Review: Google Pixel 9 - slimmed-down everyday phone

Google's new Pixel family consists of four phones, with the Pixel 9 being the cheapest. That doesn't mean it's a cheap phone, as it still costs almost 11,000 kronor in its cheapest version. Rather, it should be compared to the Samsung Galaxy S24 or iPhone 15, the base model in a family with several premium options.

The similarity to the iPhone 15 is particularly striking, even in design. Just like it, we have a straight frame with rounded edges and a flat screen and glass back. Just like the iPhone 15, the glass back is glossy and the frame is matte when it's the opposite on the Pro model.

The camera island, however, is something unique, a wide plate that protrudes unabashedly and goes across the entire phone, making it sit steadily on the table. I haven't liked the design of previous Pixel models at all, but this time I'm sold; the combination of soft curves and hard edges works for me. The phone also feels comfortable in the hand.

No longer the most convenient

With the Pixel 9 family, Google has for the first time made a compact Pro model. The dimensions of the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro are identical, even though the Pixel 9 Pro has an extra camera. Previously, the regular Pixel model was the option for those who wanted a compact phone, now you have to look for other reasons to choose Pixel 9 over Pixel 9 Pro.

One is that it is cheaper, of course, 2500 kronor cheaper. On the other hand, the Pixel 9 Pro includes a year of Google One AI with Gemini Advanced and 2 TB of storage, which normally costs 255 kronor per month. If this is something you were planning to pay for anyway, the Pixel 9 Pro is actually cheaper.

What do you miss if you choose Pixel 9 instead of Pixel 9 Pro? Mainly the telephoto camera with five times optical zoom found in the Pixel 9 Pro. Pixel 9 also has a slightly cheaper screen, and 12 gigabytes of RAM instead of 16 gigabytes. You also miss out on a couple of special features that we will get to.

But if we start with the screen, it is by no means a bad screen. At first, I think it's a bit sluggish, it turns out to be because it was preset to a 60 Hz refresh rate. When I switch to 120 Hz, it feels just as smooth as I expect. Compared to the screen on the Pixel 9 Pro, the Pixel 9 can only adjust the screen speed between 60 and 120 Hz, not slower as the Pixel 9 Pro can. This might possibly affect battery consumption, especially if you have the always-on display enabled, but hardly the user experience. The slightly lower screen resolution is also not something I notice. The Pixel 9 has slightly thicker black bezels around the screen than the Pixel 9 Pro, but you have to have the phones side by side to notice it.

The only time I think about the Pixel 9 Pro having a better screen is when I use the phones in direct sunlight. Then it's noticeable that the Pixel 9 Pro has higher maximum brightness in the screen, but the screen on the Pixel 9 manages okay as well.

According to Google, the Pixel 9 is 50 percent as durable as its predecessor, the Pixel 8, but it's unclear what they mean by that. The water resistance is still class IP68, meaning the phone can withstand rain and often falling into water.

The Pixel 9 is equipped with stereo speakers with really good and balanced sound, making it enjoyable to, for example, watch movies with the speakers.

Same performance

The Pixel 9 is powered by the Tensor G4 chipset, with no difference from the Pro models. Google's chipset does not perform at the top in our performance tests, actually not even at the level of last year's top models for the most part, but it is surprisingly little noticeable in practice. Google has refined the user experience, and apps start quickly, as do tabs in the browser. However, they don't seem to be as good as competitors at power management, and my impression is that the battery in the phone drains faster than it should.

Looking at the cameras, we have a main camera with 50 megapixels, apparently with the same sensor as last year's Pixel 8. The wide-angle camera, however, is new and better, with 48 megapixels and autofocus. We are without a telephoto camera here, but the phone can still take pictures with two times zoom at a higher resolution thanks to the extra pixels that the main sensor has.

When I take photos with the cameras, I think the Pixel 9 generally takes excellent pictures with good sharpness and natural colors. In images with high contrast, I find they lean towards the dark side with underexposed areas. It's a matter of taste whether that's good or bad. The camera also has excellent light sensitivity for night photography and a really good panorama function that is new and improved in this model. I am not as impressed with the portrait mode, which I feel does not do a completely good job of distinguishing the subject from the background, and the artificial blur on the background therefore looks just artificial.

