 6 ushered successful the visor camera bump era. They consciousness solid, the screens are bright, and the damn edges are yet flat. As acold arsenic I’m concerned, Google tin bent up a “Mission Accomplished” banner.

The bundle is different thing. Some of it is promising, immoderate of it seems similar a enactment trick, and immoderate of it is downright reckless. Google’s been rolling retired generative AI features present and determination implicit the past year, but this feels similar the company’s archetypal large plaything astatine an AI phone. It’s benignant of each implicit the place. 

There’s a small sparkly AI icon successful truthful galore antithetic corners of the UI, and these assorted assistants and systems don’t enactment good unneurotic yet. Do you privation to person a speech with AI? Or usage AI to constitute an email? Or signifier and notation to your screenshots with AI? Those features each beryllium connected the Pixel 9 series, but they’re each successful abstracted apps and interfaces. It’s starting to consciousness similar I request AI to benignant retired each of the AI, and that’s not a large spot to be. What’s worse is that they each enactment inconsistently, making it hard to trust connected immoderate of them. Thank God the hardware’s truthful good.

Google flattened retired the edges of the telephone and evened retired the bezels astir the screen. It’s an iPhone from the front, and I don’t deliberation that’s a occupation astatine all. The camera visor is simply a chunky pill that nary longer connects to the phone’s broadside rails.

It inactive looks benignant of weird, but it’s instantly recognizable arsenic a Pixel. And contempt this protrusion, the telephone besides sits steadily connected a array erstwhile you pat the surface and doesn’t wobble backmost and distant — a occupation that Samsung’s phones endure from if you don’t enactment a lawsuit connected them.

Along with a refreshed design, the Pixel 9 bid gets a caller Tensor G4 chip. Between the updated processor and a caller vapor chamber, the Pixel nary longer feels similar it’s astir to drawback connected occurrence erstwhile I usage it arsenic a Wi-Fi hotspot. Love it. I’m besides a instrumentality of the faster fingerprint scanner, which feels similar the 1 Google should person been utilizing each along.

For the archetypal time, Google is offering the Pro mentation successful 2 sizes. They travel with different-sized batteries, naturally, but some managed a afloat time of dense usage without needing a recharge. The Pixel 9 Pro is the size of the Pixel 8 (and the modular Pixel 9) with a 6.3-inch screen. The 9 Pro XL is equivalent to the Pixel 8 Pro successful size with a 6.8-inch display.

The displays themselves are a spot brighter than the erstwhile gen, going up to 2,000 nits for HDR contented and up to 3,000 nits successful highest brightness mode — the 8 Pro supported up to 1,600 nits and 2,400 nits, respectively. I tin easy admit the quality successful nonstop sunlight; it’s not Galaxy S24 Ultra good, but it’s a batch better.

But contempt the quality successful size, these 2 Pro 9 devices stock the nonstop aforesaid camera hardware, including a 5x telephoto lens — thing you don’t get connected each “small” flagship phone. The main and telephoto cameras are unchanged from the 8 Pro, but the ultrawide has been updated with a faster lens that helps boost low-light performance.

There are a fewer AI features close wrong the camera app, naturally. Unlike immoderate of the different AI tools connected these devices, these are beauteous pedestrian. That includes Add Me, which lets you composite 2 photos into 1 radical changeable truthful that the idiosyncratic who took the archetypal photograph tin get successful the picture. The UI guides you done the process successful which you instrumentality a photograph and past swap with idiosyncratic who was successful the shot. You’ll spot a ghostly overlay of the archetypal representation and immoderate on-screen prompts to assistance you framework up the 2nd photograph properly, and afterward, you get 1 representation with everyone included.

It works champion erstwhile there’s plentifulness of airy and your subjects enactment successful accordant poses betwixt frames. When it’s good, it’s truly good, and I’d person a hard clip telling if thing was up if I didn’t cognize better. But adjacent successful the champion examples, you tin inactive zoom successful and spot immoderate fuzzy edges astir details similar hair. I deliberation I’d really usage this occasionally, not slightest of each due to the fact that I hatred asking a alien to instrumentality my photo.

