Google Insiders Reveal Pixel 9 Pro Design Decisions

Updated May 20: article originally posted May 18.

Google may have launched the Pixel 8a alongside this month’s I/O Developer Conference, but many are looking forward to the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro. These handsets will build on the AI-first smartphones of the Pixel 8 family and will cement Google’s view of AI in a smartphone. As I/O discusses the upcoming software, the latest leaks offer a clear look at the hardware.

Update: Monday May 20.

In addition to images of the Pixel 9 family, we have a potential sighting of the new wallpapers, which themselves point towards the colors we can expect of the Pixel 9, 9 Pro, and 9XL.

Android Authority has various wallpapers that will feature across all three Pixel phones and a potential Pixel Fold 2. They all echo the same theme, which looks to be “macro photos of nature in bloom.” Eight wallpapers are listed for each of the phones, and four additional wallpapers are listed for the foldable.

The handsets will come in a mix of colours, currently listed as jade, obsidian, peony, porcelain, hazel, and rose. Expect some of these to be exclusive to the Google Web store or with a significant carrier partner.

New photos of the three devices, the presumptively named Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, and Pixel 9 XL, come from the team at Rozetked. They show the new design language of the camera, the similar sizes of the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro, and the new addition to the family in the form of the premium Pixel 9 XL.

With the launch of the Pixel 6, Google adopted a new design language for the Pixel family. It replaced the familiar camera island of traditional smartphone design with the camera bar, a raised area stretched across the back of the device. This offered the same benefits of volume and depth of a camera island while giving the product line a unique identifying feature.

It has stayed consistent on the Pixel range to this day, but it was tweaked on the Pixel Fold to a bar that reached most of the way over but with a distinctive curve. This curve is coming over to the Pixel 9 family; welcome to the new physical branding.

Google will reportedly offer a third Pixel device at the launch of the Pixel 9 series. While there are three models in the Pixel 6, 7, and 8 family, the 6a, 7a, and 8a were launched some nine months after the original handsets.

From the reported specs and sizes shown here, the Pixel 9 will continue to be the family’s base phone. The higher-specced phone, currently carrying the Pro label, will now carry the XL label. The new Pro will now offer the higher specs of the XL in a smaller form factor.

Last year’s Pixel launch event took place in the first week of October, shortly after the iPhone’s launch, and there’s no reason to expect a different approach this year.

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