Pixel 9 Pro XL Review: 2 Months Later, Google's Phone Still Rocks

Google’s latest Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL are packed with the best tech the company has to offer, sporting a shiny new design, a Tensor G4 processor, a triple rear camera and a wealth of clever AI tricks. From its conversational Gemini Live to its Pixel Studio generative AI image creator, the Pixel 9 Pro impressed me with its AI skills — but they’re not the main reasons to buy this phone.

Strip away the AI sizzle and the Pixel 9 Pro XL, the model I’ve been testing, loses some of its shine, but there’s more to like beyond the conversational Gemini Life and Pixel Studio image maker. The Pixel’s cameras have given both the iPhone 16 Pro Max and the excellent Xiaomi 14 Ultra a good run for their money, delivering stunning images in a variety of conditions.

The refreshed design looks slick and polished, and I like that the Pro phone comes in two sizes: the 6.8-inch Pixel 9 Pro XL and a new smaller 6.3-inch Pixel 9 Pro. While the phones have different display and battery sizes, the processors, cameras and other features are identical. It’s a smart move as it means those who want a smaller handset don’t have to compromise on performance. 

The addition of multiple sizes has allowed Google to strategically increase the price of its phones however. The base Pixel 9 Pro with its smaller screen starts at $999 (£999, AU$1,699) and sure, the Pixel 8 Pro started at $999 too, but the larger 9 Pro XL — which is the equivalent to last year’s model — has been increased to $1,099 (1,099, AU$1,849). In my time testing the phone since its launch, I’m happy that it justifies that slight price bump.

I should note that this review will be relevant for both the Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL. If you’re curious about Google’s regular model you can read CNET’s Pixel 9 review here.

Watch this: Google Pixel 9 Pro XL Review: AI Dominates This Phone

09:51

Pixel 9 Pro: Two months of testing

After pitting the phone’s cameras against its main rivals, I’m genuinely impressed with what it can do. Against both the powerhouse iPhone 16 Pro and incredible Xiaomi 14 Ultra, the Pixel more than held its own, often delivering superb-looking images, with vibrant colors and great overall exposure. It even managed to produce more natural-looking colors than the iPhone in some scenarios, although I still frequently find its software processing to be too heavy handed, with some details being lost due to noise reduction and shadows being brightened to an unrealistic extent. 

While the Pixel launched — and was originally reviewed — with Android 14, it recently received an update to version 15. It doesn’t change a whole lot (the interface remains identical), but it brings some additional security features including a theft protection mode to detect if your phone is snatched from your hand and Private Space which gives you a password-protected part of the phone to hide sensitive apps. 

The biggest thing I’ve noticed about the phone though is how little I’ve used its AI features. Sure, I enjoyed playing around with Pixel Studio and Gemini Live for the review, but I’ve barely touched them since. It’s not even that I don’t like them, it’s simply that I forget that they’re there. For me, that simply proves that AI is yet to offer me any function so transformative that I have to make use of it in my life. Maybe I’ll feel differently this time next year — or in several years. 

If, like me, you’re on the fence about AI on your phone, then I don’t think the Pixel will necessarily sway you one way or the other. But the tools certainly don’t detract from what is an otherwise excellent phone. 

Pixel 9 Pro: All about AI

The 8 Pro did have some AI skills, like object removal and Best Take, but it was just the beginning. If its predecessor was just Google dipping its toe in the AI water, the 9 Pro XL is Google doing a full triple somersault with a pike off the top diving board into the AI pool with its new skills. 

Read more: I Asked the Pixel 9 Pro’s AI to Write a Review of Itself. Here’s What it Said

Google’s Gemini Advanced is easily accessed by pressing and holding the power button while you ask it something. It’s pretty good too, giving me genuinely sensible responses to my questions about putting glue in a cake (don’t do it), what to do if you find a giraffe in your hallway (stay calm) or why you shouldn’t make a car out of cheese. Apparently cheese lacks structural integrity. Now we know.

Using Gemini Advanced isn’t the end of the features. You can also use Gemini Live, which allows you to talk with the AI in a much more natural way (as if you were having a conversation). The answers are essentially the same whichever mode you use, but with Live you can interrupt the flow to ask side questions or give intentionally stupid opinions on things just to see how it’ll respond. 

I’ve spent a lot of time playing around with it and while it’s certainly great fun, I’ve often found its information to be inaccurate. One time it recommended I listen to a song that simply doesn’t exist. Another time I asked for top local drinking recommendations for me, and Gemini suggested a bar that closed years ago. 

There are various other bugs and quirks I’ve found while testing, but it’s a new feature. I’m keen to see how it matures and, crucially, whether I eventually find a genuine use for it in my day-to-day life.

A Google spokesperson acknowledged to CNET that hallucinations are a known challenge with large language models. They said that Google has tools for double-checking answers. There’s the “Google it” button, for example, which evaluates Gemini’s answers using Google search when possible. 

