Google Pixel 9 Professional XL Assessment: The premium AI flagship

Google Pixel 9 Professional XL Intro

What isn’t so good is that Google has hiked the value this 12 months, and the Pixel 9 Professional XL now begins at $1,100, nearer than ever to the $1,200 worth of the iPhone Professional Max mannequin. And it additionally appears to be like rather a lot like an iPhone.

However in fact, it isn’t an iPhone, it is an AI cellphone.

Lots of the newly introduced Google AI options are associated to Gemini, together with the unimaginable Gemini Stay, which feels virtually indistinguishable from speaking to an actual individual. Nevertheless, that’s out there on most different Android telephones as properly, it isn’t a Pixel unique.

Different AI options just like the photograph Reimagine instrument you may solely get on the Pixel and so they help you alter photographs in loopy methods virtually too simply. And but different AI options like a full integration of Gemini together with your Gmail and Google Calendar are but to come back.

When it comes to {hardware} upgrades, the brand new Tensor G4 chip will get higher cooling, so gaming is now way more tolerable, and each battery life and charging are higher than earlier than. This would possibly simply be the greatest Android cellphone of the 12 months, so let’s dive in.

Disclaimer: We use a brand new assessment score system at PhoneArena, and it’s possible you’ll discover the full rating is now decrease than you is perhaps used to. Do not be fooled that the decrease quantity means the Pixel 9 Professional XL is a nasty cellphone. As a substitute, the thought is to take a look at the scores within the context of the value class, and this new Pixel really scores greater than the typical for its worth.

Desk of Contents:

Additionally learn:

Google Pixel 9 Professional XL Specs

Extra RAM, a quicker chip and quicker charging

Pixel 9 Professional XL on the left and Pixel 8 Professional on the best

Earlier than we dive within the new options, take a better have a look at the {hardware} variations between the brand new Pixel 9 Professional XL mannequin and the Pixel 8 Professional from final 12 months: 

New flat sides remodel the look of the Pixel 9 Professional XL (Picture by PhoneArena)

Google says this new Pixel is twice extra sturdy in comparison with final 12 months’s mannequin, which the corporate appears to measure utilizing drop exams. Since you’ve got the identical supplies, an aluminum body and Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the front and back, this appears to be all due to the brand new design, which absorbs impression higher.

It feels extra comfy to carry (Picture by PhoneArena)

The Pixel 9 Professional XL additionally comes with a matte glass again, so that you needn’t fear about fingerprint marks, and on the edges you’ve got shiny, polished aluminum, which appears to be like cool however that one attracts smudges simply. Commonplace flagship options like IP68 water and mud safety are in fact current too.

You may get the 9 Professional XL in one in all these colours:

We miss the cool blue “Bay” coloration of the earlier era, however hey, you now have a pink model as a substitute.

When it comes to buttons, you’ve got the ability and quantity keys on the best hand facet, a bit greater than earlier than. No fancy Motion buttons or Seize buttons right here.

Contemplating this can be a premium cellphone, Google is unquestionably not being very beneficiant with the unboxing expertise. You get a slim field fabricated from recycled supplies, the place you can find the cellphone and a 3-feet (1 meter) USB-C cable, however not a lot else. There is no such thing as a charger within the field, no case and no display screen protector. You’ll have to buy all of these individually.

This display screen will get tremendous shiny (Picture by PhoneArena)

The display screen measurement of the 9 Professional XL is barely barely bigger, 6.8 inches vs 6.7 inches on the earlier mannequin, however that’s such a tiny distinction in actual life that you simply will not even discover.

The display screen high quality, nevertheless, has improved, and particularly the brightness. The 9 Professional XL reaches peak brightness of three,000 nits in comparison with 2,400 nits on the Pixel 8 Professional, which was already one of many brightest telephones we’ve ever examined. 

We do not measure peak brightness (Google will get this quantity when measuring solely 5% white on an in any other case all-black display screen), however as a substitute we measure an all-white show. The Pixel 9 Professional XL is the brightest cellphone we’ve ever examined, hitting greater than 2,000 nits, actually spectacular.

The remainder of the show is similar as earlier than – Google calls this display screen “Tremendous Actua”, and the refresh fee can range from 1Hz for static content material to 120Hz. The decision can also be the identical as final 12 months, it is a 1344p show, so it is undoubtedly sharp sufficient.

Google Pixel 9 Professional XL Digital camera

Slight tweaks in picture high quality, huge new AI options

Slight enhancements to the rear cameras, and a really large new entrance digital camera (Picture by PhoneArena)

The primary motive for getting a brand new cellphone for most individuals appears to be the improve to a greater digital camera, so Google needed to do one thing right here.

