zedfighter.com 
Introduction
This year lucky us Google has served up a pair of new Pixel 9 Pro phones a fresh new compact model and the usual big bugger, the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL. It’s not only the chunkiest new googly blower, but also the costliest one as it starts from 1,24,999 rupees here in India. Anyway, I’ve had my sim secreted inside of the pixel 9 Pro XL for over a week now, so here’s what I reckon of the camera experience, the gaming performance, the AI twattery Etc.
Design
Now first up yes, this XL model is bigger than the Pixel 9 and the Pixel 9 Pro. It’s a big old 6.8-inch Behemoth compared with the 6.3 inch. Now operating it with just the one hand is just about viable, you do have that one-handed mode to help drag down the screen and you do have that handy camera bump as well which doubles as a finger shelf to rest this bugger on. But honestly, you’re going to want to hold with it with two hands just to be sure, especially as it’s a quite slippery one. Definitely don’t want to drop this thing and risk chipping it or scratching it or something, especially as it cost you 1,24,999 rupees.
That said the Pixel 9 Pro XL is not worse, you’ve got Gorilla Glass Victus 2 front and back, only the one tiny very light scratch so far on that end. That was because I shoved it in a pocket with the S24 Ultra all weekend. Likewise, no dinks for that metal frame, although it does have a glossy surface which gets very greasy too easily. Reassuringly like most of the flagship smartphones, you’ve got full IP68 water and dust resistance, so no worries if drop this thing into a bathtub or whatever. It should be absolutely fine as long as you don’t just leave it in there for a couple of hours.
Google has slapped a perfectly flat display on the Pixel 9 Pro XL. You’ still got bit of bezel around the outside, but not too bad at all, pretty skinny for this generation. But yeah, the Pixel 9 Pro XL is really big and with those flatter edges the hand feels tired, honestly isn’t too dissimilar to the iPhone 15 Pro Max. I mean the pixel is slightly more comfortable to wield than Apple’s absolute brick but honestly, it’s not far off. Personally, I got to say I am looking forward to ripping my sim out of the XL version and slapping into the regular Pixel 9 Pro. Because I like the smaller version, it’s more comfortable.
You got a bit of soft touch matte glass around back currently available in four different colours. This here is the obsidian model, my least favourite of the four unfortunately and despite that matte finish this does have the habit of getting all smudgy and smear rather quickly unlike most rivals. That new camera bump means you’ve got a slight refresh to the design. I’m just glad that it still stretches the full width, so this phone doesn’t rattle when it’s sat on a desk. However, as usual those sharp Corners are a haven for dust and cruds and all kinds of stuff.
Features
Now, Google’s frantic Dash to actually launch the Pixel 9s ahead of those iPhones this year means that unfortunately they do ship with Android 14. But Android 15 should be here imminently just the next month or two basically. As usual Google is pledging seven full years of OS updates and security patching on this phone, so no need to worry about it anytime soon and hey cheer up, because you still get tons of bonus features on here, you didn’t get on previous pixels now.
First of Google has upgraded that in display fingerprint sensor, so it’s no longer a basic Optical effort, it’s now an Ultra Sonic scanner and this can build a proper 3D image of your fingerprint or thumb print. This means that sensor is now more accurate and responsive. So, for instance you can unlock your Pixel 9 Pro XL more easily if your hands are wet and I found that this works an absolute charm. You’ve also got face unlock to back it up which sometimes takes a bit longer time just making sure that it’s definitely you.
Display and audio
Once you’ve unlocked this phone, well that gorgeous super actual OLED display springs to life. It’s big, it’s bright, it’s bold, it’s got a 1344×2992 pixel resolutions. Those visuals look pretty crispy despite the fact that it is a proper big bugger. As usual you’ve got incredibly limited colour customization here, but I didn’t feel a burning desire to piddle about with those tones anyway. I love the natural neutral output from this thing. It’s not too warm it’s not too cool and the realism of those visuals boosted by the HDR10 stream and support insert serves such as Netflix.
It’s once again a very shiny display. However, I was really hoping for a bit of Gorilla Glass Armor action like what you get on the S24 ultra to reduce those Reflections. But still thankfully the Pixel 9 Pro XL’s screen is bright enough, so visibility is still pretty decent in strong outdoor lighting. You got full LTPO Tech here as you’d expect 1Hz to 120Hz refresh rate.
That always on display is pretty energy efficient and then when you do boot up the Pixel 9 Pro XL, everything is beautifully silky smooth and those stereo speakers have got some serious grunt as well. Not quite as loud as some rivals, but certainly more than powerful enough for hearing what’s going on in quite a noisy area without sacrificing that clarity.