The front camera on the Pixel 9 is a bit simpler than in the Pixel 9 Pro, with 10.5 megapixels, but compared to the Pixel 8, it has gained autofocus. Most people probably prefer a selfie camera that is a bit forgiving and smoothing over one that captures every detail in the skin.

Missing AI Features

For Google, the Pixel 9 family is the platform to showcase what they can do in artificial intelligence, and this is where we encounter problems. It's not so much that the Pixel 9 is limited compared to the Pro; there are a couple of AI features that are only available in the Pro, such as zoom enhance and video boost, but these are features that don't impress me to begin with. The problem is rather that so many of the features are missing for Swedish users. This has been the case with Pixel since Google launched the phones in Sweden for the first time with Pixel 7. Google has consistently said that they are working on translating the missing features into Swedish, but still, two years later, we lack most of the features that were absent with Pixel 7. Therefore, we should not have high expectations of Google's statement that they are working to bring the missing features to Sweden as soon as possible.

This year, however, it is especially painful because many of the features are actually quite impressive, and only a small few of them are available on the Pixel 9 in Sweden. I count 13 high-profile AI features that Google highlights in its presentation. Of these, only four are available on the Pixel 9 in Sweden. Two are completely missing, and the remaining seven can be made to work, but only if you switch the language on the phone or app to English. In my test of the Pixel 9 Pro and Pro XL, I go through these features in more detail, feel free to read that test as well, here I will just go through the features that actually exist and work. But among the missing features are the screenshot app that can interpret information in the image and make it searchable in the system, the AI image creator Studio, the ability to conduct an AI conversation with Gemini Live, and the ability to have a phone call summarized in text form.

Among the features that actually work, we have already mentioned panoramic photography. Add Me is a camera feature where you can take a group photo with everyone included by first having one person take a picture, and then another person takes over and takes another picture that is merged into an image where everyone is included. The user interface is good, but the result is not entirely convincing.

Auto frame is a feature that Google explains poorly but works best as a way to salvage pictures that have failed because the camera was held at an angle or something was accidentally cropped out of the picture. Auto Frame straightens and fills in what is missing with artificial intelligence. With varying success. Overall, AI photo editing still feels like a gimmick rather than something genuinely useful, and Pixel 9 does not change that impression.

Audio Magic Eraser is a feature that is a bit more potentially useful. You edit a video and the artificial intelligence separates out different types of sounds, from different people speaking to various types of background noise. Then you can adjust the volume or completely remove the different sound components. This can of course save a video where you can't hear what someone is saying, but don't expect it not to sound like the audio has been tampered with, it often ends up sounding processed.

So, there isn't much left of Google's boastful artificial intelligence features for us Swedish users. Instead, we have a nice and compact mobile that can be well compared to the iPhone 15 or Samsung Galaxy S24, and fills roughly the same niche for those who want the latest but not necessarily the very best. Whether this makes the Pixel 9 an actually worthwhile alternative to the Pixel 9 Pro is not entirely clear.

Questions and Answers

Is there any other feature you miss in Pixel 9 compared to Pro? The Pro series also has a thermometer that can be used to measure the temperature of liquids, solid objects, and people by holding the phone close to what you are measuring.

Can you get Gemini Live on Pixel 9 if you set the language to English in Gemini? No, but yes. Gemini Live is part of Google One AI, where a one-year subscription is included with Pixel 9 Pro but not with Pixel 9. However, if you subscribe separately, you can have a dialogue with Google's AI in English in the Gemini app just like on Pixel 9 Pro.

Is the Reimagine function available in Swedish? Reimagine, where you select a part of an image and then add or change with a text prompt, according to Google, only supports English at present. However, it works in Swedish on our test phones.

An alternative

Samsung Galaxy S24 offers you a similar camera setup and advanced AI-based image editing features, and also a third camera with three times optical zoom. Galaxy S24 also weighs less, but Pixel 9 has a slightly sharper main camera.

Camera example

The camera takes sharp pictures with nice colors, but sometimes they feel a bit underexposed.