Google’s Pixel 9 lineup is a Pro show

Google’s Pixel phone lineup is getting a little bigger this year. The Pixel 9 series now counts one standard model — the Pixel 9 — and three Pro models: the Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro XL, and Pixel 9 Pro Fold. They all offer updated designs, new Tensor G4 processors, and AI features up the wazoo.

The Pixel 9’s updated design language is giving iPhone from the front — the curved edges are out and flat sides are in. The back panel, however, is all Pixel. The camera bar is now an elongated, free-floating camera oval protruding from the back of the phone.

The standard Pixel 9 keeps the same basic size and shape with a bigger 6.3-inch screen, and the 9 Pro XL is roughly the size of the Pixel 8 Pro with a bigger 6.8-inch screen. The Pixel 9 Pro is the new offering, landing right in the middle: about the size of the Pixel 9 with most of the 9 Pro’s features on board.

The phone formerly known as the Pixel Fold, now updated as the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, features tweaks mainly to its size and shape. It’s now 5.1mm thick when unfolded, compared to 5.8mm. It’s also taller than the previous model, measuring 155.2mm on the long edge with a 6.3-inch outer screen; the Pixel Fold measured 139.7mm long with a 5.8-inch screen.

After some exhaustive research, including making a spreadsheet, I can say once and for all that I know what makes a Pro phone worthy of the “Pro” moniker: lots of RAM. Okay, maybe that’s not it exactly, but all three Pro devices do come with 16GB of RAM. The Pixel 9 comes with 12GB now, too. That matters when you’re trying to run AI on-device, and the Pixel 9 series comes with an updated Gemini Nano model that adds multimodality so it can analyze images and speech as well as text.

New AI features coming to the Pixel 9 series include a new Recall-like ability to catalog and retrieve information from your screenshots; unlike Microsoft’s approach, it only works with screenshots you take manually. It happens on-device and is a Pixel-exclusive feature. There’s also a new app called Pixel Studio that uses generative AI to turn your text prompts into illustrations, though it doesn’t run on-device.

But most of the AI magic is reserved for photos, as usual. And as usual, you’ll be left questioning the nature of a photo, given the potential of these tools. Magic Editor has a new option to “reimagine” a scene. Rather than just tweaking lighting, you can select parts of an image and use text prompts to completely transform them with generative AI. There’s also a feature called Add Me, which helps you add someone to a group photo. The UI guides you through the process of taking an initial photo, then letting the photographer hand off the phone and step into the frame for a second shot, which AI merges into a single frame with everyone accounted for.

The Pixel 9 series will be the first Android phones in the US to come with Satellite SOS, which, much like Apple’s satellite emergency feature, will help you connect to emergency services when you’re outside of phone reception. That’ll come later this year, presumably with Android 15. With Google’s hardware event earlier than usual this year, this crop of Pixel phones will ship with Android 14 rather than syncing up with the latest Android OS release. But like the previous generation of Pixel phones, the Pixel 9 series will come with seven years of OS updates and security patches.

On the camera front, the Pixel 9, 9 Pro, and 9 Pro XL all use a 50-megapixel f/1.7 like last year’s models, and they all come with updated ultrawide cameras. The 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL include a new 42-megapixel selfie camera with autofocus. The Pixel 9 still uses a 10.5-megapixel selfie camera, but it gains autofocus for the first time.

Google has put in some work under the hood, too. Panorama mode features a new UI and support for Night Sight, and the HDR Plus pipeline has been adjusted to fine-tune sharpening and contrast. Video Boost — an off-device AI-powered processing feature only available on the 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL — can be used to create upscaled 8K footage and works with digitally zoomed video clips to add back detail and smooth out transitions as you zoom in and out between lenses.

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s camera specs still lag behind the other Pro Pixels. It has a 48-megapixel f/1.7 main camera and lower-res ultrawide and telephoto cameras compared to the 9 Pro and Pro XL. Pixel camera PM Isaac Reynolds tells me that the Fold’s hardware has improved relative to last year, including new matching selfie cameras on the inner and outer screens. But more advanced camera hardware would have made for a thicker phone, so compromises have been made.

But the inner screen is the main attraction on a folding phone, and not only is it bigger this time around — 8 inches versus 7.6 — but it also gets much brighter at up to 2,700 nits in peak brightness mode, compared to 1,450. That should make it much easier to use outside in bright light.

The Google Pixel 9 goes on sale on August 22nd, and it starts at $799, which is a $100 price bump over last year. The Pixel 9 Pro and Pro XL start at $999 and $1,099, respectively, with the XL shipping on August 22nd and the 9 Pro arriving in September. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold costs $1,799; it ships on September 4th.