Google Pixel 9 Pro XL Review: What Is The True Value of AI?

The Google Pixel 9 Pro XL is a really nice phone – but to really love it, you’re going to have to love AI as much as Google does, and be willing to pay for it.

Score: 4/5

In this review

Google Pixel 9 Pro XL Specifications
Google Pixel 9 Pro XL Design
Google Pixel 9 Pro XL Camera
Google Pixel 9 Pro XL Performance
Google Pixel 9 Pro XL Battery
Google Pixel 9 Pro XL Conclusion

2023’s Google Pixel 8 Pro was a phone that I summed up as “Simply Excellent”, because it hit so many sweet spots of premium phone value, camera quality and battery endurance.

2024 has seen Google redesign its vision of the Pixel lineup, but this goes beyond a rounded camera bar, with a predictable strong focus on AI-led features that shows where it sees the future of smartphone improvements.

It’s not hard to see why Google is so gung-ho on AI. Even leaving aside its status as the buzzword in technology right now, AI represents an existential threat to its core search business and the rivers of advertising gold that flow with it. That’s reason enough for Google to love AI, but at a consumer level, it’s still a bit of an open question about whether we want AI in every aspect of our phones.

Add to that AI uncertainty an increase in price for the handset and the way that some of those AI features fall short of promises, and you’ve got a phone that left me a little more wanting.

The Pixel 9 Pro XL (and the fundamentally identical-but-smaller Pixel 9 Pro) are very good phones, but they’re not quite hitting the excellence bell the way their predecessor did.

Design

Where 2023 offered up the Pixel 8 Pro as the flagship model, in 2024 Google’s offering up two flagships; either the Pixel 9 Pro or Pixel Pro XL, which is what Google sent my way for review.

The Pixel 9 Pro XL runs with a 6.8 inch 1344x2992 LTPO display capable of 1-120Hz refresh rates, or in Google marketing terms, a “Super Actua Display”.

Any 6.8 inch phone is a bit of a beast in the hand, but if you do prefer a smaller life, that’s what the 6.3 inch Pixel 9 Pro is for, because it’s very much the shrunk-down XL, with the only differences being the screen size and battery capacity. I have not tested the regular Pixel 9 Pro, but your experience should be essentially identical across the board otherwise.

Google has always had a little fun with colour choices each year while still nearly always offering at least one option that’s basically white or basically black. That’s true this year with Porcelain and Obsidian options, as well as Hazel and Rose Quartz, which is what Google sent my way.

It’s certainly… Pink.

Also, if you put Googly Eyes on it (Google-y?) it looks like a Muppet that is screaming.

Very pink, not 100% to my personal taste to be sure, but then a phone case will cover off all but the metallic pink hue of the slightly redesigned camera bar in any case.

You probably already knew that I’m very keen for everyone to use phone cases, because it’s the simplest and cheapest phone protection insurance money can buy.

It’s not really fair to call the camera bump on the Pixel 9 Pro XL a camera bar any more either, because its rounded corners mean it’s more of a pill (or pedantically, maybe a “stadium” shape). Because I’m me, nearly 100% of my review time with the Pixel 9 Pro XL has been spent with a case on the phone that almost turns it back into a bar, but it’s still an interesting design call.

In terms of durability, Google’s representatives were keen to call the new Pixels “twice as durable” as the older models, though that’s not entirely evident just from a specifications viewpoint. The Pixel 9 Pro XL is IP68 rated for water resistance, though the specifications page on Google’s Australian store doesn’t actually list its test conditions, which can vary under the IEC 60529 standard and should be stated by the manufacturer.

Still, the usual practical advice here remains; it should survive simple water immersion in most cases, but over time that will weaken, and it’s not built for scuba diving or dredging through sand dunes.

At the front, the Pixel 9 Pro XL is wrapped in flat Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2, which should do a decent job of protection from most smaller bumps and scrapes – though again, don’t go crazy with the destruction testing outside of lab conditions, because that’s typically just meaningless destruction porn.

Camera

The Pixel 9 Pro XL (and smaller Pixel 9 Pro) at a technical level ship with 50MP Wide, 48MP Ultrawide and 48MP 5x Telephoto lenses at the rear, while at the front there’s a 42MP sensor for taking selfies.

The biggest megapixel count change there from the Pixel 8 Pro is the selfie camera, which bumps up from 10.5MP to 42MP, though camera quality is, as always, much more than just a megapixels game.

