Google Pixel 9 vs Pixel 8

You are looking for a compact flagship and you land on Google’s offers. At around €900, the Google Pixel 9 is quite pricy and you can easily notice that the Google Pixel 8 will get you a lot of its features at a way more reasonable price of €500.

The new Pixel 9 brings an improved design, performance and camera quality, but its focus is mostly on AI features. The old Pixel 8 still offers top-notch hardware, imaging skills and clean software, especially at the all-time low price, so it is not hard to pick it over the new model.

How much better is the Google Pixel 9 to deserve its price premium then? Let’s look into it.

Table of Contents:

For starters, you can compare the complete specs sheets or directly continue with our editor’s assessment in the following text.

Size comparison

The new Google Pixel 9 looks a lot different from the Pixel 8. It is also slightly larger, due to the bigger display.

The Pixel 9 introduces an all-flat design, camera bar included – a departure from the nicely curved Pixel 8. There are two Gorilla Glass Victus 2 panels and a flat aluminum frame. The Pixel 9 is IP68-rated for dust and water resistance.

This means the new model has better, arguably tougher glass panels and a more comfortable design. But the size increase and the flat design won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, especially when it comes to a compact smartphone.

Design and size are always a personal preference, so it is up to you to decide which Pixel suits you better. No matter which one you choose, though, it will be one of a premium build for sure.

Display comparison

The Pixel 9 features a 6.3-inch OLED display with a FullHD resolution and a 120Hz maximum refresh rate, as well as 2,700nits of peak brightness (advertised). The Pixel 8 has a 6.2-inch OLED panel of similar resolution and refresh rate but with lower advertised peak brightness – 2,000 nits. Both screens are HDR10 video certified.

In our testing, the Pixel 9 offered over 1,200nits of maximum brightness when adjusting it manually, and over 2,200 nits when using the Adaptive Brightness option. The Pixel 8 numbers were slightly lower – 1,000 nits in manual and 1,440 nits in Auto mode.

Obviously, the Pixel 9 has a brighter display, but we never had any issues with the one on the Pixel 8 either, so even if the newer one is better, most people, if not all, will be perfectly satisfied with the older model, too.

Battery life

The Pixel 9 is equipped with a 4,700mAh battery – a modest upgrade over the Pixel 8 (4,575mAh) and 8a (4,492mAh). The Galaxy S24, meanwhile, stands at 4,000mAh, while the iPhone 15’s battery is only rated for 3,349mAh.

In our testing, the Pixel 9 proved a worthy upgrade over the Pixel 8 in the endurance department, getting meaningfully better results in all four tests and nearly two hours more in the overall Active Use Score. In doing that, it’s become one of the better options when it comes to battery life in this compact class.

Charging speed

The Pixel 9 supports charging up to 27W when using the new Google 45W adapter, though it should technically be able to reach that with other good USB Power Delivery chargers with the right volts and amperes combos in their specs. We didn’t have this new adapter at our disposal, so we tested with the 30W unit, as well as Samsung’s 45W adapter that’s specced surprisingly closely to the Google 45W one.

Google promises the Pixel 9 should be able to get from 1% to 55% in 30 minutes with the new 45W adapter, and that’s pretty much what we got with the Samsung charger. However, the Pixel 8 enjoys the same charging rate with the OG Google’s 30W charger.

There is even a minor difference in the time to full charge in favor of the Pixel 8 as it has a smaller battery.

Both Pixels support fast wireless charging up and Battery Share is also on the menu – you can charge other Qi-certified devices off of both Pixels’ backs. The Pixel 9 covers newer standards, as it appears, but the maximum wireless charging speed remains relatively the same.

Speaker test

Both the Pixel 9 and Pixel 8 feature a hybrid speaker setup. There’s a bottom speaker that outputs through an opening in the frame, and a front-firing top speaker which is also the earpiece for voice calls.

The Pixel 9 earned a ‘Very Good’ rating for loudness in our testing, same as the Pixel 8. But while both offer similar loudness, the Pixel 8 has better audio quality with better vocals and overall richer output.

Performance

The new Pixels run on the next-gen Google chipset – the Tensor G4. It contains a new processor with eight cores, one less than the G3’s – 1×3.1 GHz Cortex-X4 & 3×2.6 GHz Cortex-A720 & 4×1.92 GHz Cortex-A520. All cores have been upgraded to their respective latest generation.

