Google Pixel 9 Pro XL

Verdict

The Pixel 9 Pro XL is one of the most exciting Pixels in a long time; it not only sports a desperately-needed design refresh, but a boost to the auxiliary camera lenses, all-day battery life and a huge focus on GenAI allows it to stand out from the competition.

Introduction

The Google Pixel 9 Pro XL branding might be new, but the phone is very much an update to last year’s Google Pixel 8 Pro – and what an update it is.

The Pixel 9 Pro XL, along with the rest of the Pixel 9 collection, are a breath of fresh air, sporting a much-needed redesign that brings it in line with the 2024 competition, along with key upgrades to its ever-impressive camera offering and the most holistic approach to GenAI we’ve seen so far. 

It’s easily one of the best experiences you’ll get on an Android smartphone in 2024, but with a £100/$100 price increase to a not insignificant £1099/$1099 – the second hike in just as many years – it’s that little bit harder to recommend this year. 

Design

• New look for the Pixel 9 collection
• Improved camera bar design
• Top-end protection

The Pixel 9 marks the first design refresh since the camera bar was introduced on the Pixel 6 – and it’s quite a departure from the curvy, rounded chassis of last year’s Pixel 8 Pro. 

The Pixel 9 Pro XL, along with the rest of the Pixel 9 collection, sports a new design with completely flat edges and rounded corners. Yes, it’s easy to say that the Pixel 9 Pro XL closely resembles the iPhone 15, especially with a polished aluminium band connecting the two glass sides of the phone, but I think there’s enough here to separate the two. 

Case and point; the camera bar. While it is a bit of a Marmite design feature, it certainly helps the Pixel collection visually stand out from the competition. 

This year’s camera bar isn’t anywhere near as intrusive as it has been, instead taking the shape of a long pill that no longer stretches to each side of the phone. This not only makes for a cleaner design that complements the new industrial look of the phone, but it also means it’s less likely to get caught in pockets. It’s still a bit of a dust magnet, however. 

I also love the matte finish of the smartphone, which does an impressive job of negating fingerprints and other smudges while also feeling almost satin-like in the hand. The phone feels smooth and particularly well-built, with no gap between panels or a sharp edge in sight – and I can’t even say that about my iPhone 14 Pro. 

It’s available in the usual suite of Pro-level Pixel colours, which is to say that the selection is more muted than what you’ll find on the vibrant entry-level Pixel 9 – apparently ‘pros’ don’t like colour. Anyway, if you opt for the XL, you’ll have a choice between Porcelain, Rose Quartz, Hazel and Obsidian, with the latter provided for review. 

It’s a little on the weighty side at 221g, matching the iPhone 15 Pro Max, but I wouldn’t say that it’s unwieldy to use. If you’ve used a big-screen iPhone in recent years, you’ll likely be fine with what’s on offer here. 

Protection continues to be top-notch with Google’s top-end flagship, sporting Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection on both the front and rear of the device, and it retains the IP68 dust and water resistance of last year’s Pixel 8 Pro that allows it to be submerged for short periods. 

There’s no display tech to negate the effects of water like OnePlus’ Aqua Touch though, so you’ll still struggle with texting in the rain.  

Screen

• 6.8-inch Super Actua OLED display
• Boosted 3000nits peak brightness
• Improved in-display fingerprint scanner

The Pixel 9 Pro XL’s branding is purely focused on the screen, offering a larger screen than both the new compact 6.3-inch Pixel 9 Pro and last year’s 6.7-inch Pixel 9 Pro at 6.8 inches, and reader, it’s one of the best screens around.

The 6.8-inch 1334 x 2992 OLED Super Actua panel is nothing short of stunning, able to complete with some of the best screens around from the likes of Apple and Samsung. 

It offers a boosted 3000nits brightness compared to last year’s 2000nits, making it even easier to use in bright sunlight. Seriously, this thing is just as clear in bright direct sunlight as it is in a darkened room, even if it does get toasty in the process. 

