Google Pixel 9 hands-on review: An affordable, but super smart, phone

For an entry-level smartphone, the Google Pixel 9 is chock full of features. But it’s being sold at a low starting price — just $799 before trade-in credits, financing deals, or promotional offers. The big differentiator between the Pixel 9 and last year’s model are the advanced AI tools and features offered by Google Gemini. You also get a longer lasting battery, brighter display and other useful enhancements.

Google recently sent me the Pixel 9, along with the Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL, to review. If you’re wondering whether you should upgrade your existing phone, keep reading. If you’re already sold on the Pixel 9, we’ve made it easy; just tap a button below.

Who should buy the Google Pixel 9?

Out of the smartphones in the Google Pixel 9 series, this is the base model. It comes in your choice of four colors — obsidian, wintergreen, peony or porcelain — and with either 128GB or 256GB of internal storage. This phone is very much for novice or light smartphone users who want a powerful, but affordable device, without a lot of the complicated high-end features offered by more advanced models. It’s also a great starter phone for someone switching from an Apple iPhone to an Android phone for the first time, or for a parent looking to provide their child, tween or teen with their first cell phone.

There’s a lot to like about the Pixel 9, including its slim form factor and light weight. The screen has a higher maximum brightness than ever before, so it’s easier to see in direct sunlight. You also get a battery life up to 24 hours, a powerful camera system, robust AI-driven features, and so much more.

However, despite the advanced technology — like the Tensor G4 processor — this phone is surprisingly easy to use and extremely customizable. It comes with Android 14 preinstalled, along with an impressive collection of preinstalled Google apps and services. So right out of the box, it’s ready to serve as a feature-packed communications, productivity, time management, photography, entertainment, health/fitness and safety tool. But with the more than 3 million apps available from the Google Play Store, it’s easy to add all sorts of features and functions.

For someone who is a moderate to power smartphone user, I’d recommend the slightly more expensive and powerful Google Pixel 9 Pro phone as opposed to this base model, but for anyone who’s budget-conscious, but needs a full-featured smartphone, the Pixel 9 is a really good choice.

Google Pixel 9: At a glance

Display size: 6.3 inches | Display type: Actua OLED touchscreen | Display resolution: 1,080 x 2,424 pixels | Max. display brightness: 2,700 nits | Processor: Google Tensor G4, Titan M2 security coprocessor | Available colors: Peony, wintergreen, porcelain, obsidian | Dimensions: 6 x 2.8 x 0.3 inches | Weight: 7 ounces | Storage options: 128GB or 256GB (12GB RAM) | Port: USB Type-C 3.2 | Wireless connectivity: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3 | Battery life: Up to 24 hours | Operating system: Android 14 | SIMs: Single Nano SIM and eSIM | Audio: Stereo speakers (with spatial audio), 3x microphones

Right out of the box, the Pixel 9 is easy to set up, especially if you already have a free Google account and want to transfer your content from another Android smartphone to this one. One of the first noticeable enhancements is that Google Assistant has been replaced by Google Gemini, which is an advanced, AI-driven tool that’s simple to use, yet very versatile and powerful. It understand the words you use to ask questions or issue commands, and understands your intent, too.

It also handles tasks that no smartphone has been able to perform in the past — like streamline your scheduling and to-do list management, summarize incoming emails and translate content between languages.

Gemini AI tools are integrated into the Android OS and most of the apps that come preinstalled on the phone, including Recorder. After you record the audio from a call, class, meeting or conversation, Gemini creates a text-based transcript and a summary of key points from each recording. 

Especially if you purchase the Pixel 9 from Best Buy or AT&T, there are a bunch of trade-in, financing and promotional offers that bring the cost of the phone down considerably from its $799 base price.

Google Pixel 9: AI features

Google Gemini provides some mind-blowing new ways to interact with your phone. While there are many, here are three of the AI-driven features I found to be the most powerful and useful:

• Gemini can almost instantly summarize documents, emails, audio recordings (of conversations, classes or meetings), or web pages.
• Instead of writing your own text, provide prompts to Gemini and it will instantly compose emails, documents, or even an original poem about any topic whatsoever. I asked Gemini to write a 50 word poem about the Pixel 9 phone’s best new features and here’s what it composed.

• Anytime you want to learn more about anything onscreen, tap the bottom area of the screen to activate Gemini. Use your finger to circle the object you want to learn more about. For example, if you see a shirt being worn by a celebrity in a photo that you love, circle it, and Google will tell you all about that shirt, how much it costs, and where to purchase it. This works when you want to learn about any item, object, animal, location, piece of artwork, landmark, plant, or just about anything else. 