Performance and gaming
Absolutely zero shock or surprise when it comes to the performance here, because Google once again teamed up with Samsung for a bit of Tensor G4 action. Can’t believe on the fourth generation already. It’s back here by a generous 16GB of RAM now. the G4 apparently offers improved power efficiency when you’re running apps such as YouTube, piddling about with a camera Etc. But we’ll cover more on that in the battery life section.
You do actually notice some performance improvements here and there with the tensor G4 as well. For instance, the Pixel 9 Pro XL boots up pretty quickly, we’re talking just a few seconds and you’re in there. There’s also absolutely no delay between you tapping an app and it just popping up on screen it’s so responsive.
Of course, when it comes to gaming the tensor G4 doesn’t impress quite as hard as some rivals. I really pushed the Pixel 9 Pro XL to its limits with some Wuthering Waves action on the default medium settings. I thought it handled the game pretty well, although I did see some slight stumbles in the frame rate here and there. However, when I maxed out those graphics at 60 frames per second the dips were more obvious, and the Pixel 9 Pro XL got pretty hot as well. Thankfully not to the point where I’d actually lost the plot and shut down or anything, but also to the point where after about an hour of game and I was like maybe I’ll give this a break now.
But of course, this Tensor chipset is all about the smarty pants AI enthusiasts as always. The big news here is you’ve got Gemini Nano stuffed on there and it’s Gemini Advanced that you get free for a full year alongside some other benefits like 2TB of Google one storage. But it’s only for one year and then you have to pay for it. While anyone can access Gemini just by downloading the app onto their phone, it’s the advanced version that gives you access to Gemini live, so you can have a proper free flow and conversation which helps plan for dinner or get help planning your next big holiday etc.
I got to say I was pretty sceptical at first as I usually am with anything AI based, but once I actually tested out and tried Gemini live, I really liked it. I’ve started actually using it and this is coming from someone who absolutely avoided using the Google Assistant as much as humanly possible. The only problem now is what happens when those 12 months are up. Because I’m not going to pay for Gemini Advanced, so I’m just going to have to learn how to live without it again.
Now pixel screenshot is another timesaving wonder if you take a lot of screen captures to try and remember upcoming events. So, it’s absolutely ideal if you end up with dozens of these shots. You don’t have to go searching through the screenshots to find specific information, you just ask a question about the information and it will give you the answer from the screenshots. Now in my testing this hasn’t been infallible. Sometimes it takes a couple of goals to actually find the information you want, but even that is really good save your time.
Screenshots can also pull out any text which you can then copy and paste into any other app and then there’s Pixel Studio which can create pictures of whatever you want and yeah Pixel Studio can’t do humans yet. You also get the satellite SOS feature stuffed in your Pixel 9 Pro XL as well which I believe is free for the first two years. The other big new AI tools are mostly camera related, so I’ll talk about those later in this review.
If right now you’re still very much confused about whether you’re going to purchase a fresh new Pixel 9 Pro XL, well this will push you right over the edge. That temperature sensor has made a glorious return from the Pixel 8 Pro. So yeah, you too can know the exact temperature of your body or anything anytime you like. It has also got a bit of ultra-wide band as usual, so good news if you’ve got a fancy car that uses a phone as a key or whatever. I have to say Android 14 on the whole has been pretty well behaved as you’d expect from an OS that’s been here about for almost a year now.
Battery life
Now the Pixel 9 Pro XL has a 5,0060 mAh capacity battery. It’s one of the main advantages of grabbing this over the regular Pixel 9 Pro. Between the generous size of the battery and the generally energy efficient nature of not only Android but also that Tensor G4 chipset, the battery life here is frankly great. Seriously I never hit that 50% battery mark before late afternoon, it was usually early evening and that’s with a lot of screen on time, plenty of camera play, a bit of video streaming, plenty of audio streaming, when the phone was hibernating. So, I typically enjoyed about nine full hours of screen on action from the pixel 9 Pro XL before it finally run out of charge. So yeah, you can absolutely keep on going for a full weekend with a single charge of this thing if you’re a bit more reserved.
Obviously when it comes to charging, of course pixel is not quite as quick as pretty much any other flagship out there. It’s got 37W wired charging, so charging this thing up from empty does take over an hour. I just usually just put it on charge at night when I’m about to sleep. It’s got that adaptive charging, so it’s going to trickle charge up until the morning and don’t have to worry about worry about the battery Health in the long term. It’s also got G wireless charging on there, not G2 for some reason, even though it’s available on a much cheaper HMD Skyline.
Cameras
Finally let’s talk about Pixel 9 Pro XL’s camera tech and what you have here is a 50 MP octa PD sensor backed by a 48 MP Ultra-wide angle shooter and a 48 MP quad PD telephoto snapper with five times optical zoom. If you’re a pixel fan then you may have noticed that sounds awfully familiar, that’s basically because it’s pretty much the same specs as the pixel 8 Pro last year. Google’s camera app also hasn’t changed up too much compared with last year and that’s absolutely fine by me because it’s pretty easy to get around easy to navigate.