The GPU stays the same as on the Tensor G3 (inside the Pixel 8) – Mali-G715 MC7 – but it has a higher clock at 940 МHz, up from 890 МHz.

The TPU for AI tasks is unchanged since Tensor G3 – still in its third generation.

Probably the most important update here is the RAM increase – 12GB of LPDDR5X – which should work better for multi-tasking and AI tasks.

Finally, there is a new energy-efficient modem provided by Samsung – Exynos 5400 – with Satellite connectivity support (in supported ).

Oddly, in our testing, the Pixel 9 scored lower than the Pixel 8 across all benchmarks. We suspect our specific Pixel 9 unit might be tuned differently as reports online vary from source to source, so verifying them objectively is not possible at the moment. We are not posting benchmark comparisons at the moment but Google promises improved performance with the new chipset.

Google promises most of the AI features on the Pixel 9 will eventually make it to the Pixel 8 as well. However, only the Pixel 9 is getting one year of free access to Gemini’s most advanced subscription tier, which comes with sharper generative AI smarts.

Camera comparison

The Pixel 9 inherits the Pixel 8’s camera system – it’s got a wide primary camera and an ultrawide on the back, then there is selfie camera on the other side. That said, the Pixel 9 model does get a couple of upgrades – a new sensor for the ultrawide camera, and autofocus for the front camera.

Image quality

The Pixel 9’s main camera saves excellent images with great detail, rendered in a natural way with well-judged sharpening. There’s the usual high contrast you’d expect from Pixels, with a focus on highlight preservation and somewhat dark-ish shadows. Colors are really nice too, without pushing the saturation slider to extremes.

The Pixel 8’s main camera produces similarly great photos and while the newer model may be a tad more proficient with the sharpening, we are really nit-picking here.

The 2x high-quality zoom is better on the Pixel 9, even if by a small margin. The detail looks a bit more natural, especially one of high complexity, and the fuzzy areas are somewhat less obvious, though still there.

The biggest upgrade comes with the ultrawide camera, which, thanks to the new sensor and lens, now saves more detailed and natural-looking images with less noise.

Pixel 9: 0.6x • 1x • 2x

Pixel 8: 0.6x • 1x • 2x

The low-light photos shot on both phones are equally solid. The main cameras, both in regular and zoom modes, deliver great photos with virtually no difference. The ultrawide camera offers superb quality, too, though due to the brighter aperture on the Pixel 9 – it saves slightly brighter and photos

Pixel 9: 0.6x • 1x • 2x

Pixel 8: 0.6x • 1x • 2x

And finally, the selfie camera. The Pixel 9 has autofocus, which will help it in certain situations to deliver sharper and overall better photos. And you can see that difference when shooting at close distance – the Pixel 9 takes sharper photos with more facial detail than the Pixel 8’s front camera, and the background looks a bit more defocused. The difference is small, but it is there and it will be appreciated for those who shoot selfies all day and all night.

Pixel 9 • Pixel 8

Video quality

Both the Pixel 9 and Pixel 8 offer similar video capturing capabilities, stabilization, resolution and frame rate included.

Oddly, the Pixel records softer footage than we’d expect for the class – from both the main and the ultrawide cameras. The Pixel 8 offers noticeably more detailed and sharper videos from its main camera, even in 2x zoom mode.

Pixel 9 4K30: 0.6x • 1x • 2x

Pixel 8 4K30: 0.6x • 1x • 2x

Verdict

The Pixel 9 and Pixel 8 are great little phones, and no one will be left wanting by opting for either of them – both have similar screens, performance, cameras, and speakers.

The Pixel 9 is better when it comes to battery life, faster AI tasks and ultrawide photo quality, and arguably – looks – but it comes at a price. The Pixel 9 launches at €899, while the Pixel 8 now costs about €500. And that is a huge difference and the biggest reason why you should get the Pixel 8 instead of the Pixel 9.

But wait, there is more! The Pixel 8 turned out to capture better videos and maybe right now, it is the better device for performance and stability.

Of course, if having the latest and most beefed-up phone is what you are after, then the Pixel 9 is now available and no review will stop you from buying it.