It’s not quite up to the lofty standards of the Honor Magic 6 Pro’s 5000nits max brightness, but it’s not noticeably dimmer when put side-by-side. And, with HDR10+ support, supported content looks impressive on the panel, making it a great option for watching movies on the go. 

It retains the LTPO tech introduced on the Pixel 8 Pro, meaning it can drop to as little as 1Hz all the way up to 120Hz, making it buttery smooth in everyday use while still conserving battery life wherever possible. You don’t get this on the standard Pixel 9 either; it’s a Pro-level exclusive. 

I’ve also got to commend the use of a flat-screen display; though it was also present on last year’s Pro-level Pixel, it remains a great choice compared to curved alternatives – especially with the new flat-edged look of the phone. It’s clean, better for gaming without the issue of mispresses, and it’s ideal for viewing video content too. 

Then there’s the in-display fingerprint reader, which is faster and more accurate than that of the Pixel 8 Pro due to the use of superior ultrasonic fingerprint reader tech in place of an optical sensor. A quick tap of the scanner results in an unlock 99% of the time, and it’s near-instantaneous. 

Cameras

• Same 50MP octa-PD main camera as Pixel 8 Pro
• Upgraded 48MP ultrawide and telephoto lenses
• Oodles of AI shooting modes and features

Cameras have been the reason to get yourself a Pixel over any flagship competitor, and this very much continues with the Pixel 9 Pro XL. With upgraded secondary lenses, a new selfie snapper and even more AI smarts, it’s easily one of the best camera phones you’ll find on the market right now. 

The main 50MP octa-PD camera, complete with its f/1.68 aperture and large 1/1.31-inch sensor, remains unchanged compared to the Pixel 8 Pro, though the auxiliary 48MP ultrawide and 5x telephoto cameras benefit from a larger 1/2.55-inch sensor for improved low-light performance and more detail in snaps – and it shows. 

Regardless of the camera you snap with, the Pixel 9 Pro XL takes incredible photos with that classic Pixel look of not being overly vibrant, aiming instead for colours that are true-to-life –  a stark change to the Galaxy S24 Ultra that can crank blues and greens to almost unnatural levels. It does make for a good social media post, but I appreciate Google’s more accurate, professional-looking approach. 

That’s especially true of portrait photography; not only does the Pixel 9 Pro XL have one of the best autofocus systems around, able to hold focus on your subject even when they move, but the way that Google’s phones capture skin tones continues to be the most accurate in the smartphone space. 

Low light continues to be a strong point for the main camera, producing images that aren’t aggressively overbrightened, instead matching closely to what you see with the naked eye. The colours are more subdued in low light, as you might expect, but zoom in and you’ll see plenty of detail. 

Google has also done a much better job of tuning all three rear lenses to ensure colour consistency, one of the big complaints we had with the Pixel 8 Pro. That means switching between the main, ultrawide and telephoto shouldn’t deliver wildly different colour palettes – though differing apertures mean light levels will still vary. 

The 48MP ultrawide’s autofocus means it doubles up as a macro lens with surprisingly good results, capturing both close-ups and scenic vistas with plenty of light and detail. It’s not up to the Sony Xperia 1 VI’s macro camera standards, but it’s still pretty capable.

The 48MP 5x telephoto lens is one of my favourites on the market right now. It might not have the same extreme levels of zoom as the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, instead capping out at 30x digital zoom, but that pretty much guarantees that all images taken will be of decent quality. 

Anything beyond 30x, regardless of the phone you use, will likely deliver soft, oil painting-eqsue shots that aren’t all that helpful anyway.  

Flip the phone over and you’ll find a surprisingly high-res 42MP ultrawide selfie camera, complete with autofocus. The combination of an ultrawide angle and autofocus means that all faces should be in focus, even in big group selfie shots, and you’ve got a cropped 1x view for your regular selfies too.

