Love it or hate it, AI features on a smartphone will only grow in number with time. And if it’s any indicator of how times are changing, even Apple, which has avoided taking any big strides for years (be it foldables, super high-resolution cameras, faster charging), has jumped aboard the AI (Apple Intelligence) train this year with iOS 18. I have been using Google’s newest member of the Pixel family, the
The Pixel 9 Pro XL offers the slightly improved primary camera performance that arrived with the Pixel 8 Pro last year (tap image to expand)
The primary camera on the Pixel 9 Pro XL does a fine job of capturing detailed images with excellent dynamic range and sharpness. The colours appear balanced and very close to the real scene. Like in the past, the 2X magnification level is a digital crop of the primary sensor. But unlike the past, these photographs are very impressive.
2X (digital) zoom performance (shown here in dim light) has improved drastically and was a major pain point with the older Pixel Pro models (tap image to expand)
The Portrait mode even works well in low light or with strong backlighting, capturing images at 1.5X, 2X or 3X. What is a hit or a miss is the edge detection. As you can see in the images above and below, the edge detection may appear perfectly fine if you are lucky or an absolute mess if you aren’t.
Despite packing a 42-megapixel camera, the results from the Pixel 9 Pro XL don’t appear any different when compared to last year’s Pixel 8 Pro (tap image to expand)
When capturing selfies, edge detection suffers quite a bit, even when compared to the Pixel 8 Pro (which does a better job). Despite having a high-resolution sensor, the quality of images is quite similar, with minor gains in daylight and low light.
Google’s 5X telephoto camera captures sharp photos with good detail in all lighting conditions. But its zoom capabilities are decent till the next magnification level (10X), beyond which image quality isn’t impressive. You can use the new Zoom Enhance AI sharpening tool in the Photos app to enhance these blurry images captured at 15X or 30X, but despite improving the overall quality, these aren’t game-changing.
The ultra-wide camera manages slightly soft images in daylight with some blown-out highlights and purple-fringing. This is not the case with the Pixel 8 Pro. In low light, there’s more detail (especially in the darker areas) visible in the Pixel 9 Pro XL’s photos.
An ultra-wide camera sample from the Pixel 9 Pro XL under artificial light (tap to expand image)
The Google Pixel 9 Pro XL’s primary camera captures an impressive level of detail in low light (tap image to expand)
2X digital zoom has improved compared to previous models (tap image to expand)
The telephoto camera snaps some impressive photos in low light at its native 5X zoom (tap image to expand)
Video quality benefits a lot from the new VC cooling system, so this does not result in automatic downscaling or quality drops because it just does not get as hot as the older Pixels did.
When recording the video, I did find the resolved detail on the Pixel 8 Pro to be better than the softer and brighter visuals of the 9 Pro XL. The noise was present in low light or street-lit conditions, but the overall quality was just fine. It’s still nowhere near the rock-steady frame rates of the iPhone 15 Pro Max, especially when panning or walking. But all of this is tolerable because Video Boost is here to save the day.
Video Boost actually went live with the Pixel 8 Pro post-launch. Having the review unit with me for a while, I did not find all the results useful, and they somehow did not seem very impressive. But all of this changes with the Pixel 9 Pro XL.
With the Pixel 9 Pro series, Google claims to have improved video rendering, making it twice as fast as last year. Moreover, there’s even 8K upscaling support along with HDR+. Video boost improves clarity (removes noise), boosts contrast and colours and stabilises the video overall, making for smoother panning movements. It even does this for footage captured in low light (Night Sight Video), resulting in noise-free footage.
The whole problem with Video Boost is that one has to wait for the processing to happen, and there is no approximate time duration provided for when the boosted video will be ready either.
Google 9 Pro XL Review Battery: Meets expectations… For a Pixel
- Battery capacity – 5,060mAh
- Charging rate – 45W
- Wireless charging – 23W
I did not expect many changes to the phone’s battery life, given the meagre 10mAh bump over the previous model. Our video loop battery life test also managed just 12 hours and 19 minutes, which is lower than last year’s Pixel 8 Pro. With heavy usage, which involved shooting photos, video, and some calls, the phone just managed to deliver a day of usage that touched 18 percent by the end of the work day. All in all, this is fine for Pixel, but it is still a one-day smartphone and far behind the competition.
The phone took 1 hour and 30 minutes when I plugged it into my 65W GaN charger. Google claims that the 45W charging rate can only be achieved by plugging it into its proprietary charger, which sadly is not on sale in India.
Google 9 Pro XL Verdict
Priced at Rs. 1,24,999 for the base 256GB variant and Rs. 1,39,999 for the 512GB variant, Google’s Pixel 9 Pro XL, in terms of hardware, is basically the top-end Pro model we wanted to see last year. Instead, all we got was a Pixel 8 Pro, which was hard to recommend as it was not a big improvement over the Pixel 7 Pro it attempted to replace.
While this year’s Pixel 9 Pro XL is not as advanced as Samsung or Vivo’s flagships in terms of raw performance and hardware, it’s packed with AI features that can literally change the way you work or even exist socially. Google pitches these AI features as “helpful” or “time-saving” when getting a variety of things done, but it does cross a few lines in its quest to impress users. The Pixel 9 Pro XL surely builds a strong case for why AI features should exist on a smartphone, but owners can choose to use them and live with them or ignore them.
This is because this year’s Pixel Pro also feels far more premium than any of the previous models and takes care of some major hardware pain points that have plagued Google’s devices for years, like heat management, a brighter display, and the list goes on. Battery life is not the best in the business, and Gemini Advanced features come at a premium price. But I can see many Pixel 6 Pro, Pixel 7 Pro users and even some curious iPhone owners instantly upgrading to one because there’s finally a Pixel that gets a lot of things right.
