Google Pixel 9 Pro full review



The Google Pixel 9 Pro is the is a new addition to the portfolio – it is a compact, full-featured flagship with all of the bells and whistles of its bigger XL sibling. Check out our video review to learn ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW about the phone’s top features, build and screen quality, battery life, performance, and camera image quality.

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https://www.gsmarena.com/google_pixel_9_pro-review-2745.php

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00:00 – Intro
00:33 – Design and build quality
01:17 – Display quality test
02:08 – Speaker quality test
02:35 – Under display fingerprint scanner & Storage options
02:53 – Android 14 & AI features
04:07 – Google Tensor G4
04:27 – Benchmarks and Thermal charts
04:43 – Battery life and charging speed test
05:19 – Main cameras
05:34 – Main camera: photo quality
06:25 – Telephoto camera: photo quality
06:49 – Ultrawide camera: photo quality
07:20 – Selfies
07:35 – Video quality, rear cameras
08:21 – Conclusion

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46 thoughts on “Google Pixel 9 Pro full review”

  1. Battery life has been fantastic with my use. I thought the battery life on my 13pro was good, and the 9Pro has been noticeably better (10-15% vs 30-40% EOD). That's comparing it to a 2 year old battery though, so we shall see how it holds up.

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  2. I ordered a Pixel 9 Pro just the other day and it should be here Monday or Tuesday. I wanted something to replace my Pixel 7 Pro, as I was running low on storage space, and wanted to go a little bit smaller in size. I thought about getting the Samsung Z-Flip 6, but I still have concerns about the durability of foldables/flip phones. Also, it's hard to leave all the Goggle software features once you've gotten used to them – Call Screening alone is almost worth the price of admission. So I pulled the trigger on a 512 GB Pixel 9 Pro, especially since Google was giving really good trade-in amounts on previous Google phones, which helped offset some of the cost.

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  3. It's generous of you to compare the Tensor G4 to SD8G3 phones when it's brutalized by 8G2 phones and even loses to 8G1 phones. Abysmal when the 8G4 is around the corner.

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  4. Google definitely knocked the design out of the park this year. My biggest complaint so far is how much dust the screen gathered comparing with other devices I've had. Whatever coating they used on the display gathers so much dust in my pocket it is ridiculous

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  5. I tested Google 9 Pro for a few days. And I decided not to keep it as my phone… I was very dissatisfied with too many things. Surprisingly for many, photography was the main complaint.

    I absolutely hate the UX/UI of the camera app in this phone (most of the complaints is the same for all Pixel phones). It does not allow SIMPLE way of adjusting exposure (you need to do too many clicks to adjust it) and it is crazy how such a crucial thing is never mentioned in the reviews. Moreover there is nothing like picture profiles which would allow me defining some presets. Once I adjust the parameters like brightness, shadows, color balance and leave the app for a moment, it all gets forgotten and I need to set it again. Moreover it is not possible to completely switch off HDR. And HDR is often horrible, making pictures very flat and very unnatural. Also color toning is sometimes very very very bad. Especially during golden hour or blue hour. It desperately tries to turn every sunset into dramatic red sunset and it looks totally artificial. Capturing in RAW does not help, it is the same mess. Also in many cases it forces the sky to be blue even in cases when it was gray (but Pixel 9 is significantly better than older Pixel 7, which was crazy and basically unusable because of this). Sharpening is also too artificially heavyhanded, resulting in unnatural rendering of small fragments like grass or foliage. I tried to unsharpen the pictures in postprocessing (not possible in Google Photos, needed to export the photos to computer) and then the pictures looked much better and more natural.

    So in my opinion, Pixel is lagging in photography very badly behind some other brands (especially the Chinese – Xiaomi, Vivo, Huawei). Yes, Google managed to tweak the photoprocessing in Pixels so that it scores well in DXO-mark so it scored very very high. They concentrated on every area which is measured by DXO and optimized it. But DXO does not measure two critical aspects: 1) how natural the pictures look 2) the features and UX of the photo app. And therefore these are the two areas that Pixel totally failed me. So Pixel may probably be good enough for a average and not very demanding mainstream point-shoot-share-and-forget type of consumer. But for an enthusiast photographer, Pixels are unfortunately very unsatisfactory, limiting and boring.

    Of course there are many more complaints about the UX of this phone… but I would probably get used to them over time. But that photography failures are no go for me.

    PS: I need to mention that I concentrate on nature and landscape photography only. Maybe for someone who does streetphotography, the conclusions would be different. It seems to me that too many reviewers do just some boring short walkaround the city during daylight and during nighttime and thats all. Just very very few actually do landscapes and nature topic, e.g. typical sunsets or the bluehour. That's why mobile phone manufacturers do not care about this area very much.

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  6. I like the google 8 much more. The 9 reminds me too much of the iphone and I'm not a fan of the new iphone, i'm mean google 9's edges. The Google 8 feels slimming, doesn't dig into your hand and I prefer the smaller corners on the screen. Still, everyone has their own preference 🙂

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  7. I hope Google start making normal phones but nnot a shitty one, which overheat, throttling, poor performance, cannot switch smoothly between cameras and shoot videos like a cheapest phones ever produced

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  8. I Love the Pixel 9 Series they are all the very Best, amazing phones and would not change anything about the Google Pixel 9. especially the design. The only downside though is that it came with Last years' Android 14 and wasn't pre installed with this years' version Android 15. — IF Google wanted to change the Made By Google Event for this year, Why didn't Google have Android 15 ready to come pre installed.

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  9. Has anybody else have had trouble getting this phone. Ordered one on eBay and was supposed to be delivered 2 weeks ago and so far nothing. Was told by the seller he's waiting on Google but when I ordered it was in stock

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