It’s hard to recommend the Pixel 9 series with the Tensor chip. It’s like selling the Thar Roxx at Rs 25 lakh with a Jimny engine. Would you buy it? NO! Same goes for the Pixel 9 series.
These are not my thoughts. These are the thoughts of my fellow blogger and YouTuber Nirmal, as shared on X. But I think this is probably the best way I could have expressed my opinions on the Pixel 9 series as well. More so because of the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL as it is the most expensive of the three models in the new range.
While I had a lot of fun using the phone and the experience was quite pleasant, the performance of the Tensor chipset makes it really difficult to recommend the phone, especially at the price it launched at.
I’ve already tried to convey that in my first impressions of the Google Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro XL, but now that I’ve used the latter for another two weeks, I’m in a better position to share my thoughts and understand who this phone is for. Since I’ve already covered performance in detail, I’ll focus primarily on the Pixel 9 Pro XL’s camera and AI capabilities, which are its main strengths.
Camera: Excellent, but no longer the best
In the past, there have been times when Pixel phones have really surprised me with their camera capabilities. Even the affordable A-series could put flagship phones to shame when it came to still photography. The Pixel 9 Pro XL will likely rank among the best camera phones this year, but it didn’t leave the same impact on me. Blame it on increased competition or a lack of innovation, but Pixel phones don’t seem to be that far ahead of the competition in terms of still photography capabilities.
The two phones that come closest to the Pixel 9 Pro XL are the Samsung Galaxy S24 and the Vivo X100 Pro. In fact, try the latter and you’ll be surprised. Still, this doesn’t make the Pixel 9 Pro XL an inferior camera phone.
It continues to offer a solid combination of good hardware and notable software capabilities. There’s a 50-megapixel main camera assisted by a 48-megapixel periscopic telephoto sensor with 5x optical zoom and a 48-megapixel ultra-wide sensor. The selfie camera has received a significant upgrade from 10.5 megapixels on the Pixel 8 Pro to 42 megapixels on the Pixel 9 Pro XL. The real magic lies in the software tricks which I’ll talk about in a minute, but first some quick thoughts on overall camera performance.
The Pixel 9 Pro XL is a fantastic everyday device. You can pull it out of your pocket, snap a photo, and expect fantastic photos with balanced exposure, good colors, and near-perfect detail. Photos taken in daylight are sharp, accurate, and pleasing.
The main camera’s color management is also brilliant. I’ve taken photos in different conditions (a sunny afternoon, a cloudy morning, a gloomy evening) and the colors are consistent across all conditions.
Portrait shots are generally very good, with a good depth of field, good edge detection, and accurate facial tones. However, there were a few glitches from time to time. In one case, the camera blurred my shirt from the shoulder up.
Additionally, the camera only supports portrait shots at 1x and 2x magnifications, despite the phone having a 5x optical zoom. This is something I haven’t seen before and definitely shouldn’t have been the case.
Otherwise, the telephoto sensor is fantastic. Photos at 2x, 3x, and 5x zoom came out very well. You can also get decent photos at 30x, but the Galaxy S24 Ultra does better in that department.
Thanks to the relatively larger size of the main camera, low-light shots also have an excellent level of detail. I took several photos in extremely dark conditions and the camera managed to do a good job without overexposing areas.
Selfies are surprisingly good. They have excellent detail and bokeh. Some of the selfies I took with the Pixel 9 Pro XL can easily be mistaken for images from the rear camera. So, overall, this is a great camera system. It’s reliable, consistent, and offers a lot of flexibility. The only thing is, as I mentioned before, many other flagship phones can do all of that too.
What they can’t do, though, at least for now, is stitch two images together to make one. First up is the Add Me feature, which, as the name suggests, adds you or a friend to an image so that no one misses out on that great happy group photo. It’ll be interesting to see if this leads to fewer selfies in the future. At present, the feature works great in simple situations. I think it will definitely get better over time and it’s a great feature to have on your phone.
The other interesting feature of the camera is Zoom Enhancement, which allows you to improve the quality of zoomed shots. The difference in most images is not easily noticeable, but again, it is a nice feature.
More about AI
Every year, Pixel phones feel like AI phones, and Google adds new features to them. The Pixel 9 Pro XL is packed with features like Pixel Studio, Reimagine, and more. All of these features and more are powered by Gemini, which has had an interesting year so far.
