Excellent cameras, with a facet of Gemini AI

This yr, Google determined not solely to replace the design of its Pixel telephones but in addition put its AI options entrance and middle. The Pixel 9 Professional and 9 Professional XL are the primary Pixels which have swapped the Assistant for Gemini. With its newest flagships, Google continues to enhance its cameras, by upgrading its main sensor and increasing its suite of enhancing instruments. And to energy all these new AI methods, the corporate has geared up the gadgets with its latest Tensor processor, designed to deal with on-device Gemini duties. For the primary time, too, the Professional-branded Pixel is on the market in two sizes, with a smaller model becoming a member of the household. Higher but, in case you go for the Pixel 9 Professional, you’ll be getting a largely equivalent cellphone to the pricier 6.8-inch Pixel 9 Professional XL. Please be aware: no digital camera compromise right here, Apple.

However this isn’t simply one other flagship Android: it’s a concerted effort to get you hooked on Google’s AI-powered picture enhancing, e mail help and extra. The Pixel 9 Professional delivers on all these elements, with various levels of success.

Google

With much more helpful images methods and a much-improved telephoto digital camera, the Pixel 9 Professional XL cements its standing as one of the best smartphone digital camera.

Execs

• Nice digital camera options and improved telephoto digital camera
• A yr of Gemini Superior at no cost
• Spectacular battery life
• A ravishing, brilliant display screen that’s straightforward to make use of outdoor
• Tensor G4 runs cooler than its predecessor

Cons

• Costlier than final yr’s Pixel 8 Professional
• Not a fantastic gaming cellphone
• Somewhat unwieldy

$1,099 at Google

Design and show

As I opened the field, I knew this was essentially the most premium Pixel but. The Pixel 9 Professional has softer curved corners than its predecessor, whereas the perimeters have been flattened. It additionally felt in some way acquainted — like my iPhone. I needed to double-check, they usually weighed the identical, right down to the gram (all 221 of them). That’s not dangerous: the iPhone Professional is the de facto cellphone to beat. The Pixel 9 Professional has an identical matte satin end.

I do not know if the flattened sides make it simpler to grip than the Pixel 8 Professional, however I discovered the substantial digital camera module did assist with stability, sometimes resting on my finger or thumb throughout photographs. The ‘cyclops bar’ is gone, changed with a extra typical – however simply as substantial – digital camera array. The temperature sensor is, for some purpose, nonetheless right here, though a Thermometer app replace coming this week will let it save the stuff you’re most often measuring and even provide some AR steering to make sure you’re the precise distance away from the thing you’re scanning.

With out the digital camera bar, which felt a bit a lot the Pixel 9 Professional doesn’t really feel like Google attempting to make an aggressive design assertion. The digital camera module is large, nonetheless.

Like final yr, Google has stored the show nearly completely flat. The Pixel 9 Professional XL’s 6.8-inch display screen is 0.1 inches greater than final yr’s Pixel 8 Professional and brighter, too, peaking at 3,000 nits. It is sensible for Google to make its greater professional Pixel even bigger to match the XL in its title, however just like the iPhone 15 Professional Max, the Professional XL is a little bit too large for me, and my not-exactly-small fingers struggled to achieve the search bar or dropdown menus within the prime corners. (Sidenote: I can transfer the Chrome deal with bar to the underside of the display screen on my iPhone, however not on Android? What offers?)

In the meantime, the Pixel 9 Professional’s 6.3-inch panel is roomy sufficient to see loads of traces of textual content without delay, with out me having to nearly sprain a finger to achieve its edges.

Each Pixel 9 Execs have Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on their shows in addition to throughout the satin-finish backs, like final yr’s flagship cellphone, that means they’re about as sturdy as earlier than.

With the XL, you’re consciously deciding you desire a Massive Cellphone – that is S24 Extremely territory. Luckily, it’s one other brilliant, vivid display screen from Google, with variable refresh charges from 1-120Hz for clean scrolling when wanted.

