Google Pixel 9 Pro XL review

21 August 2024


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Darth Caesium, 21 Aug 2024Where's the macro with the ultrawide? Also, please com... morepretty sure they didn't do that cus the camera's gonna be the same basically. The main thing they want to push is AI features AFTER the photo is taken.

    Wesker, 21 Aug 2024You either die an Android or live long enough to become an ... moreAI ain't gonna recharge the battery lmao

      Viv, 22 Aug 2024I can tell that a lot of people on here are young. Anywho, ... morewhat's wrong with criticism? If anything criticism is the key driver of improvement in any field. If everyone had the idea like you that "oh just don't use if if you don't like it" then no business would've flourished. Businesses always think about how to make the most amount of money with the least amount of money spent and to get more customers. If the majority of customers aren't into a product, then the product ain't all that. And if you think the Pixel sells in huge quantities, show me some sales figures compared to other phones.

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        • Anonymous
        • Brt
        • 22 Aug 2024

        Not shipping with Android 15 is wild

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          • Anonymous
          • 0p}
          • 22 Aug 2024

          YUKI93, 22 Aug 2024It's not hard to see the Pixel has a better colour and... moreAnd all other phones above $900 ahead of these 3

            It's not hard to see the Pixel has a better colour and detail rendition than the Galaxy. The latter possesses too many white highlights and excessive oversharpening. The iPhone also exhibits excessive sharpening, but I'm surprised to see the colour science on par with the Pixel while having some reduction in saturation. If I rank the trio's camera performance, it'd be "Pixel > iPhone > Samsung".

              Viv, 22 Aug 2024I can tell that a lot of people on here are young. Anywho, ... moreYou can still do intensive mobile gaming with Pixel. It's just that Tensor is not primarily built for such a thing. I'd still go to Qualcomm if I wanted to do intensive mobile gaming and console emulation. But if I want to see a chipset's on-device AI computing power in action, I'd still look at Pixel.

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                • Anonymous
                • I@H
                • 22 Aug 2024

                Anonymous, 21 Aug 2024Oof. Google blocking benchmark software during release so b... moreCame here to say the exact same thing. It's like they're trying to scam buyers.

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                  • David
                  • 3HZ
                  • 22 Aug 2024

                  The design really bothers me, especially that camera bump. It’s not an attractive phone whatsoever. I miss the old non Google Pixels back in the day made by other brands.

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                    • Viv
                    • 4nH
                    • 22 Aug 2024

                    Anton .el PAPI., 22 Aug 2024I personally like it, I am between I love it or I hate it, ... moreWell Google needs to make their money (capitalism). I don't plan to buy any of these phones at their current price. I know they will get a discounted soon, and that's when I'm going to buy it. If someone has a 8pro, I wouldn't tell them upgrade. The only thing I see enticing if you are a 8p user, is the selfie cam. I'm a 6 user, so everything is an upgrade for me. I'm not a power user per say, so I don't need the power of something like the A17 or the latest snapdragon.

                      Feels odd when we all know Pixel 10 will have an in house chip made by TSMC that will probably a lot more efficient and stable. Little reason to get this over anything in the market, really

                        Viv, 22 Aug 2024I can tell that a lot of people on here are young. Anywho, ... moreI personally like it, I am between I love it or I hate it, the low performance of the chip bothers me, which came again with ufs 3.1 costing the money it costs

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                          • Viv
                          • 4nH
                          • 22 Aug 2024

                          PanRT, 21 Aug 2024https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=SucwT88p0oY... moreDon't bother man. If you plan to buy the phone, just buy it. The phone is for you and no one else. People on here don't understand that they are the minority when it comes to users.

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                            • Viv
                            • 4nH
                            • 22 Aug 2024

                            I can tell that a lot of people on here are young. Anywho, I know some of you secretly care a lot about pixels. If you all didn't, the comment section would be empty. It's either you all care or are tired of hearing another people talk about it. Anyways, Google has said that they didn't care about benchmarks with this phone. So seeing that, that was the case, it should not be seen as a phone for gaming.

                            I also don't get why people are so mad, just don't buy the phone or buy what you like. It's like some of you all are hurt or something.

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                              • Viv
                              • 4nH
                              • 22 Aug 2024

                              Anonymous, 21 Aug 2024The Pixel 6 Pro got a 4.3 and that piece of junk was plague... moreThe phone is good after the updates though. The one problem for sure is 5G connectivity and it overheating when on 5G. I don't live in a country with 5G enabled, just 4G LTE, os that part doesn't bother me.

