Every year, Google’s Pixel device hardware updates have felt underwhelming with small incremental changes, but this year’s Pixel 9 devices have minimal hardware updates accompanied by a $100 price increase. The new devices include the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro XL, and the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. The design has shifted to a more boxy aesthetic with flat backs and thinner bezels.The camera hump design has changed on the Pixel 9 Pro, now protruding from the back glass instead of a bar across the full back. The new devices have brighter screens, thinner bezels, and more colorful options. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold has a taller design with thicker bezels and a visible crease.The new phones run on the Tensor G4 chip, with mild performance improvements and unchanged base storage. The camera hardware remains mostly the same, with updates to front-facing cameras. The Pixel 9 Pro devices have 16GB of RAM, catering to Google’s AI endeavors like the “Add Me” camera feature and the “Pixel Screenshot” AI feature.The Pixel Screenshot feature allows users to search through screenshots with conversational prompts, though there are privacy concerns. The AI capabilities presented at the launch felt limited, leaving room for more features to be announced. The price of the devices makes sense considering the RAM and aggressive sale pricing, but the AI capabilities seem underbaked at the moment.Overall, the early thoughts on the Google Pixel 9 devices highlight the minimal hardware updates, improved design, and AI features that show potential but may need further development.
Every year when Google launches their pixel devices the hardware updates feel underwhelming like it’s just small incremental updates from the previous generation and we’re used to it. That’s just how the pixel devices have always been. But this year on the pixel 9 devices Google has outdone themselves. We now have arguably the least impressive Hardware bump we’ve ever seen on the pixels like it’s so minimal and yet it was accompanied with a $100 price increase across the board. So we started to discuss them. I had a little time with every new pixel gadget, including one new foldable and three slab phones.
Size of Pixel Phones:
There’s pixel 9 the pixel 9 pro and finally pixel 9 pro XL since the names around the three slab phones are a bit unclear. Though it is not some like extra huge pixel Pro, the XL is. Actually, though, we have always known with reference to size. It resembles the normal pixel Pro’s size from last year. Here is last year’s pixel 8 Pro; then, this year’s pixel 9 Pro XL are exactly the same size and even the screen sizes are somewhat similar between them.
Actually the new sized phone is pixel 9 Pro, a size not seen before but Google felt it was worth it to do. Here now is a smaller variant of the pixel Pro product. Though the screen on the pro is somewhat larger because it has thinner bezels, it is essentially exactly the same size as a pixel 9. This year’s design of the pixel 9 devices is slightly altered. They have a more boxy look, so the curved back that we observed on pixel 7 Pro as well as pixel 8 Pro is like not exactly the same but rather the kind of curved back idea that design is now gone and replaced with a flatback. Now, if you compare the previous generation to the pixel 9 Pro, the new pixel clearly appears more like iPhone in terms of just that flat back but it is still very pixel.
Camera Hump:
The main thing is this camera hump; now, if you look at the past two generations, the pixel 7 Pro and the pixel 8 Pro had a camera bar that ran across the whole back and this bar was like a part of the frame like this metal frame would come into the camera bar right. Over the past few years, the pixel devices have only had this iconic design.Though I believe it looks cleaner, the new pixel 9 Pro bar is gone like there just now and I find it less visually memorable than the past generations. A hump appears from that back glass.
Thickness:
Regarding thickness, the new pixel 9 Pro is really a bit thinner than the pixel 8 Pro. However, this might not seem like that on camera simply because the curve of the earlier phones just kind of creates an illusion of a thinner device; when you throw calipers on it, this is somewhat thinner as well as a somewhat heavier on the scale. The metal rail still has a polished appearance like prior generations; now the pro comes in a few colors and has a matte finish to that back glass. Still, I thought the pro device’s hazel hue looked very good. Its finish is like matte gray. The appearance of that the regular pixel 9’s like the non-pros have more colorful possibilities appeals to me. Thus, the two most fascinating colors for me are PE and the winter green. These are quite beautiful. Particularly the PE is like an extremely vivid pink, which is not what Google’s pixel devices usually offer.
Screen Size:
Looking at paper specs, the new screens are brighter than the previous generation; nonetheless, I found it really difficult to detect the differences when I was at that Google event. Apart now I think it was because of the lighting there it wasn’t bright enough for the displays to truly pop however I will say that the bezels are a little bit thinner this year and might I just add that they are even bezels around the whole device. Being honest is not a big deal, but it’s intriguing to me since Google never did it before on the pixel phones and it’s more costly to do well you got to acquire the flexible oleds that can wrap around like that.