Of course, this is a Pro Pixel device, so it comes with the same Pro-level shooting controls we’ve seen from previous devices in the series, offering complete control over elements like shutter speed, ISO and white balance, along with more advanced options like shooting in full 50/48MP resolution. 

Then there’s Google’s famous suite of AI photo and editing tools, all of which are present and accounted for here – including the long-awaited Zoom Enhance that boosts detail of cropped photos, and the new Add Me that allows photographers to get in on group shots. 

This suite of tools continues to be some of the most advanced on the market, even offering the ability to completely reimagine your shots using the GenAI-powered Magic Editor.

There’s some debate as to whether these heavily AI-powered tools represent ‘true’ photography, but that aside, they’re very fun to use and come in handy more often than you might expect. 

Performance

• Tensor G4 and boosted 16GB of RAM
• Performance in line with Tensor G3
• Can get hot when playing games

When it comes to performance, the Pixel 9 Pro XL is powered by Google’s latest Pixel-exclusive chipset, the Tensor G4 – though it’s worth noting that the 4nm chipset found within the Pixel 9 Pro XL is available across the entire Pixel 9 collection. 

That means that performance shouldn’t be much of a factor when deciding which Pixel to go for, as the top-end Pixel 9 Pro XL will perform at a similar level to the entry-level Pixel 9 – albeit with a boosted 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB in storage. 

That said, the Tensor G4 – like previous Tensor chipsets – doesn’t go all-in on performance, instead focusing on AI skills, and that means it’s not quite as performant as the Snapdragon and Dimensity-equipped flagship competition. 

In fact, I think the gap has widened even further with the Snapdragon competition in benchmark testing, with results more in line with last year’s Tensor G3 than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-equipped competition. 

Does it really matter though? I’d argue not. 

In real-world use, the Pixel 9 Pro XL feels extremely quick and responsive, likely aided by fast animations and that LTPO screen, so much so that I was genuinely surprised when I saw the benchmark results because it just didn’t mirror my day-to-day experience. 

The phone can handle just about anything I can throw at it, including the boosted AI smarts that I’ll get to shortly, and makes short work of most games. It also captures images near-instantly, and the phone wakes up at a moment’s notice when I pick it up. I couldn’t tell the difference between it and the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra in real-world use, anyway. 

There is a catch though; the phone can get noticeably hotter than the competition when gaming for relatively short periods. Even in less demanding titles like Zombie Gunner Survival that run without issue on mid-range chipsets, the Pixel 9 Pro XL got noticeably hot after just 20 minutes of play, and it was a similar story when running most of our benchmark tests. 

As such, gamers might want to avoid this one – but there are plenty of gaming phones to choose from if that is your thing.  

Software & AI

• Huge focus on AI with new features
• Gemini Live is a great ChatGPT competitor
• Seven years of OS upgrades

The Pixel 9 collection bucks the trend of shipping with the latest version of Android, instead shipping with the year-old Android 14 – at first, anyway. Of course, the Pixel 9 range will get the update to Android 15 once it’s ready, but with the Pixel’s earlier launch in 2024, it needs a little more time in the oven.

It doesn’t matter in the slightest, however; Android 15 features like the redesigned Camera app and single-app screen recording are already present and accounted for on the Pixel 9 collection. I suppose that’s a benefit of developing the Android operating system! 

Instead, the focus for the Pixel 9 collection is AI – and even compared to its AI-infused predecessors, the Pixel 9 Pro XL is wholly more capable. 

That’s down in part to the Tensor G4’s ability to run multimodal AI on-device, allowing it to process images and audio alongside text for quicker, more intuitive responses. That means you can do things like take a photo of a plant and get Gemini to identify it for you, and it also enables Google’s answer to ChatGPT; Gemini Live.

This isn’t actually exclusive to the Pixel 9 collection, with reports suggesting that you’ll soon be able to access Gemini Live on Samsung phones if you’ve got the AI Premium subscription (the Pixel 9 collection comes with a one-year free trial), but it’s an impressive bit of tech nonetheless. 

