So the Pixel 9 continues the industry trend to market primarily on Artificial Intelligence features and capability. Google Gemini, Add Me, Screenshots, Pixel Studio, etc. I'm of the mind that AI things are interesting, and can be fun, but there is too much mud in the water as far as the morality of how these companies have obtained their datasets that kind of puts a damper on the whole thing for me, and this is the biggest issue in the Image generation side of the whole AI generative content thing. But my personal feelings on all that aside, the Pixel 9 is a solid new entry in the Pixel lineup, and this years entry feels far more like a flagship device than they have in years past.

I love the matte finish on the frame, but wish they would have continued that with the back glass like they did on the pro models. The smooth back glass feels slippery, almost greasy, and that sucks because otherwise the phone looks amazing. and makes me feel like a skin, or case is almost mandatory to keep it from feeling like dropping it is an inevitability rather than a bad handling issue.

Performance wise we aren't really looking at any major gains from last year, but we did get increased ram, mainly to handle those AI workloads on device. Add Me, in the camera, being probably the most interesting if you remember that it's there after the initial novelty wears off. This lets you, as the name suggests, add yourself to group photos in instances where you don't have someone outside the group to take the picture or have a reliable way to prop the device up and use a timer. It's also just interesting in that you can just use it to take pictures that can't exist, like a picture of yourself, hanging out with, yourself... Good fun nonsense. But I feel like this is less of an AI feature and more of an editing feature that's automated?

Contrary to the popular opinion from what I have seen others saying, I happen to like the screenshots app. Keeping my screenshots out of my photo gallery, and separated out and indexed in a clean and easy to navigate way is nice, an added bonus being if your pulling up a screenshot to show someone, and they accidentally swipe or back out there's no chance of them seeing the nonsense photos you have taken as well, so that's a fringe benefit. If you know, you know.

We get the same main cameras as the Pro this time minus the telephoto one, and that means not losing out on camera quality, though the pro still gets the better front facing camera, so if your big into the selfie game, you might still prefer that one. I myself don't tent to take pictures of myself, so no loss for me. Overall the camera quality is good, though the sometimes can look a little over processed to me, sometimes a little too sharp, but still good quality, and I don't think it will make your pictures look bad on your insta.

For mobile gamers, sorry to say, your still getting left out. The latest Snapdragon in competing phones still puts this to shame, that isn't to say you can't game here, but your not going to be putting the settings on Max in every game you try, CoD Mobile runs well though, I myself do not game on my phone that often, I have plenty of other devices for that, and the few mobile games I do play, I tend to play on a tablet because my eyes suck and a smaller phone screen doesn't let me enjoy the experience as much as I'd like.

Overall the Pixel 9 is a nice phone, I think the focus on AI is more of a detractor from the phones general premium feel and smooth operation. There's a lot to like here, it's been a joy to use, and coverage is generally pretty good in my area, but I've not had any signal quality issues, dropped calls, or other problems of note. So if your looking for a clean android experience with a solid camera and smooth performance with a longer software support cycle than most, the Pixel 9 is a pretty good choice.

This Google Pixel 9 is a great option versus other phones out in the marketplace. (Sorry iPhones). I am a long-time Pixel user and am very pleased with the upgrade to the 9, especially regarding the battery life. I use my phone all day and it lasts until night. I previously have had the Pixel 2, Pixel 4, and most recently the Pixel 7. My husband has had the Pixel 3, 5, 7 Pro, and currently has the Pixel 8. My children have iPhones for comparison. I do prefer the camera on the Pro versions versus the standard pixels, but given that I only use it for social life, I really don't need an upgrade to a more expensive phone that can zoom in or with super clarity that the pro has. The Pro version of Pixel cameras to me is on par with an iPhone for regular shots. The 9 is slightly less on clarity/crispness, but has really good editing options vs iPhone. The 9 is slightly smaller than my 7 was, but is fairly negligible, and closer to what the 5 is. The corners are more rounded which was a nice design versus the squared off style of the 7 as I think it makes it more durable when dropped. I really enjoy this brand of phone, the newest editing feature for pictures includes an option where you can edit yourself into a group shot, which is always the hardest part about being a mom taking photos and never being in the picture yourself. Setup of the phone was extremely easy coming from another Google Pixel. It let me choose if I wanted to use a physical SIM card or convert my SIM to a digital version. It comes with the charging cord but not the charging block, so one thing to be aware of is the need for a C compatible charging block. One thing that really sets apart the Google phone from some other options on the market is the ability to completely split your personal versus work profiles. That is one reason my husband sticks with the Pixel because it keeps everything completely separate for IT management permissions.