Keep in mind, that Gemini Advanced and Live require a subscription to Google One’s AI package, and while you do get a year free when you buy the Pixel 9 Pro, it’ll eventually cost you $20 a month — although you get 2TB of cloud storage thrown in too. Gemini services will also be available on other Android devices and possibly come to older Pixel phones via a feature drop, so the Pixel 9 series aren’t the only phones you can use to access conversational AI.

Pixel 9 Pro: Generative AI and image editing

The new Add Me tool digitally adds you, the photographer, into group pictures so nobody gets left out. Here’s how it works: You take a group shot of your friends and then hand the phone to one of them. Next, you move and stand in a space where nobody is while your friend takes another photo after which the phone blends the images together to put you in the picture alongside everyone else. 

It actually works quite well and while it’s definitely easier to ask a passerby to take the group shot for you, it’s great for those times when nobody is around to help. Or, if you’re a narcissist like me, you can simply use it to put yourself in the same image twice. It doesn’t use generative AI, but instead relies on augmented reality to line the shots up and computational skills to blend the images together.

Read more: The Weird and Wonderful Images We Got From Google’s Pixel Studio

A lot of the AI features are based on imagery. Use the Reimagine function to select parts of an image, type in a prompt and have Google’s generative AI bring your idea to life. You can use it to replace backgrounds around a subject, add objects, change the sky to a sunset, add in a wolf lurking behind you (if that’s what you’re into) or create weird apocalyptic pirate scenes like the one below. You’re only limited by your imagination — a cliche, but one that’s actually true in this case.

The Reframe tool uses generative AI to expand the canvas of an image or help you crop it in a more artistic way — it’ll even generate parts of the image that were cut off in the original. Samsung’s Galaxy S24 line and other phones with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip can also do this.

If you don’t want to take actual photos then you can play with Pixel Studio, which will simply generate an image in a variety of styles from your text prompts. 

Here, I asked for a fox peering into a wardrobe with ivy coming out. So far so good, but I iterated and asked for the wardrobe to be in a misty forest. 

Then I changed the style to anime, which looked adorable, and finally, I added an owl sitting on top. What scene isn’t improved by adding an owl to it?

It took seconds to create these variations and I love the results. It can be hit and miss, with some results looking downright bizarre. 

When I asked it to write “wish you were here,” like a postcard, this is what it produced. It struggles to generate words and it can’t yet produce images of people, but apparently, that feature will come later. 

What it can do is generate images of copyrighted and trademarked material like Pikachu and Mickey Mouse, so I’ll be interested to see how Google handles the interest I suspect it will get from the likes of Disney, Nintendo and others. 

All of these tools worked well in my review time so far. While the results aren’t always perfect, I typically found I can get better results by simply asking the AI to have another go. 

The bigger question I suppose is, do you actually need this? With the results often being somewhat weird-looking and the actual image quality and details being quite poor, the usefulness of this type of image generation right now seems limited. Perhaps for designers or other creatives wanting to simply play with ideas, it might have some long-term application but I suspect most people may find it little more than an intriguing novelty or simply an alternative to using clip art, like a poster for a church bake sale.  

Pixel 9 Pro: New features and design

The 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL have a refreshed design with a new camera bar that’s more of a pill-shaped island than a full strip, and the edges of the phone are now flat and polished rather than smoothly rounded. Personally, I think it looks great. I thought the Pixel 8 Pro looks a bit cartoony and childlike, but the Pixel 9 Pro looks classy all the way. 

The base 9 Pro has a 6.3-inch display, the Pixel 9 Pro XL that I’ve been testing measures 6.8 inches. Want something that slides more easily into your jeans? Go for the smaller 9 Pro. Need a bit of extra screen real estate to enjoy games or movies on? Check out the 9 Pro XL.
The XL’s display looks great, with vibrant colors and enough resolution to make tiny text and high-res videos look beautiful. It’s bright enough for me to use comfortably under what passes for a sunny day in Edinburgh, although those of you in a brighter place like California might struggle a little more. 

Powering the phone and all its AI features is the latest Google-made Tensor G4 processor. On benchmarks it’s nothing special, achieving similar scores to last year’s base Galaxy S23 and only marginally better scores than the Pixel 8 Pro. On the one hand, it’s disappointing not to see more of a tangible improvement over the predecessor. On the other hand, it doesn’t feel like it’s lacking in power in any major way. In everyday use, it feels quick and responsive, with games like Genshin Impact playing with smooth frame rates and AI image generation taking only a few seconds to process each time. Could it have more power? Sure. Would you really notice it? Probably not.

While the phone launched with last year’s Android 14 on board, it’s now been updated to version 15 which brings deeper security features like Theft Protection, remote locking and Private Space for hiding certain apps from public view. The phone will get a generous seven years of software and security updates meaning that the Pixel 9 series will still be safe to use until at least 2031.