You do have a couple of new features checked in there now, but more on those in a bit later. you still got those Pro controls hide in here as well, so you can shoot at the maximum resolution. You can also get a bit of raw image capture on the go if you want to edit on the fly. There’s no proper Pro mode like what you get on a lot of other phones. But that’s not what pixels are all about, they’re about point and shoot. With Google’s process and taken control to automatically tweak your pics and make them look as good as possible. you don’t really need a brain you just need hands and once again the Pixel 9 Pro XL does not disappoint.
Ridiculous contrast isn’t a problem nor is poor lighting in general. This phone can capture natural looking picture packed with detail as well as realistic tones and textures. I did see a little bit of lens flaring on occasion. So, the pixel isn’t infallible while any motion in low light will result in blurry photos that no smarty AI editing tools can ever properly sort out. But for your family picks including portraits it is a proper cracker.
As for that 48 MP Ultra-wide-angle shooter, well again this handles tricky light and without too much fuss and the autofocus does mean you can use it for macro shooting too if that’s what you want. I didn’t use that too often, but I did really like the 48 MP telephoto shooter. This can max out a 30 time zoom, but the AI sharpening works well, so you can usually get usable pics up to almost that level while some rivals start falling apart long before they even hit 30 times. It’s really good for getting nice natural looking shots of your pets, your kids, whatever.
Yes, Google has done a bit of tinkering here and there as well, so for instance you’ve got that fresh new add me feature. It’s a great way of getting a complete group shot. Basically, you take the shot and then you hand off the phone to someone who was already in the photo and Google’s AR smarts guides the next photographer to take a snap from the exact same perspective, so you can be added into that original shot. No more awkwardly asking a complete stranger to take your family photo for you and then acting all delighted when actually they’ve just somehow managed to take a shot of their own chin. Just be careful to leave a proper gap or you’ll end up join together with your family members like some kind of horrific thing monster.
I really like the new auto frame feature in the magic editor as well, this can reframe a shot after it’s taken. You get mixed results when it tries to pull back and add in extra artificial detail around the edges. It can occasionally end up a bit junky, but more often it’s impressively good. Of course, the magic editor can still be used to move or resize subjects and you got basically all the same tools as previous pixels, so plenty to bugger about with.
As for the video, you can once again shoot Ultra HD 4K footage at either 30 or 60 frames per second. But you also now have an 8K option which uses the video boost feature, so you’ll have to wait for the video to be uploaded to the cloud and then processed by Google to actually hit that 8K resolution which does take quite a while. But once again I shot most of my test footage of that 4K resolution and was very happy with the results.
You got excellent image stabilization moving and shooting at the same time, absolutely fine. The camera can once again handle tricky contrast and low light situations. You do get a bit of noise when the lights are low, but with the video boost feature as long as you’re patient enough to hang on a good hour or two for the processing to go through, you’ll end up with nice bright pretty crisp results. But the pixel could use a bit of Sony style eye autofocus, because occasionally it struggled to lock onto my subject.
Audio capture is perfectly strong at all times as well. The Pixel 9 Pro XL certainly not bothered by lots of wind noise, it can generally temper down any background noise. But then as usual, you’ve got that audio eraser feature, so you can edit the video to help remove any background noise including any wind noise that hasn’t actually crept in there, any other background speech Etc. Soon the Pixel 9 Pro phones will boast a bit of super rare zoom video action as well for nice crisp results even when you’re zooming in quite far with that telephoto lens.
Last up with these Pro phones, you’ve got a 42 MP pixel selfie shooter now and it’s a proper Ultra-wide camera as well. So, you can fit lots of heads into that frame and I actually quite liked the selfies on here. I could also cope absolutely fine with strong backlighting, although sometimes those low light shots are a bit granny. The Pixel 9 Pro XL can capture some respectable looking 4K footage using that selfie cam as well again up to 60 frames per second. The stabilization is not quite as good as the rear camera of course and you have to keep your hand fairly steady. But the audio pickup is great as always.
Verdict
There you have it, my review of Google’s Pixel9 Pro XL after using it as my full-time smartphone for over a week and I really liked it. It’s really big got to say, I’m very much looking forward to slipping my SIM out of here getting into the regular Pixel 9 Pro and seeing what the difference is between the two. Hopefully the everyday experience just as enjoyable but in a more compact form factor which absolutely overjoyed at the thought of.
The software experience is excellent as always, I see a couple of we little bugs here and there which I’m sure will be fixed pretty quickly. Just slightly annoyed at the fact that I’m starting to get into Gemini live and of course you only get a free year of it and then you have to pay for it.
So, that’s it for now, please do let us know what you think about the Pixel 9 pro XL down in the comments below.
