Google Pixel 9 - Long Term, REAL WORLD Review!

I pre-ordered the Google Pixel 9 the day it was announced, so it's now been over 6 months of me using this phone every day. In this video, I'm going to talk about my experience so you can decide if this is the right phone for you or not. I previously made a video after 1 week with this phone, so I'm not going to repeat anything from that video unless something has changed or have more to add. So, let's get into it.

Design and Durability

Let's start with design and durability. I love the aluminium camera island and side rails. And as long as you get a lighter color of Pixel 9, then the glossy glass back hides fingerprints really well. I think this phone retains the Pixel design language, but refines the design to make it feel more premium than ever. The Pixel 9 is boxier than other Pixels, but still comfortable to hold thanks to its tapered edges. Personally, I found the Pixel 8's rounded design more ergonomic, but this really comes down to your preference.

The durability of the phone has been excellent for me over the course of 6 months. I have dropped the Pixel 9 hard quite a few times. And one time I did drop it extremely hard on its front and it got a couple of marks on the side rails because of that, but the front glass still remains in near-perfect condition. There are some very slightly visible micro scratches on the front glass, which are honestly only visible if I'm looking super carefully for them and only after I've just cleaned the screen with a microfiber cloth. Bear in mind that I don't use a screen protector and I pretty much permanently have the Pixel 9 in a case, but it feels like a solidly built phone that really can withstand the usual accidental drops and bumps that we subject our phones to in normal use.

Speaking of the case, as I've experienced with all of the previous Pixels I've reviewed, the official Pixel 9 case from Google is practical and works well to protect the phone. After 6 months, it looks pretty much identical to the day I took it out of the box and is super grippy, which is important to stop you from dropping the phone. The only downside I can say about it is because it's made of fairly flexible material, the lip that protects the screen can flex slightly, leaving the screen vulnerable if you do have a particularly heavy drop onto the edge of the screen. If you are prone to dropping your phone frequently, then you might be better with a rigid case that won't have the same vulnerability.

The Screen

Moving back to the screen, the display under the screen is excellent, pumping out 120 Hz at full HD plus resolution, which is more than enough for the 6.3-inch screen on the Pixel 9. The display dynamically switches between 120 Hz and 60 Hz depending on what you're doing on the phone, which is not quite as efficient as other phones that can go all the way down to 1 Hz, but it is certainly more efficient than pumping out 120 Hz constantly. The Pixel 9 Pro has a higher resolution in the same screen size, but that feels like a redundant upgrade to me because I've never found myself wanting more sharpness or detail from the Pixel 9 screen. I'm hoping Google doesn't make the screen larger on the Pixel 10, as I think 6.3 inches is the limit of how large I personally want my phone to be.

I've also recently picked up the brand new Samsung S25, and it made me aware of how ridiculously thin the S25's bezels are, and also how small they've made their front-facing camera hole punch. This makes the Pixel 9's bezels look quite large by comparison, and the hole punch cutout on the Pixel 9 is actually huge. I'm not sure why this is the case considering the Pixel 9 doesn't get a spec upgrade in this department from last year's Pixel 8 which had a slightly smaller hole punch cutout. This may not seem like an issue, but in reality, it means the notification bar is unnecessarily far down the screen compared to on the S25 which just makes it feel like the S25 is making a much better use of the space it has. This is a super minor gripe in real use, but just an area where Pixel still has some catching up and more refinement to do. I do still love the perfectly symmetrical bezels on the Pixel 9, though, which is just satisfying. The display also gets more than bright enough for basically any situation you're in. You'd probably have to be about 4 feet away from the sun not to be able to see what's on it.

Display Issue Update

So, I wanted to give a quick update from a completely different location. And this is actually a few weeks after I filmed the original review. So, a few weeks ago, while I was out for a walk with my wife and I was filming some sample videos using the Pixel 9 for this review, I noticed a bit of a concerning issue with the Pixel 9's display. A vertical pink line appeared on the right side of the screen. Unfortunately, I only managed to capture a photo of the issue rather than a video, but I think the photo shows it quite clearly. The line had vanished by the end of our walk, but then reappeared again once later that day.