However the digital camera {hardware} itself has not modified a lot. The primary digital camera makes use of the identical 50MP sensor as final 12 months, the 48MP 5X zoom digital camera additionally appears to be the identical, and also you solely have a really slight improve for the 48MP ultra-wide digital camera, which will get f/1.7 aperture vs f/2 earlier than.

The 9 Professional XL has gone by way of our intensive PhoneArena Digital camera Rating testing protocol the place we take photographs and movies with every particular person digital camera and analyze them scientifically. The outcomes of the check conclude that the Pixel 9 Professional XL is a minor improve in comparison with the 8 Professional.

Lots of the enhancements really do not even come from higher element or picture high quality, however are digital camera options that have been lacking, such because the portrait mode preview, so you may lastly see what a portrait photograph appears to be like earlier than you’re taking it.

And here’s what precise Pixel 9 Professional XL photographs appear to be.

Pixel 9 Professional XL Digital camera Pattern Images

On prime of that, you’ve got all the brand new Google AI magic.

Add Me – This function is particularly on your group pictures when there is no such thing as a one round to take your photograph. With it, you first take one shot of your pals, after which commerce locations with them so you may as well get within the body, and so they take your image. The cellphone helps to get the composition comparable for this second shot. Then, it’s going to mix these two photos, inserting you into the primary group photograph, so you might be with the remainder of the group and it looks as if any person simply took your image. We’re curious to do this one. It sounds cool, but in addition doubtlessly a bit finnicky.

Reimagine – This one is a Magic Editor function, which lets you do loopy issues to a photograph and alter it fully. For instance, you may simply sort “change the background with a sundown” and AI provides you with a number of completely different variations for a sundown background. Or you may add fireworks, or butterflies, or no matter else involves thoughts. With such a profound transformation, you start to surprise if this nonetheless qualifies as a “photograph” or is it one thing that needs to be referred to as in any other case. An “AI photograph” possibly?

Auto Body – This one is once more about AI, which has now realized the golden guidelines of composition and is able to recommend methods to recompose your imperfectly composed pictures to one thing a lot nearer to these golden requirements.

Video Increase – This one we all know from final 12 months, so it isn’t new, however quite an enchancment. The best way it really works is similar – you choose a video to “enhance” and the system sends it to the Google Cloud, the place it will get processed by some supercomputers and in just a few hours, you get again an improved model of that video. Google says the processing now takes much less time although and your 4K video now returns upscaled to 8K high quality. Google even guarantees this 8K last model is so good, you may take 30MP photograph snaps out of the footage and they’ll look superb. Once more, this all sounded very cool final 12 months, however in actuality we virtually by no means used that function. Let’s examine if all of the enhancements make it well worth the trouble and additional processing time. 

And by way of video high quality, the Pixel 9 Professional XL is a really slight enchancment in comparison with the earlier mannequin.

Pixel 9 Professional XL (left) vs Galaxy S24 Extremely (proper) in a gaming benchmark

Underneath the hood, the Pixel 9 Professional XL is powered by the Google Tensor G4 chip, simply as all different Pixel 9 sequence telephones. It additionally has 16GB of RAM, which is a powerful quantity. Google says is allocates a part of that for AI duties, which looks as if an affordable factor to do, so you may count on AI to work quicker on the Pixel 9 Professional XL in comparison with earlier Pixel editions.

Efficiency Benchmarks:

As you may see within the benchmarks above, the Pixel 9 Professional XL is behind in CPU efficiency, as measured by the Geekbench 6 check for each single and multi-core duties.

For gaming, the excellent news is that the Tensor G4 heats up much less and cools higher than earlier than. This implies much less throttling in gaming and higher body charges, however it’s nonetheless some 30% slower than the Galaxy S24 Extremely for extended gaming periods (and even slower in case your gaming periods are shorter).

Rumors say the Tensor G4 chip is the final Tensor processor manufactured by Samsung, and the following Tensor G5 chip would be the first made by TSMC, the business’s main foundry. This most likely means the Pixel 10 sequence will rating an enormous enhance in efficiency, however that’s, allegedly, solely occurring subsequent 12 months.

Google Pixel 9 Professional XL Software program

Talking of updates, Google maintains its dedication for seven years of main OS updates, which is totally implausible and future-proofs it in an enormous approach.

Let’s examine what precisely is new by way of options (you may guess it is rather a lot about AI).