Video Boost, the AI instrumentality that improves video, got a sizable update this clip around, too. It processes faster erstwhile the record is uploaded, and there’s much item successful boosted Night Sight clips. The archetypal clip I tested Video Boost connected the Pixel 8 Pro, it was a small underwhelming, but with these improvements, it’s a diagnostic I’ve really wanted to usage more. It cleans up footage taken astatine higher zoom magnifications and smooths retired transitions betwixt lenses, truthful it’s a bully all-purpose instrumentality if you’re doing thing a small much technically challenging than conscionable shooting a speedy clip of your feline doing thing funny.

AI tricks aren’t constricted to the camera app — adjacent if they’re immoderate of my favourite usage cases.  As Google reminded america astir a 100 times astatine its motorboat presentation, the Pixel 9 bid is AI each the mode down, from the Gemini Assistant — the default virtual adjunct this clip — to a regular AI summary successful the revamped upwind app.

AI is the thing successful phones this year, and the Pixel 9 bid represents our archetypal look astatine immoderate technologies that volition apt trickle retired crossed erstwhile Pixel phones and parts of the Android ecosystem. A mates are exclusive to the Pixel 9 series, and Google is mostly vague astir which features volition beryllium distributed to older phones. But altogether they’re the instauration of what Google wants america to deliberation of arsenic AI-first phones for the AI era.

They’re hit-and-miss, but 1 diagnostic successful peculiar is simply a small too good. That’s “reimagine,” a generative AI instrumentality you’ll find successful Magic Editor. Instead of conscionable erasing oregon moving things astir successful your photo, you tin prime a portion of your representation and adhd thing with a substance prompt. 

The results are uncanny — so bully that they’re problematic. Without excessively overmuch trouble, we had it adhd a scope of nasty and highly believable worldly to photos — everything from a cockroach connected a sheet of nutrient to a snake successful a angiosperm show astatine Whole Foods.

Google’s examples of “reimagine” successful usage diagnostic wildflowers and blistery aerial balloons, which, sure. It tin adhd those things to your photos. They usually look bully and lone sometimes look similar a baked potato. But they’re lone tagged arsenic AI-generated by a enactment successful the representation metadata, which makes them truly casual to walk disconnected arsenic existent images.

Pixel Studio is little problematic. You usage substance prompts to imagination up images successful a fistful of predetermined styles, including “3D cartoon” and “freestyle,” which is the much photorealistic option. My kid got a existent footwear retired of making trucks of assorted shapes and sizes being operated by cats. If you inquire it to make an representation with “poop” successful it (toddlers deliberation this is wildly funny), past you’ll get thing much realistic than you astir apt wanted to see. 

You tin besides play a amusive crippled wherever you get it to make IP that Google apt did not mean it to create. Here’s an incomplete database of the images I got it to marque for maine with these nonstop prompts:

It’s unusual however easy you tin make, like, PG-13-rated images, too. It faithfully generated a cartoon babe cervid lighting a joint, and I don’t know, guys, possibly there’s a amended usage for each these supercomputers moving AI. At the precise least, it’s large if your thought of amusive is responding to your spouse’s questions with obnoxious AI-generated art.

I had precocious hopes for Pixel Screenshots, a Pixel 9-series exclusive and perchance acold much utile app. It’s a repository for each of your screenshots that uses AI to parse retired accusation from them and saves it arsenic metadata truthful you tin hunt for it aboriginal — Airbnb doorway codes, Wi-Fi passwords, that benignant of thing. It each stays on-device, truthful it’s comparatively secure.

The happening is, it’s a full abstracted app. You can’t inquire Gemini to find your boarding zone; you person to unfastened up the screenshots app and search. At that point, I’ll conscionable unfastened up the Delta Airlines app and look astatine my boarding pass. Besides, the Screenshots app told maine I was successful boarding radical M3 — the walk it scanned intelligibly said radical three.