The XL Pixel Professional’s decision of 1,344 x 1,992 interprets to a pixel density of 486 ppi, which is decrease than the Pixel 9 Professional (495 ppi). However good luck discerning that in actual life. Google continues to lean in direction of extra understated coloration tones on its screens, in comparison with rival telephones from Samsung and Apple. Nonetheless, I feel it fits the shades of Android’s Materials Design palette, in addition to this yr’s {hardware} coloration choices. Each Pixel 9 Professional sizes arrive in black, white, hazel and rose quartz. I used to be despatched the hazel model, which is delicate to the purpose of trying nearly grey. My colleague Cherlynn Low is infatuated with the rose quartz Pixel 9 Professional she’s examined.

Cameras

The Pixel digital camera remains to be one of the best smartphone digital camera. Final yr, we known as Pixel 8 Professional “the most powerful smartphone camera on the market,” and Google has tried to carry on to that place. {Hardware}-wise, the sensors are the precise decision because the Pixel 8 Professional, except for the leap to a 42-megapixel front-facing digital camera, up from 10.5 megapixels final yr. Google has additionally improved the autofocus, and it takes surprisingly respectable crisp photographs and video.

However we’re all right here to debate the triple digital camera array on the again. There’s a brand new 50MP main digital camera, a 48MP ultra-wide, and a 48MP telephoto digital camera with a 5x optical zoom. The upgraded {hardware} doesn’t lead to noticeable enhancements over the Pixel 8 Professional in a lot of the photographs I in contrast…. till I began utilizing the telephoto sensor. There, I noticed large enhancements to element and coloration. Google has addressed a few of the Pixel 9 Professional’s video-recording weaknesses too – I didn’t discover any overheating points with the brand new Tensor chip, even when recording a number of video clips at most decision.

New digital camera software program options

Google has as soon as once more augmented its cameras with software program options that stroll the road between gimmick and game-changer.

Add Me could possibly be the latter for me. Because the man with the most recent smartphone in my friendship group and household, I’m often the one taking candid and group photographs for everybody. However meaning there usually aren’t many photographs of me. Add Me is a brand new digital camera mode which mixes Google’s computational images experience with augmented actuality to scan and body an space and group of individuals. When you’ve taken the primary picture, you commerce locations with another person, the Pixel 9 Professional will ask that particular person to align the body, and take a second shot.

It’s a little bit just like the Finest Take function from final yr, which might swap out faces to make sure everybody’s giving their finest smile, the Pixel then processes and combines these two pictures collectively. It’s a simplified Photoshop clone instrument, positive, however it appears good. I will likely be utilizing this on the subsequent birthday/marriage ceremony/christening/future fortieth birthday celebration. (Ed. be aware: We get it, Mat, you’re widespread.)

The Pixel 9 Professional arrives with a number of options initially teased a yr in the past, together with Zoom Improve and Video Enhance. Zoom Improve is fairly self-explanatory, utilizing AI to extend each element and sharpness in your most aggressively zoomed photographs. The outcomes may be combined. It’s not as egregious as Samsung’s super-imposed moon images, however Zoom Improve does its finest work on shapes, constructions and patterns, sharpening up brickwork, foliage and extra. It nonetheless often makes a multitude with people.

There are use instances for Zoom Improve (it does a fantastic job sharpening up London’s Tower Bridge) however I’m undecided it’ll rescue your live performance pics from the again of the venue. Not except you desire a nightmarish imaginative and prescient of Taylor Swift’s face massaged by AI. Notably, Zoom Improve is likely one of the digital camera AI options that’s processed on-device.

With Video Enhance, the Pixel 9 Professional data video in a particular mode (that you’ll have to toggle in settings earlier than recording) and people clips are routinely uploaded to the cloud for server-side processing. What’s new for the Pixel 9 Professional is that you could shoot movies with as much as 20x zoom or create boosted movies with 8K decision. You’ll have to report at 1080p to create 4K movies, and seize in 4K to make 8K clips. That is upscaled 8K, so whereas clips appear crisper in locations, don’t anticipate 8K footage that’s similar to what you’ll get with devoted cameras. Video Boosted 8K appears extra like a spec boast for Google somewhat than a function you’ll use with any regularity.

Having stated that, Google has improved video increase considerably because it first launched, including smoother transitions between focal lengths and totally different digital camera sensors. With Video Enhance, leaping from a normal large view to 5x zoom is way much less jarring, and Google has fastened the colour imbalances between its trio of sensors – it appears very like it was filmed on a single-lens digital camera. It additionally provides a lift to any video captured in low mild. It gained’t make pitch-black footage seen – I did attempt – however does enhance the colour and element of dim video clips. You too can punch in to 20x digital zoom in case you’re utilizing Video Enhance for surprisingly useful footage.

