The timing does bring with it a sense of intrigue. Google’s chosen an earlier-than-usual launch of this year’s Pixel flagship phone series, bucking the trend of its usual October timeline. But this has to be Google’s boldest smartphone bets yet. A lot of it has to do with promise and potential, while value will undoubtedly find influence with the tech giant’s chosen price points for these phones. The Google Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL arrive in India to join the already on sale Pixel 8a. There’s also the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, which will make its way to India in the coming weeks.
There are the obvious steps forward, with all phones getting the new Google Tensor G4 chip as the beating heart. Across the board, significant upgrades to increase the amount of RAM that each phone has, is immediately noticeable. The Pixel 9 has 12GB RAM, while the Pixel 9 Pro phones as well as Pixel 9 Pro Fold have 16GB RAM. Base storage is also 256GB, and while that’s the only choice on the Pixel 9 and the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, the pro phones will also have the choice of 512GB storage. We will only be able to comment on real-world and comparative performance specifics once HT reviews the new Pixel phones in detail.
In a briefing session of which HT was a part, Google insists one of the reasons for this baseline RAM increase (Pixel 7 had 8GB RAM and Pixel 7 Pro had 12GB, for perspective) is to factor in longevity. It’ll be interesting to see how the Tensor G4 and indeed more RAM hold up to the promise of 7 years of Pixel Drops, Android versions and security updates. As well as the inevitable AI suite expansion for Gemini models as well as services including Google Photos. Some of these updates, in due course of time, will likely test hardware limits of these phones due to their performance requirements.
In terms of core specs, the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro phones get a 6.3-inch display size – the former called Actua (an OLED with 2424 x 1080 pixels) while the latter a Super Actua LTPO OLED (2856 x 1280 pixels). The Pixel 9 Pro XL has a 6.8-inch Super Actua screen. The battery capacities are 4700 mAh for the smaller Pixel 9 phones while the Pixel 9 Pro XL has a 5060mAh battery. Wired charge speeds have seen a generational increase from 27-watts to 45-watts, though wireless charging is still compatible with Qi chargers, and not Qi 2, which have caught on off late.
There is quite a change as far as the design language goes. Fatter sides, the Pixel 9 Pro’s matte glass finish alongside a dual finish camera bar, the Pixel 9’s satin-esque finish around the cameras and the choice of four colours for the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro lines.
You may probably be wondering about the camera setup, since over the years, Pixel phones and photography benchmarks became synonymous. The Pixel 9 gets dual cameras (50-megapixel wide and 48-megapixel ultrawide with macro focus). The pro phones have a triple camera system, with a 50-megapixel wide, 48-megapixel ultrawide and a 48-megapixel telephoto. The AI driven software suite includes Zoom Enhance and Magic Editor.
A new addition to the AI suite is a feature called Add Me. The way this works is, after you’ve taken a photo of the rest of your group of family or friends, you can ask one of them to get behind the camera instead and take a photo of you within the previous frame – Google’s AI will guide the person now holding the camera to the exact guidelines for framing and when to click the photo. The photo you took, and the one that was taken later with you also in the frame, will be merged together. HT will be able to comment on the accuracy of this melding, only after testing it.
The Pixel 9 is priced at ₹79,999 while the Pixel 9 Pro will cost ₹1,09,999 onwards while the Pixel 9 Pro XL demands you part with at least ₹1,24,999 (more, depending on storage). It is likely most buyers will compare with the Samsung Galaxy S24 series – prices start ₹62,999 for the Galaxy S24, ₹99,999 for the Galaxy S24+ and ₹1,29,999 for the Galaxy S24 Ultra. The OnePlus 12 phones are likely to figure too, and those are priced ₹59,999 onwards. For perspective, a Pixel 7 Pro was launched at ₹84,999. It is a significant jump to ₹1,24,999 to the similarly spec-ed and screen size Pixel 9 Pro XL.
Those are just some illustrations of how Google may have gotten the value aspect slightly off the mark with launch prices. Is a correction needed soon? Perhaps.
Recognising the foldables
This is unchartered territory for the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, considering its foldable never tested these waters. Google’s big pitch to customers is their foldable phone is that it is the slimmest foldable that’ll be on sale in India, for now. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold measures 5.1mm thickness when unfolded. To be fair, the impressive Vivo X Fold3 Pro measures 5.2mm in the unfolded state, while the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 at 5.6mm isn’t far behind. The thickest in this comparison is the OnePlus Open, but only just, at 5.8mm.
It remains to be seen (something we’ll be able to judge better when we test the Pixel 9 Pro Fold in detail) whether shaving off these few millimetres makes for a tangible improvement in the ergonomics, and quite how well the foldable phone holds performance and manages temperatures. Google says the hinge is made using multi-alloy steel with an aerospace-grade high-strength aluminium alloy cover – that’s a mouthful, and perhaps good for a certain amount of robustness.
The foldable screen on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is 8-inches, while the cover display is 6.3-inches – this is the same Actua display as the Pixel 9, which makes this a very usable phone screen in itself. That’s also bucking the trend of narrow, and somewhat unusable cover screen aspect ratios, which we’ve often seen in foldable phones till now. Hopefully we’ve seen the last of that.
It is inevitable that the Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s cameras will be compared with Vivo’s partnership with Zeiss and OnePlus’ Hasselblad synergies. To that effect, Google will be confident its image processing layers will be able to compete with the optimisations made by the two camera giants. But has Google left too much for software and algorithms to do, with the 48-megapixel wide, 10.5-megapixel ultrawide and 10.8-megapixel telephoto troika?
The Pixel 9 Pro Fold goes on sale in India with a sticker price of ₹1,72,999. This price tag will demand some level of enthusiasm towards Pixel phones, when compared with its competition – the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 is priced ₹1,64,999 while the OnePlus Open costs ₹1,39,999 onwards while the Vivo X Fold3 Pro costs ₹1,59,999. And all these prices are before credit card as well as other payment discounts or cashbacks, something the Pixel 9 Pro Fold isn’t slated to get (at least for now).