Google Pixel 9: Photos and video

The Pixel 9 offers just two rear-facing cameras, which are the same cameras found in the Pixel 9 Pro and Pro XL models. Since this phone lacks the third telephoto camera on the back, it has more limited zoom capabilities. You get up to 8x Super Res. Zoom, compared to 30x zoom offered by the more advanced models. The front-facing camera is also lower resolution. 

Despite the less-advanced tech, most of the picture taking, video shooting, and editing capabilities found in the more advanced Pixel 9 phones are offered in this base model. The Gemini AI tools make photo and video editing a breeze, while providing new tools for removing items from images, enhancing image quality, sharpening images and more. 

As you’ll see from the sample images below, the picture taking capabilities offered by the Pixel 9 are rather advanced. It’s surprisingly simple, however, to achieve consistently high-quality images or video content, even if you’re a novice smartphone photographer. Any photography or videography skills you may lack are made up for by the advanced AI tools offered by the Camera and Photos apps. This includes real-time tips for helping you frame your shots and having the phone auto-adjust settings based on your shooting location and situation.

Built into the Camera app are advanced picture-taking shooting modes, like Action Pan, Long Exposure, Add Me, Portrait, Photo, Night Sight and Panorama. Action Pan is ideal for adding a motion blur when taking photos of a fast moving subject. Long Exposure is also a tool for adding a creative blur to moving subjects. The Add Me tool allows you to take a group photo with you as the photographer, but then seamlessly add yourself to the image during the picture taking processes. 

Portrait mode is ideal for taking pictures of people or objects when you want the background automatically blurred. This puts more emphasis on your subject, Photo shooting mode is what’s used most frequently for taking single, rectangular-shaped photos, while Night Sight is used to low-light situations. 

Panorama mode is used to taking extra-long rectangular shots of large groups, skylines or landscapes. While taking photos or shooting video, you also have access to a wide range of other AI-driven features designed to streamline the shooting process, yet provide impressive results you’ll be proud to share with family and friends or post on social media. 

Sample images taken with the Google Pixel 9

Key differences between the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro

All of the Pixel 9 phone models run the same version of Android 14, come with the same collection of preinstalled apps, and operate using the same Google Tensor G4 processor. The battery within the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro is also the same. There are, however, a few notable differences between the Pixel 9 and the more advanced models, including:

• The Pixel 9 relies on an 6.3-inch Acua touchscreen display, instead of a Super Actua display. It has a lower resolution (1,080 by 2,424 pixels), compared to 1,280 by 28,56 pixels (Pixel 9 Pro) or 1,344 by 2,992 pixels (Pixel 9 Pro XL). The display’s maximum brightness is 2,700 nits (as opposed to 3,000 nits).
• The Pixel 9 can be configured with either 128GB or 256GB and comes with 12GB of RAM. The more advanced Pixel 9 phones offer your choice of 128GB, 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of storage and come with 16GB of RAM.
• The Pixel 9’s rear camera system includes two cameras, not three. The front-facing camera built into the Pixel 9 offers 10.5MP resolution, not 42MP resolution like the Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL.
• The maximum video resolution the Pixel 9 can shoot at is 4K (60fps), while the more advanced Pixel 9 phones can shoot at up to 8K (30 fps) resolution.
• Some of the picture taking and photo editing tools built into the Camera and Photos apps are more limited on the Pixel 9, although you still get access to AI-driven tools like Magic Editor, Magic Eraser and Photo Unblur.

Not sure which model is right for you? Also be sure to check out our in-depth reviews of the Google Pixel 9 Pro and Google Pixel 9 Pro XL smartphones.

Is the Google Pixel 9 worth it?

In a word, yes. Once again Google has done an excellent job pushing the capabilities of the Android operating system and Gemini AI tools (both of which Google developed). In this case, Google has made advanced capabilities easily usable by everyday smartphone users through an intuitive interface.

• Design: The form factor of this phone is thin, light and durable, while the display is bright and highly responsive to the touch. It is able to showcase accurate colors with plenty of detail.
• Performance: The Google Tensor G4 processor is fast and highly efficient. This makes multitasking a breeze and allows the Gemini AI tools to respond quickly. With the help of the Titan M2 security co-processor, the phone offers multi-layer hardware security, end-to-end security when using the internet, as well as an integrated VPN built into the Chrome web bowser. The collection of preinstalled apps give you easy access to most of Google’s most popular services.
• Value: Between trade-in credit, financing deals and other promotions, it’s easy to find generous discounts on the Pixel 9 phone. However, even at its full starting price of $799, this phone offers a really good value for the money, particularly for casual users.

For in-depth reviews of the Google Pixel 9 Pro, Google Pixel 9 Pro XL, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max, OnePlus 12 and other popular phones, check out our ever-expanding tech coverage.