The weird thing is since that day, I haven't seen the line or any other Pixel 9 display issues, despite me actually frequently using the phone and trying to replicate that issue and see if it would come up again. However, it's still pretty concerning because there are known issues with the Pixel 8's display. So much so that Google actually recognized this and gave us an extended warranty for the Pixel 8 if you had any issues with your display. I think the line on the Pixel 9's display suggests that there might be an issue with the physical display connector in my version of the phone. But it is weird that it only appeared for that one day and hasn't appeared since. So keep this in mind as you watch the rest of the review because I did film that before I noticed this issue. And if I see the same issue again, I'll be sure to pin a comment down below to let you guys know. Also, if you have the Pixel 9 and you've experienced any similar display issues or other display issues, please let us know down in the comments. Anyway, back to the review.

Performance

Let's move on to performance. The Tensor G4 that powers the Pixel 9 has more than enough power for everything that the average user will likely throw at it, including multitasking between apps, watching video content, listening to music and podcasts, messaging, taking photos and videos, and scrolling social media. It's super smooth in everyday use, and I'm sure the vast majority of users will love the fluid software experience of Pixel OS.

Google's Gemini AI has improved quickly over the last 6 months, such as it finally integrating features from Google Assistant. Gemini is now faster to trigger, and I use it regularly for quick tasks like adding to my wife and I's shared shopping list. This is just an example of where it has actually saved me time. Before I would have to open Keep, find the shopping list, tap on it, go to the bottom of the list, and create a new item. Now, I can just ask Gemini to add an item or multiple items to my shopping list, and it does this for me, which is simple, but an actually useful function.

Circle to Search is a feature that I initially didn't think I had any need for, but I've actually ended up finding it super useful for quickly translating messages from some of my French mates or for copying text that isn't copyable because it's embedded in an image, for example. Because it's there at a tap and a hold of the navigation bar, it's so accessible and quick to use, which makes it an invaluable feature. This is what I would like to see more of from Google in the future: features that are genuinely useful in everyday scenarios rather than the frankly gimmicky features like the AI photo editing features are for the most part.

AI Features

Speaking of these, I've barely used Reimagine, which allows you to use AI to add things into a photo; Pixel Studio, which allows you to create images from a prompt; or Magic Eraser, which allows you to remove objects from an image. I also haven't used Add Me, which allows you to add someone into an image by taking a second image in the same location and using AI to stitch them together. None of these features really cross over with how I tend to use my phone. However, I know some users or content creators will find these features fun or useful. I've covered these features in more detail in my one week later review of the Pixel 9, so check that out if you're interested in them.

Performance Issues

There have been two main notable issues with the performance on this phone. Firstly, I noticed a few times that the Pixel 9 would stutter when I was watching 4K 60 frames per second video on YouTube at two times speed. This is a minor issue and I think there's a chance there was an issue with the YouTube app rather than the Pixel 9 as I wasn't able to replicate this when I was testing it for this video. But I did notice that the Pixel 9 did get slightly warm to the touch after watching this quality of video at 2x speed for over 10 minutes which just shows how much less power the Tensor G4 chip has when compared to something like the Snapdragon 8 Elite in my Samsung S25 which didn't get warm at all in the same test.

The second issue was gaming where the relative lack of power of the Tensor G4 was quite obvious when compared to the Snapdragon 8 Elite. To get high FPS on Call of Duty Warzone Mobile, I'd have to drop the settings to super low on the Pixel 9. Whereas the S25 could manage medium to high settings in the same game while achieving a consistent 90 to 120 FPS, which was a much better experience. And for some context, I've been a proper Call of Duty sweat for 16 years now, so I can promise you that I know what the game should feel like.

