Google Pixel 9 review: the phone that Android needs

The Pixel 9 is the benignant of instrumentality you get aft a fewer generations of incremental progress. 

One insignificant update aft different doesn’t look similar overmuch year-over-year. A faster fingerprint sensor? Uniform bezels? Not the worldly of headlines. But eventually, the small worldly adds up to thing significant. That’s the feeling I get holding the Pixel 9, and I similar it a lot.

The Pixel 9 is the lone non-Pro telephone successful the 9 bid astatine this point, which, arsenic champion I tin tell, means it has 12GB of RAM alternatively of 16GB and doesn’t person a telephoto lens. It’s smaller than the aptly named Pixel 9 Pro XL, the aforesaid size and signifier arsenic the regular Pixel 9 Pro, and it doesn’t fold successful fractional similar the other 9 Pro does.

But mainly, the Pixel 9 conscionable works. The surface is agleam and the artillery goes each day. The fingerprint sensor is speedy and accurate, finally. Although it’s pricier than past year’s exemplary astatine $799 versus $699, that’s fundamentally the going complaint for a non-Pro flagship phone. And for the archetypal time, the Pixel enactment feels similar it has earned a spot close alongside Samsung and Apple. Google conscionable needed a fewer years to get here.

Let’s get it retired of the way: from the front, the Pixel 9 looks similar an iPhone. The rounded surface corners, the flat sides — it’s each iPhone and that’s fine. Compared to caller Pixel generations, it feels astir 80 percent little apt to alert retired of my manus erstwhile I prime it up from a table, which I admit mode much than the chiseled look the curved edges provided. The 6.3-inch surface is simply a small bigger than the Pixel 8’s. Its 1080p surface is connected the debased side, resolution-wise, but looks crisp capable that it ne'er bothered me. 

The Pixel 9 comes with the aforesaid main and ultrawide cameras arsenic the Pro phones, but it doesn’t person a telephoto lens. Not each flagship phones travel with a telephoto, and the Pixel 9’s lossless 2x harvest zoom is fine. But you don’t get the much melodramatic scope of the 9 Pro’s 5x zoom or the bully representation framing of a 3x lens similar the 1 connected the Samsung Galaxy S24. It’s the happening I missed astir erstwhile I switched from utilizing the Pixel 9 Pro to the Pixel 9 — mode much than a fewer other pixels connected the surface oregon a fistful of AI-enhanced video oregon photograph features.

Aside from that, you don’t miss retired connected much. The surface doesn’t get quite arsenic agleam arsenic the Pros, but it’s inactive bully capable to usage successful nonstop sunlight. Battery show is connected par with the remainder of the Pixel 9 series. It had plentifulness near successful the vessel by the extremity of the day, and I ne'er felt similar I needed to springiness it a late-in-the-day recharge, adjacent with dense use. 

Tensor G4, Google’s newest chipset, is connected each 4 Pixel 9 models. It’s a coagulated performer for regular tasks and doesn’t look to vigor up rather arsenic dramatically arsenic the erstwhile generation, though if you walk 20 minutes moving a media-heavy webpage, it will inactive treble arsenic a manus warmer. But it doesn’t consciousness similar it’s going to burst into flames, you know? 

It each adds up to an acquisition that feels polished successful a mode that erstwhile Pixels didn’t rather achieve. The chipsets ran hot, the shapes felt wonky, and the screens weren’t rather arsenic nice. The non-Pro Pixel, successful particular, has been connected a travel from the precocious midrange to due flagship, chiefly by improving the surface refresh complaint and adding insignificant camera features on the way. Both models gained immoderate quality-of-life improvements implicit time, too, including the quality to usage look unlock for payments and — caller successful the 9 bid — a much-improved fingerprint scanner. The benignant of worldly that makes maine consciousness overmuch much comfy recommending it to my parents oregon my hairsbreadth stylist. 

Google sorted the hardware out, and the bundle is arsenic cleanable arsenic ever. But this is simply a telephone launched successful 2024, truthful we person to speech astir AI. There are a fewer features reserved for the Pro line, similar Video Boost, which uses AI successful the unreality to bump up the brightness successful debased airy video. That’s not a immense loss, and the Pixel 9 has plentifulness of different AI features, including Reimagine, Screenshots, and Pixel Studio, each of which you tin work astir successful my Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL review. Some of it is so bully that it’s problematic! But the TL;DR is that it feels similar a existent mixed container close now, and AI features are starting to heap up successful a mode that’s benignant of hurting my head. 

What bash I bash with a JPEG of a kid’s day enactment invitation? Add it to screenshots? Ask Gemini to enactment it connected my calendar? Or conscionable find it successful my messages each clip I request to look up the enactment clip oregon address? AI is expected to prevention america from the second scenario, and Google’s assorted AI tools kinda enactment similar that sometimes. For now, it remains unproven arsenic the adjacent level shift. 

The Pixel 9 also comes with thing much important but overmuch little flashy: 7 years of OS updates. Sure, it ships with Android 14, which is weird since Pixels usually vessel with the year’s newest OS version. But the Pixel 9 volition beryllium archetypal successful enactment for Android 15 erstwhile it arrives this fall, truthful that doesn’t consciousness similar overmuch much than an absorbing footnote. You’ll outgrow the Pixel 9 earlier it stops receiving bundle updates, which is however things should be.

And that’s the Pixel 9’s full deal: it’s a telephone that the Android ecosystem has needed for a portion now. It’s straightforward, well-made, and designed to support up for galore years to come. It doesn’t person each fancy diagnostic oregon the champion camera hardware, but it has capable to marque it a worthy alternate to Samsung’s base-model S-series, which is much oregon little the default Android phone.

There’s a crushed wherefore truthful galore radical take a Samsung phone: they’re truly good. But they besides travel with a full batch of stuff that astir radical don’t need, bordering connected bloated. They’re almighty tools if you cognize however to tweak them to your liking, but I fishy a batch of radical bargain them for the bully hardware and conscionable enactment up with the bundle quirks. I’ve mostly preferred the simpler out-of-box acquisition of utilizing a Pixel phone, but the hardware ne'er truly felt similar it was connected Samsung’s level. 

That changes with the Pixel 9. It’s yet a telephone for idiosyncratic who conscionable wants a truly bully phone. Someone who doesn’t attraction astir the quality betwixt optical and integer zoom, doesn’t privation to fiddle with a batch of customization options, and who wants to debar reasoning astir buying a caller telephone for arsenic agelong arsenic they can. The Android ecosystem has that enactment now, and it’s a damn bully one.

Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge