After two weeks with the Google Pixel 9, it’s clear this phone packs a serious punch. With its sleek design, powerhouse camera, and smart software tricks, it sets high expectations—and the price tag follows suit. Starting at Rs 79,999 for the 256GB model, it’s about just Rs 4,000 more than its predecessor, the Pixel 8, placing it right alongside the Samsung Galaxy S24 and iPhone 15 in the premium league. So, is it worth the upgrade? Let’s find out if the Pixel 9 is your next perfect match in this review.
In This Article
Google Pixel 9 Review: Design and Display
This year’s Pixel phones feature a more finely crafted form and exquisite finishes; they have been entirely redesigned. The new Pixel 9 has an attractive, sculpted design with more rounded edges and a flat glass front and back.
The glass protection has also changed; it is now Gorilla Glass Victus 2, which covers the front and back of the device. The sleek, refined form feels fantastic in the hand, too. Additionally, it has a somewhat thicker build and a bigger battery. A pill-shaped camera bar has now taken the place of the rear camera visor and is still positioned horizontally across the back panel. From a distance, you can still identify it as a Pixel even with the updated camera bar design.
The hue porcelain, which is something of a milky white, is what we have. You are well aware of our fondness for white, despite the fact that it is more likely to get dirty. The warm white tone is absolutely lovely.
The Pixel 9 seems incredibly well-built and comfortable to hold. It still has the IP68 rating from the model from last year, and it seems sturdy. Indeed, its form factor is more appealing to us than the earlier Pixel phones. To be honest, we’ve developed an affection for the huge horizontal camera bar on the rear of the Pixel 9, which stands out due to its metallic finish.
We loved how we could rest some of the weight of the phone on our index finger while using it, and because the bar reaches all the way across, there is no table wobbling, only a slight slant.
The Pixel 9’s back panel is made of polished Gorilla Glass Victus 2 and features a Google logo in the centre. The right frame has power and volume controls, a microphone, a USB Type-C connector, a speaker grille, a SIM card slot, and another microphone. There are no buttons or ports on the left side.
Overall, we believe Google did a fantastic job designing the Pixel 9. It doesn’t seem like a compromise and has a very comparable appearance to the premium Pixel 9 Pro.
The Pixel 9 has a 6.3-inch Actua OLED display with a resolution of 1,080 x 2,424 pixels. The screen’s refresh rate varies between 60 and 120 Hz. In addition, the panel has a maximum brightness of 2,700 nits and a pixel density of 422 ppi.
Google’s Pixel 9 boasts a slightly bigger 6.3-inch display, making it taller than the Pixel 8’s (Review) 6.1-inch screen. It remains quite pleasant to grasp and operate with one hand. The front bezels are now uniform all around, with a hole-punch cutout in the middle.
Not all phones in this price range (like the iPhone 15) have an OLED panel display with full-HD+ resolution and a refresh rate of 120 Hz for fluid and seamless animations. Additionally, as said, it has a peak brightness of 2,700 nits, which is 35% higher than the Pixel 8 (Review). Even outside in the daylight, we can clearly see the screen. Excellent colour output, contrast, and HDR video quality are all provided by the Pixel 9, which supports Widevine L1 certifications in addition to HDR10 and HDR10+.
The Google Pixel 9 can be unlocked quickly and is reliable thanks to the ultrasonic in-display fingerprint reader, which replaces the optical one featured on the earlier model. However, we wish this feature could function even when the display is off, like on the S24, so you could simply rest your finger on the phone to unlock it. The Pixel 9 requires you to wake the screen before you can rest your finger to unlock it.
Google Pixel 9 Review: Performance and Cameras
Now, how has the performance been? The Pixel 9 is powered by the new 4nm Tensor G4 chipset, which comes with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The new SoC allows many of the newest AI features.
Also Read: Google Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro XL launched in India: Pricing and Specs
While the Tensor G4 does not significantly outperform the G3, it does place a strong emphasis on increased specifications for enhanced AI capabilities. Well, this phone has 50% more RAM (12GB) and a bigger battery. Although we are aware that the Pro has 16GB of RAM in comparison, 12GB is still a tremendous amount, and even their connectivity and ratings remain the same after that. The variations are barely noticeable until we discuss displays, although not in an unfavourable sense.
Initially, we believed that the Pixel 9 had larger bezels than the Pixel 9 Pro, but in reality, they are identical, sharing the same 120Hz refresh rate, too. The regular model achieves up to 2,700 nits of peak brightness, making the Pro just 300 nits brighter than it. Indeed, the Pro model has a slightly higher resolution of 495 PPI compared to 422 PPI, but we are confident that you won’t notice the difference. Other than that, the display fulfils all your expectations for a flagship display, including colour and viewing clarity. With Pixel 9, you’ll be perfectly fine. And yes, even the experience with the speakers is wonderful.
Smooth and polished is how we describe our Pixel 9 experience. Not a stutter or lag exists. It simply seems clean and fluid even though the smartphone is running vanilla Android 14, not 15. Without a lot of fancy features, it is just fun to use. Additionally, we were rather fond of the OS’s many, delicate vibrations and haptic feedback. The phone just seems more active as a result, and the AI functions also benefit from it. In general, Gemini—the replacement for Google Assistant—performs well at breaking down enquiries about various subjects into smaller, more manageable chunks and provides quick answers in a pleasant voice.
Additionally, we frequently utilised Circle to Search to find anything on screen, such as a product in a video. The day’s weather report may be seen in a line or two with the help of AI weather.
Then there are other AI elements, like the Pixel Studio app, that are more fun than practical. This allows you to use keywords to generate any AI image. Nevertheless, this function does not permit creating or modifying images of humans, despite the fact that the results are really stunning and created amazingly quickly. Add captions, remove an object, and do a lot more. Not only can you add stickers, but by highlighting a specific area of an image, you may create your own custom sticker.
You may express your creativity using the Reimagine feature in Magic Editor by simply describing what you want in a text box and watching your thoughts come to life. The addition of the new screenshots app, which we really ought to utilise more of, is equally great.
Next, if you own Gemini Advanced, we have Gemini Live. Keep in mind that the Gemini Advance on the Pixel 9 is free to use for just one month; after that, you must pay around Rs 2,000; on the Pro models, however, you receive a free subscription for a full year.
That being said, it’s a very amazing feature. It allows for the use of voice, images, and text. Gemini responds to spoken requests with audio. It seems like you are conversing naturally; everything about the procedure is so easy to use that you won’t even realise you are speaking with an AI assistant. Furthermore, after speaking, there’s no need to hit Enter. Additionally, you may use Gemini to make comparisons or write a summary of an article or movie so you can quickly grasp the main points.
The first drawback is that this is the first Pixel phone to not come pre-installed with the most recent version of Android. Call it a planning issue, but Google has consistently released its phone immediately following an Android software upgrade. We’re not sure if those seven years of support actually only include six when taking Android 15 into consideration, but we’ll see. The most important thing is that you will receive updates on this and other supported Pixels first.
Now, let’s discuss the camera. The Pixel 9 has two cameras on its back: a 48MP Quad PD ultrawide lens with a 1/2.55-inch sensor and an 8x Super Res Zoom, as well as a 50MP Octa PD wide-angle main camera with an image sensor size of 1/1.31-inch and an 8x Super Res Zoom. The camera unit has several AI features, including Magic Eraser, Best Take, Photo Unblur, and Night Sight. At 24, 30, or 60 frames per second, 4K video can be recorded using it.
The fact that the primary and ultra-wide cameras on the Google Pixel 9 are identical to those on the Pros truly satisfies us. Pixel phones are known for their camera quality, and the Pixel 9 is no exception. The image quality is excellent, exhibiting the traditional pixel contrast and true-to-life quality that so many of us find appealing. It exposes photos exactly correctly and has an extremely high dynamic range. Additionally, skin tones are quite precise and natural.
The new ultra-wide lens is four times sharper than the Pixel 8, and we can see a significant difference. In low-light conditions, it maintains more details and exhibits noise. We enjoy how comparable the ultra-wide and primary lenses are in terms of quality. This simplifies switching between the two and allows us to utilise the ultra-wide lens more frequently. It is also better for macro photography since it has a depth that other phones lack.
While the Pixel 9 lacks a telephoto lens, the primary lens supports 2x and 4x crop settings. The 2x zoom is very useful for portraiture and product photography.
The selfie camera remains unchanged, producing acceptable overall results but not particularly strong details. Selfies and portraits are often attractive; you do not lose focal length.
The Pixel 9 records 4K at 60 fps video with the same excellent colour and lighting quality as photographs. It does, however, produce more noise and jitter when dealing with fast-moving objects. The video quality is nice, but not as good as the iPhone’s. Compared to the Pro model, there is no 8K upgrade, nor is there improved colour, lighting, or stabilisation. In low-light situations, it is obvious that it will contribute too much grain to darker parts, but with proper lighting, the video looks fantastic.
The pro shooting features, including long exposure and action pan, are extremely interesting, especially at night.
AI is becoming an increasingly important feature in phones, particularly on the Pixel. In photographs, you can use AI to remove, move, and add elements, allowing you to virtually reimagine sections of the image, replace the sky, or modify the hue. The results may vary, but when done correctly, they may be pretty compelling. This feature is known as image enhancement, and the effects are really surreal.
You may also expand a photo to rotate it or add more details around the edges, and you can even add people to a group photo to get everyone in the image, including the photographer.
Coming to how it manages heat dissipation, it has been a major issue with previous Pixel phones. The good news is that this did not heat up too much, although it got warm when setting up and using the camera for more than two or three minutes. And that little bit of heat is because the Vapor Chamber on the Pixel 9 Pros is missing from the standard Pixel 9, and it makes a significant impact. When compared to an earlier Pixel 8, the heating is slightly lower, but it is still an issue with this smartphone. Why Google?
With respect to battery life, the Google Pixel 9 has a bigger 4,700mAh battery. Based on our tests, we were able to get nearly all day of endurance, with around 25% of the battery left at the end of the day. This is equivalent to about six hours of screen time on the S24 and iPhone 15. When it comes to battery preservation during standby time, the Pixel 9 performs better than the other two. With that, a 30-minute charge will give you a 55 per cent battery, but a full charge will still take more than 1 and a half hours, which is what we would consider semi-fast. There is a wireless charging capability for the Pixel 9.
Verdict
In our opinion, the Pixel 9 is the first Pixel in which the company genuinely delivers on its promises. In many respects, this is the least pretentious launch the firm has ever done, since it is far more polished than we anticipated. If we compare this phone to the Pixel 9 Pro, the changes are insignificant. The base model is more elegant than before, yet somewhat heavier. When it comes to serving looks, Pixel 9 is in a league of its own.
Obviously, on a Pixel smartphone, you have advantages like Circle to Search and other AI features built in, but this leads to another great first. This is the first time that this phone has launched with almost all of the Google Services that were highlighted at the event.
Phone calls have been excellent, and the battery life has been unexpectedly decent for a small Pixel. Also, if you are a serious gamer, we do not recommend the Pixel because it is not the best option. We did a little bit of gaming, and we noticed that the highest graphics are not available on this.
Also Read: Google Pixel 9 Pro XL Review: A splash of AI magic
So, who is the Google Pixel 9 for? We really loved our time with the Pixel 9. This smartphone distinguishes itself with its distinct design, camera quality, and AI capabilities. Also, we don’t see much of a need to go for the Pixel 9 Pros, as this one provides much of the same for less. We have to admit that this is the strongest flagship killer the firm has ever produced.
By Here
PROS
- Stylish non-wobbly robust design
- Excellent camera quality
- Useful AI features
CONS
- Runs on Android 14 instead of 15
- Heating issue unresolved
- Not recommended for gaming