When you’ve taken your photographs, an upgraded Magic Editor brings the identical content-aware fill options as final yr, able to deleting undesirable objects and other people out of your photographs. This yr, Google provides extra generative AI energy. First up, Autoframe will let the Pixel attempt its hand at enhancing your picture’s composition, cropping and even extending your photographs, producing backgrounds and including parts, generally efficiently.

Reimagine places Google’s generative AI abilities to make use of with extra inventive duties, permitting you to pick backgrounds, gadgets or different areas of your picture, and create dreamy composite pictures. I used to be in a position to swap out my lounge for a Hawaiian sundown, make the ground lava in a close-by park and extra. Get too particular along with your wording, although, and the outcomes aren’t fairly as spectacular. However that’s the state of smartphone generative AI, for now.

The professional digital camera controls, launched with the Pixel 8 Professional, are nonetheless right here. They allow you to manually tweak publicity, shutter velocity, and ISO, and are nonetheless tremendous helpful for many who know what they’re doing.

Software program

On the Pixel 9, it’s possible you’ll discover a number of shock apps that you simply by no means put in. However this isn’t fairly bloatware: they’re Google’s new Pixel Screenshots and Pixel Studio. As a substitute of including extra complication to the Photographs app, these have been made into standalone apps, which I’m very glad to see.

For now, you’re unable to edit photographs with folks in Pixel Studio, which dampens a number of the enjoyable. If you’d like customary generative-AI cartoon pictures and renders, Pixel Studio can oblige, though my creations aren’t fairly as cohesive because the examples proven. Whereas Pixel Studio provides the power to title your designs, most occasions that textual content will get become the standard AI-generated squiggles, defeating the aim of constructing most issues with this app.

It’s a little bit too early to attract conclusions on Pixel Screenshots, too. It makes use of AI to parse by way of all of your screenshots, making data like costs, reservations and dates searchable. Nevertheless, the Pixel 9 doesn’t populate your screenshots routinely, nor might I discover a option to pull my present screenshots (years of them!) from my Google Photographs backup, which looks as if a miss. The Photographs app already silos them as screenshots, so there should be a option to switch them throughout. Is that this a privateness subject? We’ve requested Google.

This implies it provided restricted utility throughout my first week of testing. What might be extremely helpful is how Gemini AI can steadily be taught to determine what’s captured within the screenshots past merely studying the textual content. Screenshots typically are simply smarter on the Pixel 9 Professional. I captured some journey itinerary emails, and earlier than I even needed to open an app, the Pixel prompt including my lodge keep to Google calendar. These are the touches I like. (After all, I might maintain the ability button to summon Gemini and ask it to take action equally.)

Each Pixel 9 Execs get a yr’s subscription to Google One AI Premium, a bundle of 2TB storage in addition to the usage of Gemini Superior. The latter lets the AI immediately dabble in apps like Gmail and Google Docs, to summarize textual content, PDFs and e mail conversations, though I didn’t spot it in my very own Gmail app. I used to be nonetheless in a position to check this in a Chrome tab elsewhere, because the subscription extends to each machine you employ with Google merchandise. There’s additionally entry to Gemini Dwell, a conversational mode that’s nearly completely voice-based. I’m undecided how a lot I’d use this mode, nonetheless. I choose to kind my particular requests.

Gemini Dwell will tick alongside within the background as you employ different apps, which provides to the utility, and shops all of your requests and outcomes on the primary Gemini display screen. I used to be in a position to barrel by way of about 15 totally different voice requests for reveals I wished to see at this yr’s Edinburgh Fringe, and it might already parse showtimes and venues, quicker than I might manually discover them. It struggled with some names and couldn’t determine some notable comedians in any respect. Google has made AI-assisted search a useful a part of how I take advantage of my cellphone.

It’s been enjoyable seeing what Gemini Superior is able to. After taking an obtuse picture of a number of skyscraper buildings in central London, I requested Gemini Superior to determine the place the picture was taken. The AI initially stated it could possibly be New York, suggesting one of many buildings was One Vanderbilt.