So, basically, here's our first deal breaker of this phone for some people. If you're a heavy gamer or power user of your phone for video editing, for example, then I just wouldn't recommend the Pixel 9. However, the vast majority of people probably don't watch 4K 60 frames a second content at two times speed and do the odd bit of light gaming rather than graphically intense games like Warzone Mobile. So, I think this isn't going to be an issue for 90 to 95% of users out there, to be honest. But, it's still worth noting.

Efficiency and Battery Life

While the Pixel 9 isn't necessarily a hard hitter when it comes to performance, where it does really shine is efficiency and battery life. Compared to the Pixel 8 last year, which had a pretty mediocre battery life, the Pixel 9 is very much improved with me regularly getting 5 plus hours of screen on time and still having 20 to 30% of battery remaining at the end of the day. Google also finally seems to have fixed their power-sucking lackluster modem from last year, and the Pixel 9 seems to have a more consistent network connection, all while sipping at the battery while it does this. This is honestly a huge upgrade as I've just left the mobile data and Wi-Fi on constantly on this phone, allowing it to auto switch as I move out of Wi-Fi range, something which would have nuked the Pixel 8 battery last year. This is an aspect of the phone that for me makes it far more compelling than last year's Pixel 8 if you're trying to decide which of these phones to buy as battery drain is just something that I haven't had to worry about on a Pixel 9.

However, when you need to charge the phone, it's fairly slow when compared to some of the competition such as OnePlus phones. The Pixel 9 charges at a maximum of 27 watts wired and 15 watts wirelessly if you already have the seemingly discontinued second generation Pixel Stand or 12 watts wirelessly with any other wireless charger. This really hasn't been an issue for me as I tend to charge my phone when I go to bed and wake up with it fully charged. But if a lack of super fast charging is a dealbreaker for you, then the Pixel 9 ain't the phone for you. It takes about 80 minutes to charge from 0 to 100% with wired charging and over 2 hours to charge wirelessly up to full.

Biometrics

Coming back to the positives, the new under-display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, which has been upgraded from the Pixel 8's optical fingerprint sensor, is an excellent addition to the features. Over the course of the last 6 months, this has been much faster and more accurate at unlocking the phone than with my experience with the Pixel 8, which is an excellent quality of life upgrade, as most people unlock their phone tens to hundreds of times a day.

Camera Performance

Another very important positive for the Pixel 9 has been the camera performance. As I mentioned earlier, I haven't really used any of the AI camera features, such as Add Me. I'm more interested in the images and videos that you can achieve straight out of the camera. The Pixel 9 uses the same 50-megapixel main camera as the Pixel 8 from last year, but outputs more pleasing results in my opinion with the photos generally leaning a bit warmer than the Pixel 8, which I prefer. The quality of the images out of the main camera is just excellent though. They are very detailed with an ideal amount of contrast and saturation. This obviously comes down to personal opinion in the most part, but I love the Pixel processing of images.

The ultrawide camera jumps from 12 megapixels to 48 megapixels this year, matching the Pixel 9 Pro. It delivers more detail, better lowlight shots, and retains the useful macro mode. Low light performance is a particularly strong feature across both the Pixel 9's rear cameras. The low light shots are super clean, which is the result of a combination of the large sensors and Google's processing. The front-facing camera is the same as the one in the Pixel 8 last year, but this time with added autofocus, where it was previously fixed focus. There's honestly very little difference in the results between this and the Pixel 8. And this camera produces good enough photos for the odd selfie and is perfectly fine for video calls, which is probably what most people will use it for.

