The Pixel 9 is nice, but the phone you really want is the Pixel 9 Pro

The Google Pixel 9 holds its own against the more expensive Pro models, with an identical design and the most important Pro specs on board. Should you skip the Pro and get yourself some Peony Pixel 9 love? Absolutely not (sorry Peony, CALL ME!). The Pixel 9 Pro has advantages that justify the price, and more. In fact, depending on how much of a Pixel fan you are, the Pixel 9 Pro may even pay for itself.

Before I get to those advantages, let’s not forget the Pixel 9. It really does have the most important Pro specs, like the same Google Tensor G4 processor. Apple gives its basic iPhone 15 last year’s chipset, but Pro iPhone models get more advanced silicon. Google gives every flagship phone the same engine (so does Samsung, to be fair).

The Tensor G4 is built to run Google’s AI models, and every Pixel 9 phone will get Android OS updates, security patches, and Pixel feature drops for the next seven years. That’s a big deal, and it adds a lot of long-term value to even the less-expensive Pixel 9.

Then, there are the cameras, always a key Pixel feature. The Pixel 9 has the exact same main and ultrawide camera modules as the Pixel 9 Pro. There’s no zoom, but those other two are identical. Not just the same resolution, but the same sensor and lens.

Samsung makes the best camera phone you can buy right now, but only its Galaxy S24 Ultra gets the best camera specs. The basic Galaxy S24 has totally different cameras, and they aren’t as good.

With the new design, the Pixel 9 looks almost exactly like the Pixel 9 Pro – its measurements are identical, to the millimeter. That means it also has room for the same battery inside, and it charges just as fast (though the Pixel 9 Pro XL is the real fast charger).

The Pixel 9 Pro's 16GB of RAM will be very important, later

Why pay $200 / £200 / AU $350 more for the Pixel 9 Pro, when the Pixel 9 has the most important specs? Well, let’s talk about the differences, and how those differences are going to look over the next several years.

The Pixel 9 Pro has a whopping 16GB of RAM inside, which is more than almost any other smartphone you can buy right now. Google isn’t trying to win a spec war, it’s looking at the AI future. Right now, AI is a hodge-podge of machine learning models running on the phone, in the cloud, or as a mixture of both. That means the phone is doing a lot of work and also multi-tasking every time it uses AI, and it’s ALWAYS using AI.

More RAM is important for performance now, but as the AI features grow in scope, RAM will be the bottleneck spec holding back the older phones. It’s worth having more RAM in your new Pixel.

The Pixel 9 has the same cameras, not the same  software

What about those cameras? The Pixel 9 Pro’s 5X zoom lens may be worth the price difference between the phones, if you take a lot of photos. The Pixel 9 will be great for selfies, portraits, landscapes, and group photos. If you want to take photos of your kid playing ball, or performing on stage, you need zoom. But zoom isn’t the only real advantage of the Pixel 9 Pro cameras.

In my testing, the photos I took with the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro looked remarkably similar in terms of color, lighting, and dynamic range. However, the Pro camera has a Pro mode, and that lets you produce images in full 50MP resolution. The Pixel 9 always makes a 12MP photo, which is a great size for sharing, but you can do more with a larger photo if you want to edit later, and a Pixel is the best phone around for editing photos, with its exclusive AI tools.

More importantly, the Pixel 9 Pro simply made better decisions when I let the camera choose. When I took a close-up photo of a flower, I hoped for a blurry, bokeh background. The Pixel 9 was more likely to switch to a very wide aperture, exposing the entire photo evenly, including the background. The Pixel 9 Pro created better bokeh, and made more artistic choices.

I also saw a significant difference working with the Pro’s raw photos versus the JPG files, when I wanted to edit my shots. Having a larger 50MP raw file (technically a DNG) gave me more raw material (pun intended) for a better final image that looked closer to what a real DSLR might produce.

Whether you use AI or not, a year of Google One is big

Where the Pixel 9 Pro actually pays for itself is with AI and the cloud. The Pixel 9 has almost all of the AI features you’ll want from the Pixel 9 Pro, except for some Super Res Video Boost tools in the video camera. You can use Gemini Live on the Pixel 9, and Gemini works across all of your Google apps, just like it does with the Pixel 9 Pro.

Gemini Live isn’t free. It’s part of the Google One AI Premium plan, which gives you Google Advanced as well as 2TB of cloud storage. The Google One AI Premium plan costs $19.99 / £18.99 / AU$32.99, and you get the first month for free.

The Pixel 9 Pro comes with a full year of the Google One AI Premium plan for free. If you were going to subscribe to the Premium AI plan, you’d save $219.89 / £208.89 / AU$362.89 in the first year by choosing the Pixel 9 Pro instead. The Pixel 9 Pro only costs $200 / £200 / AU$350 more than the Pixel 9.

Is the Google One AI Premium plan going to keep you entertained for a full year? Maybe not, but getting 2TB of cloud storage is also worthwhile. The cost of subscribing to Google cloud storage with 2TB of space is $9.99 / £7.99 / AU $19.99 per month, with no AI additions. I added Google Gemini Advanced, when it became available, to my personal Google cloud storage plan, and I use it frequently for fun and interesting advice.

Whether or not you want that much AI, I’d highly recommend subscribing to Google’s cloud storage. You can use the 2TB of storage space across your Gmail, Google Photos, Google Docs, and Android phone backups, on the desktop and mobile devices.

Lacking the value of a Google One plan, plus the Pixel 9 Pro's hardware advantages, the Google Pixel 9 just isn't a good choice. It’s not a good deal to buy one. It’s a gorgeous phone, whether you buy the sweet Wintergreen, or the astonishing Peony, or one of the boring colors. Sadly, it makes too much sense to get the Pixel 9 Pro instead. Settle for Hazel, the best Pixel 9 Pro color, or maybe Rose Quartz.

I wish Google gave Pixel 9 buyers the same year of Google One AI Premium and the Pro Camera software options. The Pixel 9 needs that added value. Even if you don’t care about AI, you’re simply losing too much if you choose the Pixel 9 over the Pixel 9 Pro.

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