I generally liked the Pixel 8 Pro’s camera performance, and for the most part that’s true of the Pixel 9 Pro XL as well. At the front, while I’m not much of a camera subject, it does a good job with selfies:

Yep, that’s definitely me. I’d recognise me anywhere.

Also me, but sweatier.

And the rear cameras generally work quite well in regular conditions. Telephoto is natively 5x, and as I usually do, I’ll show that off with a gradual zoom shot; in this case it’s of a local (and rather unsightly, in my view) fountain at the shopping centre.

Here’s the ultrawide shot version:

And then the wide shot version:

You can slide to zoom, but Google’s next step progression is 2x, and that looks like this, all still quite acceptable:

5x is still within optical range, and I have no complaints, beyond feeling like I’m somehow intruding on the fountain’s privacy:

Google lets you push zoom all the way up to 30x, or in Google’s parlance, “Super Res Zoom”. It’s had Super Res Zoom for a few generations now, and while it manages a little better than some of its 30x competition… it still has issues.

Low light is another area where premium flagship phones need to step up. Here Google’s big pitch is on improved low light video performance, and to put that to the test – as well as to test out its general low light stills performance – I headed out to a local park one night with the iPhone 15 Pro and Pixel 8 Pro in my bulging pockets for a little head-to-head action, which you can check out in the video below:

Spoiler: For those who can’t check video (or don’t like it), while Google’s low light video post processing is kind of impressive, it’s definitely a second-best scenario next to the iPhone for stills work, which is regrettable now that Google’s running in the same price arenas.

A big part of the way that Google’s photography systems have worked forever has been around AI, but again here it’s dipping even more heavily into the AI space with some Pixel 9 Pro/XL specific features.

Add Me is a photoshop-cut-and-paste affair that lets you take two shots in the same frame with different participants in play. Just as you might with photoshop, results can vary – and because I’ve tested this with family members, I’m not going to publish those here, because I take my privacy seriously.

However, because I have already invaded that fountain’s privacy, I can use the new Zoom Enhance feature to use AI to boost sharpness on my 30x fountain shot. Scroll back up and take a look, and then check out the AI-enhanced version below:

That’s pretty sweet.

The other headline AI feature is Reimagine, which lets you take an existing shot and add details to it or modify it using Google’s cloud-based AI.

So far, I’m not thrilled.

To give an example, I took this shot of a slightly-worn Peppa Pig ride at the local shopping centre:

Peppa's eyes suggest she's seen things. Terrible things. Mostly kids climbing on her, I suspect.

I wonder what Peppa would look like with a hat on? Let’s ask Reimagine to do just that…

No children should be riding that… and it’s not really wearing that hat, either.

But perhaps I’m asking too much of Reimagine, because a ride on car and a pig are quite different creatures. So I’ll set it an easier task.

Here is one of my cats, Neko. He’s a bit of a coward, but he fancies himself a mighty lion sometimes.

So what if he was a mighty lion? Work your magic, Reimagine!

I have regrets. Many, many regrets.

That leaves the Pixel 9 Pro XL in an odd position. In most situations its camera hardware is excellent, though Google could do with upping its ability in low light situations.

However, the AI features are more strongly titled towards solutions that don’t deliver particularly pleasing results if you have to invoke them directly.

There’s clearly AI in the post-processing systems that Google uses as there always has been, but perhaps giving consumers direct access to those tools wasn’t the best idea if what you wanted to do was show off what AI could do, Google!

Google Pixel 9 Pro XL Photos (sans AI)

Performance

The Pixel 9 Pro XL (and Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9) are all built around Google’s new Tensor G4 processor, with the Pro models packing in an impressive 16GB of RAM and 128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB of internal sealed storage.

While Google definitely makes a version of the Pixel 9 Pro with 1TB of internal storage, here in Australia it’s topping out at 512GB for that particular model, though you can get a 1TB Pixel 9 Pro XL if you’re sufficiently cashed-up to do so.

Tensor is built around Samsung’s Exynos platforms, in this case the Exynos 2400, but it’s very much its own CPU beast with a custom design. At the higher prices Google’s asking for the Pixel 9 Pro XL, finding out as much as we can about its performance is critical; after all for this kind of money you could pretty easily have a Galaxy S24 Ultra or iPhone 15 Pro Max!