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                                • Stoon
                                • fqS
                                • 22 Aug 2024

                                useless review ... where is the thermal test CPU/GPU test ???

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                                  • Anonymous
                                  • 0p}
                                  • 22 Aug 2024

                                  CamoGeko-XDA, 21 Aug 2024Why is this rated so high?? It costs almost the same as a G... moreP70 series is even worse and costs more.
                                  Iphone does not have pen nor many functions as well. Still 1400 euros .

                                  Can always be worse situation

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                                    • Anonymous
                                    • JH0
                                    • 21 Aug 2024

                                    I have tested the Pixel 9 Pro XL's camera in a store and compared it with my Pixel 7 Pro and sadly, gsmarena doesn't mention very important things, for example, the 42 megapixel selfie camera is a lie and the periscope camera is a huge downgrade:

                                    In contrast to Pixel 7 Pro/8 Pro, the Pixel 9 Pro XL uses analog pixel binning at 10x-30x in all light conditions, unless you use the 50 megapixel mode.
                                    When you use the default mode, the 10x-30x dng files are much, much worse than the dng files from 7 Pro /8 Pro due to the much lower resolution (2.4 megapixel at 10x, whereas my 7 Pro delivers 11.4 megapixel dng files that are not upscaled), though my impression is that dng files of the 9 Pro XL can have fewer noise-artifacts. Even in the 50 megapixel mode, the 15x dng files seem to have a tiny bit less detail than the 7 Pro.
                                    10x-30x live photo video frames are definitely significantly worse, too due to pixel binning and due to a lower live photo video frame resolution (1.35 megapixel instead of 1.55 megapixel).
                                    When it comes to the jpgs in the default 12 megapixel mode, the difference is smaller: 15x Pixel 9 Pro XL jpgs do have less noise (aggressive machine learning noise reduction) and have more contrast, this may make low frequency detail appear slightly clearer, but it partly looks very upscaled/oversharpened (mostly due to pixel binning) and artificial with less true fine detail. When you take a photo of a distant sign with small text, there can be wrong numbers/letters and all letters can have slight artifacts, can look deformed or can look brittle, the 7 Pro doesn't have this issue. This makes the 7 Pro's periscope camera so great because Samsung and Apple have similar issues.
                                    There are a few cases where the 9 Pro XL's 15x photos have maybe slightly more detail in certain areas due to a better signal to noise ratio, though I didn't test whether this was fake detail.
                                    Google states "optical quality" at 10x. The term "optical quality" is supposed to mean lossless and that's a big lie because Google is now using pixel binning at 10x-30x, resulting in 2.4 megapixel dng files at 10x.

                                    When it comes to the selfie camera, Google lies again. You don't get 42 megapixel, you even don't get 10.5 megapixel. You get 10.0 megapixel dng files and there isn't lossless selfie zoom either (2.5 megapixel when you zoom from 0.7x to 1.5x).

                                    Miscellaneous:
                                    -there is still no zero shutter lag 50 megapixel mode, even when you use the 50 megapixel mode at 30x
                                    -no live photos in 50 megapixel mode and you can't record a video in the 50 megapixel photo mode
                                    -panorama mode neither supports the periscope camera nor the Brenizer method
                                    -it seems that 4k video still uses pixel binning at 10x-20x and therefore it seems that objects can look more pixelated/oversharpened than in a 30x photo mode video from the 7 Pro
                                    -according to Google's specs, there is no 8k video option, only an option to upscale to 8k via the cloud
                                    -Only 46.8 megapixel (if I remember correctly) dng files at 1x, but you get the full 12.5 megapixel at 2x
                                    -2x zoom delivers worse colors than the 7 Pro because it is more overexposed than the 7 Pro and there are more sharpening/noise reduction artifacts in comparison with the 7 Pro

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                                      • Anonymous
                                      • q3R
                                      • 21 Aug 2024

                                      Shamrock Sean, 21 Aug 2024Screens are getting too bright my S24 Ultra is bright enoug... moreYou don't have to turn up the brightness that high. Max brightness is great when in direct sunlight, otherwise, not too important.

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                                        • ithehappy
                                        • s8c
                                        • 21 Aug 2024

                                        camera is the only reason why people buy a pixel, and the camera is still good here. Although I am not sure whether it's that much better than the pixel 8's. instead of comparing it with iphone and samsung photos a pixel 8 vs 9 comparison could have been really great, like you do in the iphone reviews.

                                        And one more important note here: It's been said that Pixel photos are contrasty, well, they are anything but. It's the iPhone photos which have more contrast, whereas the Pixels actually produe a more balanced photo. There is something fundamentally wrong here.

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