Pixel 9 Pro: Cameras

The cameras are one area where I had hoped to see some bigger improvements. There are all kinds of new software trickery, from the new generative AI tools to the Add Me function and an updated panorama mode, the camera hardware itself remains nearly unchanged from last year’s model. The main camera’s resolution, sensor size and aperture are the same, as is the resolution of both the ultrawide and telephoto cameras. 

I’ve spent the last few days walking miles and miles around Edinburgh, pitting the camera against the iPhone 15 Pro Max, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra and against the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Overall, the Pixel put up a strong fight, delivering better low-light performance than the Xiaomi and better zoom performance than the iPhone. Many of the Pixel’s images look superb, but I consistently found it suffers from very heavy-handed image processing that tries to brighten shadows to an unrealistic extent or simply adds too much digital sharpening. 

The selfie camera is the one area that’s seen a significant bump, going from 10.5 megapixels on the Pixel 8 Pro to a much more generous 42 megapixels. Unsurprisingly, selfies look good — even if your hair doesn’t. The Pixel’s selfie camera gives a wide-angle view, making it easier to cram more friends into one shot, but I have found the image processing to apply a lot of sharpening to selfies, in some shots producing quite an unflattering texture on my face.

The Pixel 9 Pro can take great-looking images, with gorgeous exposures, perfect colors and tons of detail seen from all of its cameras. As an everyday-carry camera for quick, reliable snaps, it’s superb. 

I’ve been impressed with many of the shots I’ve taken so far, with the cameras often producing more natural color tones than the iPhone 15 Pro Max and providing more detail than the iPhone when shooting at 5x zoom. The Pixel 8 Pro took great photos too and beyond some new AI tricks, the cameras haven’t improved to a great extent. Night-time images can sometimes struggle, with some test shots showing overly blotchy dark areas, especially when using the ultrawide camera. I’ve found it generally outperforms the excellent Xiaomi 14 Ultra at night, especially when using the telephoto zoom lens.

I’ve been disappointed with the Pixel’s new panorama mode, which doesn’t compete against the iPhone 15 Pro Max, 16 Pro or Xiaomi 14 Ultra, and the macro function delivers quite dull shots with poor details. You can shoot files in DNG raw format, the raw images look awful compared to the JPEG files and need a lot of work in Lightroom to make them passable. I found this to be the case on the Pixel 8 Pro, too, and I’m disappointed Google hasn’t worked on this more since the last model. 

It means that while the Pixel 9 Pro is great for the majority of casual photographers out there, the serious photographers among you might be better suited with some of its rivals. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra with its huge 1-inch type image sensor has absolutely astounded me with its image quality, while Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro maintains its position as one of the best overall camera phones around. Both phones offer generally more natural-looking images without so much image processing, while also providing more scope for adjusting your images in post-production, making them more suited for passionate photographers. 

Pixel 9 Pro: Should you buy it? 

There’s certainly a lot to like about the Pixel 9 Pro XL. I love the new design, the new AI skills are at least great fun to play around with. The cameras aren’t much of a step up over the last model, but the phone can take great photos in a variety of conditions, often delivering better-looking shots than its biggest competitors. The Pixel’s image generation and conversational Gemini Live are the main things setting the phones apart from the competition right now, and if those features leave you cold then you can probably look elsewhere. 

AI will only become more a part of all phones with Samsung expanding its Galaxy AI across its phone line and Apple launching Apple Intelligence for its newer iPhones. So whether you want AI on your phone or not will soon be a moot point — you’ll simply have to have it. The Pixel 9 Pro’s combination of great design, slick software and solid cameras definitely make it a great handset to get your first true taste of AI on your phone. 

How we test phones

Every phone tested by CNET’s reviews team was actually used in the real world. We test a phone’s features, play games and take photos. We examine the display to see if it’s bright, sharp and vibrant. We analyze the design and build to see how it is to hold and whether it has an IP rating for water resistance. We push the processor’s performance to the extremes using standardized benchmark tools like GeekBench and 3DMark, along with our own anecdotal observations navigating the interface, recording high-resolution videos and playing graphically intense games at high refresh rates.

All the cameras are tested in a variety of conditions from bright sunlight to dark indoor scenes. We try out special features like night mode and portrait mode and compare our findings against similarly priced competing phones. We also check out the battery life by using it daily as well as running a series of battery drain tests.

We take into account additional features like support for 5G, satellite connectivity, fingerprint and face sensors, stylus support, fast charging speeds and foldable displays, among others that can be useful. We balance all of this against the price to give you the verdict on whether that phone, whatever price it is, actually represents good value. While these tests may not always be reflected in CNET’s initial review, we conduct follow-up and long-term testing in most circumstances.