Being a digital creator means I’ve got my phone on me at all times to capture content, take notes, take calls, and do research. The Google Pixel 9 is the fourth Pixel phone I’ve had over the years and so far it does not disappoint. Whether I’m capturing footage at events for my small business or being the designated photographer at a friend’s party, I’m always ready with my trusty Google Pixel phone. Not only am I regularly using my phone to capture good footage for multiple social media accounts, I also listen to plenty of music, audio books, and videos throughout my day. Having a reliable phone with a good camera and a long-lasting battery is a must. The Pixels improve every year, and the Pixel 9 is offering a newer processor, higher quality camera, and 12GB RAM (an improvement on the Pixel 8’s 8GB RAM).

CAMERA APP
The main difference I noticed about the rear camera is that the Pixel 9’s Ultrawide lens (0.5x zoom) now has 48MP compared to the Pixel 8’s Ultrawide 12MP lens. The field of view is just a few degrees narrower on the Pixel 9, but I’m okay with that if I’m getting better quality overall. The Macro Focus was one of my favorite updates on the Pixel 8 so I’m happy that the Pixel 9 macro’s closest distance limit improved from 3cm (Pixel 8) to 2cm (Pixel 9). The macro focus is great for detail shots on a product shoot so even having that little bit of extra wiggle room is great.

Portrait mode is such a great feature to have when I don’t have a professional camera on me. Back in April I went to a couple birthday parties and I was the unofficial photographer for the events which led me to take beautiful portraits of the birthday ladies with my Pixel 8. There were no special events the week of this review, but if the Pixel 8 can take great photos, I know the Pixel 9 can surpass or at least match the quality. One of the parties was outdoors during the day, so the footage I got was crisp and clear. The portraits outdoors were gorgeous. The second party I went to was at a salsa bar at night so while it was a low-light environment, the camera quality was still top notch. (I debated sharing the portraits in this review but since they were not taken with the Pixel 9, I decided against it. I’ll include other photos I took with the Pixel 9.)

GOOGLE PHOTOS: MAGIC ERASER, EDITING TOOLS, BEST TAKE
I am on the Photos app all the time! I love looking through my photos, creating albums, and sharing them with friends & family. It’s great to be able to share a link with a group of people so they can either download the photos/videos for themselves or even just write comments for me to look back on later. Not only do I love being able to organize my media in Photos, but I love all the editing options too. The editing tools just keep getting better as the years go by. Photos editing is great because I have access to sky enhancements, filters, highlights/shadows, contrast, brightness, and so many basic editing features along with more advanced ones. I’ve been a fan of the Magic Eraser since it was available - it’s so convenient to get rid of things like power lines in a background or a crumpled napkin on a table in a group photo directly on my phone rather than pulling the image into a desktop photo editing program. Speaking of pulling photos into an editing software, I’m so used to having to do this with group photos to get everyone’s best smile but the Pixel’s “Best Take" feature works well in a pinch!

BATTERY LIFE
With as much as I use my phone on a daily basis, good battery life is very important to me. The Pixel 9 has an improved battery rating at 4700 mAh, compared to the Pixel 8’s 4575 mAh rating. I’m confident that the new Google Tensor G4 processor can handle the upgraded battery rating - I haven’t had any issues yet. My screen time Monday - Friday is about 8h per day, which I classify as somewhat heavy usage, so on my heaviest usage day this week I went from 100% charge at 6:30 am to 18% at 9:15 pm. On camera-heavy days, I definitely make a point to charge my phone beforehand and carry a portable charger with me. I personally like adaptive charging to keep my battery healthier for longer.