It's disappointing that Google limit the manual controls in the camera app to the Pro phones because there's no practical reason why this couldn't be included in the base 9. They just need to give users another selling point for the 9 Pro, otherwise no one would buy it. I particularly miss manual controls when shooting video as while I can dial in my settings using the Blackmagic camera app, you clearly lose some of Google's processing smarts when doing this. I also wish they would implement the option to shoot in a log profile on the Pixel 9's camera like they've had in the iPhone for a while now and like they've recently implemented in the new S25. Because for serious content creators, the image coming straight out of the Pixel 9's camera is pretty oversharpened and pretty oversaturated in my opinion. Log would at least give video creators the flexibility to add their own look to the video coming out of the Pixel 9. And I have no doubt that the Pixel 9's cameras can produce a really good quality image that would be easily usable for a YouTube video, especially using this main camera.

Stabilization on the Pixel 9 hasn't really improved, but it was already good enough in my opinion on the Pixel 8, so I've not really got any issues with that. I have find myself occasionally missing having a telephoto camera, but I don't think we're ever going to get a telephoto on the base Pixel phone. So, you'd be better getting a Pixel 9 Pro if you need a telephoto lens. But basically, if you want a phone that can produce excellent photos straight out of camera that captures good enough video and you don't need a telephoto lens, then I'm sure you'd be happy with the Pixel 9.

Software Updates

One of the most underrated aspects of the Pixel 9 is that like the Pixel 8 last year, it's receiving 7 years of software updates. To put this into perspective, this means that the Pixel 9 will still be getting updated until 2031. The reason this is a big deal is because I often get asked by you guys in the comments about which phone you should get. Older phones like the Pixel 7 seem like a good deal now that they've gone way down in price, but I always recommend either the Pixel 8, 8a, or 9 if someone wants a Pixel because most people keep their phone until it stops meeting their needs rather than getting an upgrade every year. Getting a newer Pixel will mean that the phone is not only getting new features frequently, keeping it feeling fresh, but also will continue to receive security updates, which will help keep us more protected against viruses, hacks, and other digital security concerns. This is why long software support is particularly important and should be more of a consideration in anyone's purchasing decision, in my opinion.

Pixel feature drops have already brought really useful features to older Pixel phones, such as allowing you to use your phone as a webcam or the ability to connect your Pixel up to a display and mirror the screen via the USB-C port. Both features I've actually practically used multiple times. My slight concern is that if the Tensor G4 already provides less power than competitor chipsets at this point, how will it fare in 5, 6, or even 7 years time? Maybe I'll have to do a long, long-term review and we can see how it holds up then.

Price and Value

Price and value is the final thing I want to cover. Google raised the price of their base Pixel by $100 US or £100 for the second year running, taking the Pixel 9 up to a starting price of $799 or £799. Being completely honest, if you compare the Pixel 9 at this price to the Pixel 8 at its average price recently, the Pixel 8 represents far better value. And that means that I wouldn't recommend you buy the Pixel 9 at full price or any Pixel for that matter. Always wait until Google inevitably puts them on sale and you'll end up getting actual good value for your money. At the time of filming, the Pixel 9 is currently down to £650 in the UK and $650 in the US. At this price, I can highly recommend the Pixel 9 as it's just a better experience than the Pixel 8 overall, even just for the improved battery life.

Verdict

Okay, so let's find out whether this phone is right for you or not. Based on what I've covered already, if you aren't a power user or a serious mobile gamer and you're not bothered by the lack of manual camera controls or telephoto camera, then the Pixel 9 is honestly an excellent choice, but only if you can get it for $700 or less. Pixel OS is honestly my favorite version of Android with so many useful features built into it, and providing a generally smooth and enjoyable experience. Plus, the 7 years of software updates is the cherry on top.

The much improved efficiency of the Pixel 9 and a Tensor G4 chip mean that the battery life is now very good on the Pixel 9. And the camera quality and shooting experience is consistently excellent. Regardless of if you're shooting in low light or the perfect lighting conditions, the Pixel 9 feels like the most refined Pixel experience to date. And I think 95% of people who buy one won't regret it at all. If you do want to pick one of these up, then I've put an affiliate link down in the description. But what do you think of the Pixel 9? Let me know in the comments below. Otherwise, it's been an absolute pleasure and I'll catch you in the next video. Cheers.