Update: Google had initially blocked both Geekbench 6 and 3DMark from being available from Google Play, so an early version of this review used scores from a side loaded version of both apps, noting the limitations of that approach. Both apps are now available for the Pixel 9 Pro XL, so I've updated my benchmark table and observations accordingly.

The performance picture they paint isn’t one that’s flattering to the Pixel 9 Pro XL. Here’s how it compares to similarly priced flagship phones, as well as its predecessor using Geekbench 6’s CPU test:

For multi-core it’s faster than the Pixel 8 Pro, as you’d expect, but it’s definitely lagging compared to the best that Apple and Samsung are bringing to market. We’re at the performance level of a phone like the Motorola ThinkPhone, comparatively speaking – which isn’t a great look for a flagship at the prices Google’s asking for to put a Pixel 9 Pro XL into your hands.

Is it any better in 3D GPU performance? Let’s turn to 3DMark’s Wild Life Extreme test:

So… no.

This does bring up the wider question around real world performance, and here, once again, it’s a question of perspective.

All premium smartphone CPUs are hefty beasts that manage most apps without breaking a sweat, and the inclusion of 16GB of RAM also gives the Pixel 9 Pro XL a lot of headroom for multitasking or even misbehaving apps.

At the same time… you can do better, and it’s much harder this year to say that you shouldn’t unless you’re a resolute Pixel fan to speak of.

In years past it was a lot easier to recommend the Pixel range despite the slightly-less-than-premium performance, because the Pixels were that much cheaper than the competition.

That’s no longer the case, with Google’s pricing more or less matching that of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, a significantly faster phone that’s going to benefit from the same number of years of support as the Pixels do.

It’s harder to measure for Apple, because it never outright states how much support a given phone is going to get, though at the moment it’s tracking at least five years or so for most updates.

It’s also slightly weird to see the Pixel 9 Pro XL (and its siblings) launch with Android 14, not Android 15. Google’s promise is for seven years of OS upgrades, but this does leave it slightly up in the air as to whether it will see updates all the way through to Android 22, or only Android 21.

The Pixel 9 Pro XL is a 5G-capable phone, and had Google followed suit from the Pixel 8 Pro, it would be one of the only 5G phones in Australia offering both mmWave and sub-6Ghz connectivity.

However, it’s not, with Google only offering mmWave to US consumers and nowhere else, a true retrograde step that leaves the Pixel 8 Pro as the best 5G phone on the market due to… well, no competition at all.

Going backwards like this isn’t an appealing step, leaving the Pixel 9 Pro XL hitting the typical 200-400Mbps download speeds over the Telstra network that I hit with basically every other 5G phone out there.

The Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL phones do still have the thermometer sensor at the back as well… and 12 months on from its debut in the Pixel 8 Pro, I’m still not sure about its exact use case.

You could use it to try to work out if water was boiling, but you risk dropping the phone into boiling water, which would not end well. It’s… certainly there. Let me know if you come up with a good use case for it, because I can’t.

AI again is meant to smooth over all these notable cracks, with the Pixel 9 Pro XL coming with a 12 month subscription to Google’s Gemini Advanced AI tier.

Gemini Advanced is meant to be more conversational and human, picking up on nuances of speech and remembering past queries in a way that should use more natural language, which it does… to an extent. I hit some issues where while a simple Google search would reveal details, Gemini would refuse, as well as accent issues where it lost a train of discussion because it misinterpreted my speech, heading down some… interesting, but not relevant sidelines.

AI is an ever evolving field, but if I’m honest, the biggest draw here isn’t access to Gemini Advanced, but instead the 2TB of cloud storage that you’ll get for a year. You’d want to be careful about your billing, however, because once that 12 month period expires, access to Gemini Advanced runs $32.99.

That’s $32.99 per month, not per year, by the way. The jury is still very much out as to whether consumers will pay for AI at all, and I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

While we wait to see if AI will take over the world, this review has taken some serious work and time (if that wasn’t obvious), and one thing you could spend just a little money on is supporting AlexReviewsTech. 
Herein ends the subtle plug.

You also get Pixel Studio, a “creative” image generation model that uses a mix of on-device generation and Google’s cloud-based Imagen 3 model to create images on command.

You do get a range of creative style choices, but also pretty much all the typical failings and limitations of AI image generation to go with it.

So for example, it won’t do people at all, whether your dream was (as was mine) to see Paul McCartney skateboarding over the grand canyon, or just a generic “Man in a red jumpsuit” trying the same thing.