Most of the cool stuff is still on the creative side. For example, the new Pixel Studio lets you create images from text right on your phone. And it’s very fast. You can choose from different styles, and the results are pretty impressive. However, Google will still have to make it more culturally relevant over time. Plus, it doesn’t generate humans for now. I understand the logic behind this, but even that capability has to come at some point for it to be a full-fledged solution.
There’s also an amazing update to the weather app. I travel a lot for work, which means I always have an eye on the weather. The revamped app is packed with tons of information and data. It offers an AI-generated weather report at the top with daily data about the location. It just makes life easier.
The Magic Editor is back, too. It lets you remove people from photos, move subjects, and even blur images. But the two cool new features are Reimagine and Auto Frame. The former lets you select a portion of the image and reimagine it using text prompts. It works really well, and is a reminder of how AI is bridging the gap between the real and the generated. The Auto Frame feature basically lets you expand or shrink your photos to make them more aesthetically pleasing.
The question is, how many phone users actually need these features? Not everyone is a creator or designer and doesn’t need a tool on their phone to generate images, right? However, they have to pay an extra price to get them. That’s why I think a lot of people might think twice about buying this year’s Pixel phones. A big reason for that would also be performance.
The tensioner needs work
I completely understand Google’s decision to move to its own Tensor chipsets. However, if it wants to sell phones, it really needs to improve its performance. The Tensor G4 that powers the Pixel 9 Pro XL doesn’t bring any significant improvements over last year’s Pixel 8 Pro. Its AnTuTu and Geekbench scores are significantly lower than its Galaxy S24 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro competitors. It was completely exposed in our CPU throttling test, and it also gets warm after a few minutes of gaming.
Overall, I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything. The phone felt snappy, had fluid animations, loaded apps quickly, and even AI tasks were done in seconds. For example, Pixel Studio took less than a minute to generate images.
Another drawback this year is that Google has shipped the phone with Android 14, rather than Android 15. So not only is the phone running older software, but it also takes away a year of updates. Is that a big deal? I don’t think so. The Pixel 9 Pro XL will get 7 years of OS updates anyway, meaning it will be fine for a long time.
The battery is slightly better than the Pixel 8 Pro, at 5060 mAh. Optimization is also good. I could notice improvements when clicking photos and watching videos, things that will dominate the use of the phone.
Most days, I could go all day without charging the phone, and that’s a good thing. Since Google doesn’t ship the phone with an adapter, the charging speed will depend entirely on the type of charger you use.
I’ve started to like the design.
At first, I wasn’t too impressed with the design of the Pixel 9 series. I felt like the new phones looked too much like iPhones. However, the design seems to have won me over in recent weeks. I like that the display is now larger, at 6.8 inches. It’s nice to have more room to work with. The phone is also comfortable to hold and use, thanks to the flat frame.
If you prefer compact or smaller phones, I would recommend the Pixel 9 or 9 Pro. Both of these also fit more easily in your pocket. The build quality is also incredible. The phone feels sturdy and durable. It has an IP68 rating and Gorilla Glass 2 Victus protection.
The display looks spectacular. It has vibrant colors and a crisp resolution for watching videos. It’s a 6.8-inch 1.5K LTPO OLED panel that varies between 1 and 120 Hz refresh rate with 3,000 nits of peak brightness. I was able to use it comfortably on a sunny afternoon in Alwar or inside my office in Delhi.
The best of Google, but still difficult to recommend
It’s clear that the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL has a lot going for it. The cameras are among the best in the segment, the AI features work flawlessly, and the software is as good as ever. The overall Gemini experience sets the Pixel 9 Pro XL apart from its rivals. However, it’s hard to recommend the phone because it still needs to improve its performance and it comes in at Rs 125,000, making it one of the most expensive ultra-premium phones around.
AI features are slowly making their way into all phones. Like it or not, you’ll get them on the iPhone 16 series, they’re already present on the S24 series, and they’ll get better with the S25 series. So is the Pixel 9 Pro XL really that different? Plus, both iPhones and Galaxy S series devices offer better performance, even on the current generation.
If you’re still in shock and want to buy the Pixel 9 Pro XL for the best AI phone experience, I’d say wait for the price to drop, because it will soon. That’s when you should play your cards right.
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