Like ChatGPT, you can chat with Gemini Live in a more natural, conversational way, making it handy for vague queries and brainstorming. I used Gemini Live to help me plan a gym session, with a lot of back and forth on my preferences, and it was genuinely insightful.  

Then there’s Pixel Screenshots, a separate app from Google Photos that lets you search for information captured in screenshots. Think of it like Microsoft’s controversial Recall feature, but it’s entirely manual, allowing you to quickly find screenshots of purchase confirmations and other important documents by simply describing what you’re looking for in a natural way. 

Pixel Studio is another interesting feature, leaning in on the Tensor G4’s ability to generate images on-device. 

It works much like most other AI image generators in that you describe what you want to see and Pixel Studio creates it. You’ve got several styles of image to choose from, and it doesn’t look like there are many restrictions on it – I created an image of Mickey Mouse smoking a vape without any push-back, anyway.

These are only the big headline features, however. Google’s AI smarts go so much deeper, permeating practically every corner of the Android experience – so much so that it’d be impossible to discuss everything here. It’s safe to say that it’s the most holistic approach to GenAI we’ve seen on the Android side of things, and even if you’re not an AI nerd like I am, you’ll find some use for its AI features.  

Certain features like Call Assist which summarises phone calls for you remain US exclusive, but for the most part, all these features are readily available to use in the UK and other markets – a stark contrast to the competing Apple Intelligence that’ll be US-exclusive at first.

AI smarts aside, the Pixel’s stock approach to Android 14 is an absolute joy to use, and it’s infused with Pixel-exclusive features. 

Those range from a redesigned Weather app (which, as a bit of a Weather app nerd, is a treat to use!) to smaller elements like being able to automatically recognise music you hear throughout the day, ready to be added to your YouTube Music or Spotify playlist, and automatically turning Wi-Fi on at home and work.  

It’s not the most customisable skin around though; you can change the colour scheme and tweak the lock screen, but it lacks the deep customisation available from the likes of Honor and OnePlus. I also miss the big-screen Home screen folders present on some Android skins. But, for the most part, these are only small niggles in an otherwise flawless approach to Android. 

The long-term software promise continues to be industry-leading, only matched by Samsung’s flagship collection, offering a whopping seven years of OS upgrades and security patches that means the experience will only continue to improve over time. 

Battery Life

• 5060mAh battery
• Can easily last all-day
• 62% charge in 30 minutes

Battery life has been an issue for some Pixels, especially in the early days – but when it comes to the big-screen Pixel 9 Pro XL, there’s no such issue. It sports a 5060mAh battery, almost identical to its predecessor’s 5050mAh cell, and with the same 4nm chipset architecture, battery life is pretty much on par with the Pixel 8 Pro.

That’s no bad thing in my books; the Pixel 9 Pro XL has absolutely no issue lasting all day without scrambling for a charger. Even on days with fairly heavy usage of around six hours of screen time, split across doomscrolling on TikTok, making plenty of phone calls, listening to music, replying to messages and checking emails, I’d still end the day with around 20-30% left in the tank.

There is potential for two-day battery life, or something nearing it anyway, if you use your phone a little less. On days where I averaged only a couple of hours of screen time, I’d go to bed with close to half charge left, and that can be further extended by a few battery-saving tools baked into the OS. 

There isn’t a charger in the box, only a USB-C cable, but I recommend forking out for a 45W charger to take advantage of the Pixel 9 Pro XL’s boosted 37W charging capabilities. Using that charger, I saw a decent 62% in 30 minutes, though a full charge still took 80 minutes. 

That’s pretty much on par with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max, though it’s a step behind the true fast-charging capabilities of flagships like the OnePlus 12 and Honor Magic 6 Pro. 

Wired charging isn’t your only option, however; it supports 12W wireless charging, boosted to 23W if you use the official Pixel Stand (sold separately), and there’s 5W reverse wireless charging on board to top up your accessories in a pinch too.

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