Then I stated that was incorrect and that it was taken in London. Gemini Superior circled again, figuring out not solely one of many buildings but in addition the deal with, which was roughly 100 toes away from the place I took the picture. The sheer seamlessness of the expertise on Android was what impressed me most, however that is a part of Gemini Superior and after the one-year trial ends, Google expects you to pay $20 a month to maintain your entry. At a time when all my funds for Netflix, Spotify and extra are climbing, Google isn’t providing sufficient to make me add one other subscription to the pile.

Efficiency and battery life

Together with 16GB of RAM, the Pixel 9 collection options the Tensor G4, Google’s newest slice of silicon, designed to breeze by way of AI duties and generative AI requests. However In the event you’re a cell gamer this isn’t going to blow you away. The G4 is extra highly effective than the Tensor G3, positive, however it doesn’t fairly match the smoothness of the most recent Snapdragon chips from Qualcomm. Tensor G4’s improved talents are put to make use of most with new AI duties: for instance, Google says its Add Me function faucets into augmented actuality software program together with 15 totally different on-device AI fashions.

We haven’t fairly obtained to the purpose the place we are able to evaluate the speeds and efficiencies of generative AI duties. For essentially the most half, the Pixel 9 Professional behaves like a typical flagship cellphone. Chrome is unlikely to stutter, and the Pixel 9 Professional appears able to dealing with heavy video enhancing and processing with ease, in addition to new Magic Editor options on your photographs. These options nonetheless take a second, however the truth that so many AI instruments work on-device, with no connection wanted, impresses me.

The Pixel 9 Professional XL’s 5,060mAh battery is sort of equivalent to the Pixel 8 Professional (5,050mAh), and it delivered over 22 hours in our looped video rundown check. The Pixel 9 Professional, in the meantime, managed to run for nearly 25 hours. Nevertheless, most cost wattage differs between the 2 Execs too. The Pixel 9 Professional costs at 27W, lower than the Pixel 8 Professional’s 30W, whereas the brand new Pixel 9 Professional XL costs at 37W. This implies the XL ought to cost quicker than the bottom Professional. Google says the Pixel 9 Professional can stand up to 55 % in half-hour, whereas the XL will attain a heady 77 % in the identical time, utilizing the corporate’s personal 45W charger. My Pixel 9 Professional confirmed related figures, speedily recharging to over 50 % in underneath 25 minutes.

Wrap up

The Pixel Professional has by no means regarded higher and feels just like the premium gadgets Google’s at all times wished to make. Naturally, there’s a premium value related. Provided that final yr’s 6.7-inch Pixel 8 Professional was $999, the $1,099 Pixel 9 Professional XL is $100 costlier, whereas the Pixel 9 Professional, with the identical cameras, storage, processor and AI hooks, however a smaller display screen, prices the identical $999. Nevertheless, in comparison with rivals like Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Extremely ($1,300), the Pixel 9 Professional gadgets stay competitively priced.

The Pixel 9 Professional is a showcase for Gemini, Google’s AI assistant, and it’s been given an enormous alternative to shine as Pixel 9 Professional house owners get pleasure from a yr of free entry to the extra superior mannequin. It’s early days for a few of the new software program options, like Pixel Studio and Screenshots, nonetheless.

Competitors from Apple and Samsung over the previous couple of years could have chipped away on the competitiveness of Pixel options like Evening Sight, however Google continues to enhance the Pixel’s imaging prowess additional. The Pixel 9 Professional cements the Pixel collection’ standing as one of the best smartphone digital camera. It’s so good that I don’t thoughts that chonky digital camera cutout – it modified my thoughts.

A few of these new options are crucially ones I’ll often use, like Add Me. Elsewhere, Google faucets into cloud processing to beef up your video with the may of its server community. On the similar time, the Pixel retains a lot of its computational images methods on-device, with the temperamental Zoom Improve obtainable with out the necessity for an web connection.

All of it culminates in a cellphone with distinctive methods and unbelievable battery life, no matter which measurement you go for. It is so good that my iPhone should go with out its SIM for a little bit longer: the Pixel 9 Professional will likely be my important cellphone for only a bit extra.