SCREENSHOTS APP
Screenshots can get real messy, real quick. But now that I’ve found the Google Screenshots app, I’m finally able to organize and review my screenshots in a helpful and productive way. The Screenshots app allows you to select screenshots and put them in a collection for maximum organization. Viewing one of the screenshots lets you see an AI generated summary which usually writes out any text in the image. So for example if I’m looking up gift ideas and I screenshot something from the shopping tab in my Google search, the screenshot summary will have titles, descriptions, ratings, price, etc. There are also quick features like image sharing, image editing, setting reminders, or doing a Google search on that specific screenshot.

GOOGLE AI FEATURES
The AI features that I like the most on the Pixel 9 are the Magic Editor in Google Photos and the generated summaries on the Screenshots app. The Magic Editor is so neat to use especially when I just want to edit a portion of a background. The Auto Frame feature is great because it generates any missing piece of the image in order to frame the subjects better. Sure, I could just crop or re-frame myself, but the generative feature is helpful. I use AI as an aid, so I don’t expect it to be perfect. When using the Reimagine tool, I got better results asking for something like “blue and yellow flowers and a sunset background” in comparison to the questionable results I got when I asked it to “create a bowl of dog treats”. I had to find a balance between asking for a general change and specific material generation.

Pixel Studio was interesting to use, but I noticed it only creates square images and I’d like to have more sizing options. I don’t know how much I’ll continue to use this app given that I can’t seem to use any of the stickers I made outside of Pixel Studio. I’m not a huge fan of completely AI generated images because I like to create my own photos, but I suppose it’s just another tool to have in my pocket.

OVERALL
The Google Pixel 9 does a great job of meeting my daily phone needs. If I’m not using my phone for entertainment, I’m using it to capture content for work and leisure. The two things I value most in a phone are camera quality and battery life so my favorite upgrades on the Pixel 9 are the ones that improve on those two features. I’ve been making social media content and photo albums with ease for the last few years and the Pixel is my most used tool to achieve those goals. The fact that I can edit and organize directly in-phone or in Photos is a huge plus for me. There are a lot of extras, like AI features, that are nice to have but I may not use on a regular basis, however I don’t think it’s fair to dock points for having more features than I need.

Setting up the Google Pixel 9 XL Pro was a breeze! Transferring my SIM card wirelessly was seamless, and it even brought over all my contacts and Wi-Fi settings automatically, which saved me a lot of time and stress of setting up a new phone. I've never had such an easy phone set up in my life
For me, the camera is a standout feature, producing stunningly clear and crisp photos. The built-in editing tools are impressive, offering a wide range of filters and an "add me" feature that's perfect for selfies. However, the zoom capability falls short compared to my older Samsung model, which I miss for capturing distant shots. The "zoom enhance" feature is helpful in the absence of this feature, but it isn't necessarily the same of being able to zoom in on the moon or other subjects.

Functionality-wise, the Pixel 9 XL Pro is comparable to the Samsung Galaxy I switched from, though there are a few small inconveniences. For instance, having to press "enter" after typing my passcode feels like an unnecessary extra step, as other devices unlock automatically after entering the last digit. After years of not having to hit enter, this is annoying.

Navigating the phone took some getting used to. I initially struggled to access my apps and still have trouble swiping up correctly from time to time. Closing active apps was another challenge at first as well, and I still get challenged by this sometimes as well. Additionally, I miss Samsung's "edge" feature, which allowed me to swipe left for quick access to frequent contacts—something I found incredibly convenient and miss. These minor inconveniences add a few seconds of additional steps, which adds up over the day. I'm slowly growing accustomed to the extra steps, though.
Overall, the Pixel 9 XL Pro is a great phone despite its few quirks. While it excels in camera quality and ease of setup, it may take some adjustment for users transitioning from other brands like Samsung.