Though it’s fascinating, the screen looks very good and you could use the dbrand glass product right up to the edge if you wish to guard it with tempered glass. The new pixel fold however rather than calling it pixel fold 2 is the pixel 9 device with the largest screen. Now it’s the pixel 9 Pro fold. The one thing they changed that astonished and honestly saddened me was that they altered the aspect ratio of the entire device, both the front screen and the internal screen, thinner than the original pixel fold and with a new Snappy hinge. Therefore, the original pixel fold was rather unusual, unlike most of the other foldables on the market especially the Samsung foldables; it was a more Stout and short device and you could readily manage that front screen. The new Pixel 9 Pro fold is somewhat less one-hand operable since it is taller and features a taller screen.
At this point, I would also remark that the bigger bezels and such the very obvious crease surprised me. such a 2024 foldable costing $1,800 at the base, I was not anticipating. I was hoping for something a little bit more u-to-date and they did show a new feature that you could play on the front screen to attract the attention of like a very young child or maybe some of the tension problems and you when the animation goes you can snap the picture. Though I have not observed this on other devices, it is a fairly similar circumstance that might be helpful for. At least not now.
Chip:
From Google the Tensor G4, all of these new phones will now run a fresh chip. Although I couldn’t Benchmark these things at the event, given all the leaks we have seen it seems like a quite small performance increase from the previous generation, maybe 10% better than the G3. Similar with storage, the type of Base storage for all these devices stays the same from the previous generation; most of the time, the camera hardware is also unaltered; notes like the front-facing cameras have been modified. Those should be better, and I believe the new chip has some fresh software features. All of this will be evaluated in the review; most of the time, camera hardware simply lacked significant changes on the major sensors.
Batterty:
At least on the slab phones, the battery sizes are fractionally greater than those of the previous generations. On the folding phone, however, they are really quite smaller. An ultrasonic fingerprint one should be far more dependable than the optical fingerprint sensors we have seen for years on Pixel smartphones.
Actually, the Ram size is the largest change—at least most fascinating—that I have noticed in hardware. Hence, the pixel 9 like the base normal pixel 9 that is not at 12 GB of RAM and the pixel 9 Pro devices have 16 GB of RAM, an insane amount of memory for a phone and the reason for all this Ram is because of Google’s AI Endeavours particularly through Google Gemini.
AI Features:
We swapped and it’s sort of neat how that first shot comes up as like a 3D object in the camera app so you can use it as direction to match off the framing and this is what we got all right. I tested it out with MADD huya and took the first photo. You good; go for it, buddy; it worked a little; we were pleasantly surprised to find some quite evident artifacting and some hover hand. For some, though, it was a nice solution that did solve an issue. It’s not for everyone. Though you do need to load the picture in like a 3D space when you’re shooting it so maybe that’s what the ram was for now. It’s a very nice case but it’s interesting. I do think the extra memory that’s on these devices helps be able to pull those off.
Like for people with smartphones that take a lot of screenshots here and there to either like remember something or if they’re just interested in something or just want to be able to recall it in the future, the other artificial intelligence feature they showed was much more fascinating to me. Usually that pile of screenshots just grows and if you ever need to recall something it’s just it’s very difficult to sort through all of th those screenshots and find the thing you’re looking for but with this new AI feature you can search through those screenshots with some conversational prompts.
And I tested a few times occasionally it worked rather well other times not so much but it’s like a very early beta right now. My first impression was this is neat. There’s actual value to something like this; right now, it’s all done on the device; but, Google now knows that you’re probably interested in those things. You know if you’re taking screenshots; thus, there is some privacy issue right now. Overall I think it’s great, but technically they have a really nice Avenue to just send you more targeted ads based on your screenshot collection. Then the second reaction I had was like wait a minute how is this the like the headlining feature of this new pixel phone launch like?
Isn’t there something more like this? The pixel 9 Pro devices feature a one-year subscription to Gemini; a phone with 16 GB of RAM and fourth generation tensor processor claimed to be amazing for machine learning. Advance like there is a lot of AI capacity here; this is like come on there’s got to be something more.
Now I spoke with the attendees of the Google event at the pre-briefing; they seemed to agree that further features would be revealed during the launch but why weren’t they highlighted ahead of time? My impression right now is that many of things aren’t ready. Many of the things are sort of like Google right the way they kind of Brew things over time and then release it. I do take back that I find it surprising that the phone is as costly as it is truly. Just based on the RAM, the price kind of makes sense to me; you know the way Google does aggressive sale pricing and other things, but what doesn’t make sense to me is just how restricted the AI capabilities they exhibited seemed to be immediately out of the gate. Right now it seems like this is simply a little underbaked; nevertheless, over time I hope this becomes fantastic. Anyways, I wanted you guys to have fun with the Google pixel 9 ideas early on.