Pixel Studio – that is your AI picture era lab. Sort what you need to see, and AI will paint it for you. You possibly can additional refine the picture to be in a selected fashion – cartoon-like, cinematic or one thing else. 

As you may see, it was extremely straightforward to create these romantic sundown pictures that look actually cool.

Nevertheless, it was additionally not too arduous to get one thing extra controversial like a photograph of this nazi cat.

Climate app – we will not imagine it both! It took Google almost 20 years to lastly admit {that a} native Climate app is a pleasant factor to have. This new Climate app has all of the hallmark Pixel design quirks and it appears to be like very detailed, and truthfully, lengthy, lengthy overdue.

Screenshots app – this one is a cool thought. It collects all your screenshots in a single place and places the ability of AI that can assist you search that library. That is nice. We all know we use screenshots to simply bear in mind issues, and having AI seek for that sounds very helpful.

Satellite tv for pc SOS (*solely within the US) – a 12 months after Apple, Google is the second firm to convey Satellite tv for pc SOS to its telephones, first on the Pixel 9 sequence. And similar to Apple, Satellite tv for pc SOS will probably be free on the Pixel 9 telephones for the primary two years and we do not know what the value will probably be after that.

Maintain Magic Listing – a collaboration between Gemini and the Google Maintain note-taking app, you may create “magic” lists. The best way this works is you may ask Gemini issues like “what components do I must make tacos”, and get the record proper in Google Maintain.

Name Notes – this one makes use of on-device AI to create a neat abstract of your dialog. Be aware that the opposite occasion will probably be warned that the decision is being recorded.

PhoneArena Battery Check Outcomes:

We needed to run our in-house battery exams to search out out what the true battery numbers are.

We see some huge enhancements for internet searching, which is our lightest check, in order that’s encouraging.

Curiously, for YouTube video streaming, the brand new 9 Professional XL lasted an hour lower than its predecessor.

Lastly, on our 3D gaming check clearly the brand new cooling had its say and the brand new Pixel outranked its predecessor by an enormous margin.

We’re additionally completely satisfied to see the 9 Professional XL help quicker charging speeds. Google has a brand new 45W charger that it recommends, however be warned that not one of the Pixel 9 telephones suppot the total 45W speeds. The Pixel 9 Professional XL is the quickest of the brand new fashions, and it maxes out at 37 watts.

PhoneArena Charging Check Outcomes:

That is nonetheless nice. Google says you will get a 70% cost with a 30 minute top-up. In our testing, we received 63% in half an hour, not fairly matching that, however shut. And that’s nonetheless quicker than the Pixel 8 Professional which reached solely 47% in the identical interval.

A full 1% to 100% cost takes 1 hour and 23 minutes on the 9 Professional XL in comparison with 1 hour and 31 minutes on the 8 Professional, not an enormous differnce.

Charging pace graph for 9 Professional XL, we couldn’t hit the advertized 37 watt pace (Picture by PhoneArena)

Within the chart under that breaks down the charging course of, you may see how for the primary 25 minutes the cellphone expenses on the most pace, which for us was round 34 watts, a bit in need of the advertized 37W. 

After that, charging speeds drop in half to round 18W, which the cellphone maintains for 15 extra minutes, after which speeds decelerate even additional.

Wi-fi charging can also be on board, however the speeds haven’t modified. The Pixel 9 Professional XL wi-fi charging goes as much as 21 watts, however provided that you employ the Google Pixel Stand 2nd Gen. With an everyday Qi charger, the max wi-fi charging pace is restricted to 12W.

Must you purchase it?

Refined and all about AI (Picture by PhoneArena)

The Pixel 9 Professional XL would possibly really feel like an even bigger improve than it’s due to all of the speak round AI, however most of the most spectacular new options comparable to Gemini Stay are usually not unique to the Pixel and can be found on most different Android telephones too.

This leaves us with just a few smaller {hardware} modifications. Out of these, we actually like the brand new design and the improved battery life. We are able to respect the quicker Tensor G4 chip and quicker charging, however these are usually not fairly game-changers.

Is all of that sufficient to justify the upper worth? Possibly not totally, however this Pixel remains to be cheaper than the iPhone Professional Max or Galaxy Extremely.

In the event you already personal a current Pixel cellphone, you shouldn’t really feel rushed to improve. And if you’re contemplating your choices between a Pixel and different telephones, let’s put it this fashion: we really feel just like the Pixel is forward for AI than different telephones, and when you worth that, you must get it. However even when you do not actually care about AI, the 9 Professional XL looks like one very refined, premium flagship, and it deserves a severe consideration from anybody searching for that.