Even with more generic commands, it introduces errors all too easily. A few years back, I wrote a deliberately B-Movie style spy thriller called “Sharksplosion”, based off a NanoWrimo effort I’d penned the year before.

You can still buy Sharksplosion (Amazon Kindle here / Apple iBooks here) if you wish, and if you do, you’ll get a rather generic cover that I sourced through Fiverr, because I wanted to pay an actual human to create it, while specifying that I wanted a cheesy aesthetic.

Here’s what the human-generated (but cheap!) cover of Sharksplosion looks like:

But hey, Pixel Studio could do all of that for me at no cost, right?

Well, it was willing… but it didn’t exactly thrill me with its creative prowess. Here's what happened when I asked it to "create a book cover for a book called Sharksplosion"

So… where do I start?

The leftmost shark has excess garbled nonsense text, possibly too many fins, isn’t exploding and is simultaneously underwater and somehow flying over the water.

The middle book has a garbled title to go with its garbled text, along with a clearly flying shark.

The rightmost one is probably the best of the bunch, but that’s a shark with a ridiculously long tail – and even more garbled text around it. I think I’ll stick to my cheap and crappy human-designed cover, thanks.

Some of Google’s approaches here have some merit. I can definitely see myself using Screenshots, its AI-driven searching app that’s somewhat reminiscent of Microsoft’s Recall without the creepiness of always being on, for example.

But overall, while clearly the AI space has a lot of room to grow and improve, I can’t quite fall in love with AI the way that Google clearly has.

Battery

The Pixel 9 Pro XL’s larger size relative to the Pixel 9 Pro does give it a little more space for batteries, though Google doesn’t arguably push this as far as it could.

For the Pixel 9 Pro you’re getting a 4,700mAh battery in a frame size where plenty of vendors offer up 5,000mAh batteries, while the Pixel 9 Pro XL gets a 5060mAh battery pack. Still, as they always say, it’s not the size that counts, it’s what you can do with it. The Pixel 9 Pro XL can do plenty, and then some.

While the Tensor G4 does leave me a little wanting given the jump in price points for the Pixel 9 Pro XL, the advantage of having a less grunty processor is that it should chew up less battery as it goes.

First stop on the battery testing tour is my standard YouTube battery test. Here’s how the Pixel 9 Pro XL compares against other current flagship phones:

While I don’t have the smaller Pixel 9 Pro to hand to test, the results from the Pixel 9 which shares the same 4,700mAh battery pack suggests that it should be a similarly efficient device – and currently the best-of-breed for flagship phones in tested battery endurance.

This isn’t just a theoretical benchmark matter either; using the Pixel 9 Pro XL on a day-to-day basis over a week’s testing has seen it easily last into the evening on days of regular heavy usage. As with any phone, if you’re filming a load of 4K content or gaming for hours on end, you can send it flat – but it’ll take some serious work to do so.

As is the trend with modern flagships, there’s no charger in the box with the Pixel 9 Pro XL. It supports up to 45W fast wired USB-C charging – Google has a charger that can do this, sold separately – or standard Qi charging.

That’s… a bit of a bummer, Google. Qi2 totally is a thing, and you had the chance to lead the Android pack (as Pixel phones are meant to do) by delivering the first Qi2 Android handset to market, but you didn’t. Yeah, I’m disappointed in that, you can tell, right?

Pixel 9 Pro XL: Alex’s Verdict

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The Google Pixel 9 Pro XL definitely has its good points. The camera hardware is generally very good, the battery life is best in class for premium flagships right now (though it's a close race there), and if you love AI and want to integrate it into everything you do, this is clearly the phone you should buy.

However, all of that comes at a cost. Ongoing AI subscriptions, higher asking prices for the handsets themselves plus processing power that's not really on par with the best you can get out of flagships right now -- and that will only get worse once Apple's next iPhones break cover, with the Galaxy S25 quite likely to appear in early 2025 too.

In past years the issues around power were less of a problem and Google's long-term commitment to Android updates made the Pixel Pro phones an easy recommendation. This year, I'm not so sure.

Pixel 9 Pro XL: Pricing and availability

The Google Pixel 9 Pro XL retails in Australia for $1849 (128GB), $1999 (256GB), $2199 (512GB) and $2549 (1TB). The model used for testing in this review was the 128GB model, supplied to me by Google Australia.

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