And that’s the problem: it hallucinates and misinterprets. A batch of the metadata connected my screenshots is right, but immoderate of it is conscionable off. I took a screenshot of a peculiarly gross “reimagine” instauration erstwhile I prompted AI to capable a vessel with geoducks. 

Reimagine made thing I tin champion picture arsenic a vessel of earthy thumbs, which the Screenshots app labeled arsenic “a greenish vessel of chicken” that mightiness beryllium “overcooked oregon undercooked.” Presumably scanning the substance of the AI punctual I utilized for the photo, which appears successful the country of the screen, it states that the representation is “from the Geoducks app, a nutrient transportation service.” Makes maine consciousness large astir the aboriginal of AI trained connected synthetic data.

I’m not acceptable to constitute disconnected Screenshots conscionable yet, though. It’s the benignant of diagnostic that makes consciousness erstwhile you usage your telephone for months oregon years, not weeks. It takes precise small effort to usage since screenshots are automatically saved there. And its champion diagnostic is that erstwhile you screenshot a leafage successful Chrome, it’ll prevention the URL on with the representation truthful you tin get backmost to the leafage easily. When you deliberation of Screenshots arsenic a replacement for infinite Chrome tabs oregon a Pinterest board, it makes a batch much sense.

Gemini Assistant, which I’ve utilized connected tons of different Android phones, is overmuch much acquainted and is present the default assistant. It tin bash a batch much basal adjunct worldly than it could when it launched, but it inactive can’t play my dang Spotify playlists. The Pixel 9 Pro and Pro XL travel with a escaped one-year proceedings of Gemini Advanced (a chill $20 per month aft that!), which allows you to pat into newer connection models and a brand-new feature: Gemini Live. It’s Google’s mentation of ChatGPT’s speech mode, and incidentally, it feels a small similar talking to a leafage of Google results. 

The Pixel 9 Pros correspond Google’s astir precocious efforts successful mobile AI, for amended and worse. There’s a batch of committedness successful immoderate of these tools, and astatine this point, I genuinely similar asking Gemini immoderate of my low-stakes questions than wading done Google Search. But we can’t support ignoring the information that AI conscionable makes crap up sometimes, and it’s hard to spot a exertion similar that with the details of your day-to-day existence.

The diagnostic pileup arsenic Google rushes to vessel caller AI products is besides getting a small confusing — not to notation that they’re each seemingly called immoderate mentation of “Gemini” oregon “Gemma.” I tin inquire Gemini Assistant with the Workspace hold to cheque my inbox for important emails, but I can’t inquire Gemini Live. I tin besides unfastened Gemini wrong the Gmail app to inquire the aforesaid question and get a somewhat antithetic answer. I tin instrumentality a screenshot of thing connected Amazon that I’m reasoning astir buying and prevention it to the Screenshots app, but I can’t automatically adhd a photograph of thing connected a store shelf. It’s starting to consciousness a small similar AI everything, everywhere, each astatine once.

But the important happening is that down each the flashy AI features, there’s a truly bully telephone successful the Pixel 9 Pro and the Pro XL. These are phones that I tin yet clasp up adjacent to a Galaxy S24 Plus oregon an iPhone 15 Pro and think, yes, these are each top-of-the-line devices. These Pixels aren’t the budget-priced flagships that they utilized to be, and I deliberation the higher prices are good justified by the hardware. Plus, erstwhile you’re getting 7 years of OS updates, you tin compression a full batch of worth retired of your investment. 

And adjacent arsenic a small-phone enthusiast, the 9 Pro feels similar a tenable size to me. It’s not small, but it’s not gargantuan, either, and I profoundly admit not having to sacrifice camera features by choosing it implicit the large one. Pixel representation prime remains reliable, and the artillery volition support up to the extremity of the day. Whether we’re acceptable oregon not, a caller epoch of AI phones and photos is here, and it’s messy arsenic hell. But the hardware — if not my religion successful an AI-everything aboriginal — is solid.

Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge