Google Pixel 9 hands-on review: An affordable, but super smart mobile device

For an entry-level smartphone, the Google Pixel 9 is chock full of features. But it’s being sold at a low starting price — just $799 before trade-in credits, financing deals, or promotional offers. The big differentiator between the Pixel 9 and last year’s model are the advanced AI tools and features offered by Google Gemini. You also get a longer lasting battery, brighter display and other useful enhancements.
Google recently sent me the Pixel 9, along with the Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL, to review. If you’re wondering whether you should upgrade your existing phone, keep reading. If you’re already sold on the Pixel 9, we’ve made it easy; just tap a button below.
Out of the smartphones in the Google Pixel 9 series, this is the base model. It comes in your choice of four colors — obsidian, wintergreen, peony or porcelain — and with either 128GB or 256GB of internal storage. This phone is very much for novice or light smartphone users who want a powerful, but affordable device, without a lot of the complicated high-end features offered by more advanced models. It’s also a great starter phone for someone switching from an Apple iPhone to an Android phone for the first time, or for a parent looking to provide their child, tween or teen with their first cell phone.
There’s a lot to like about the Pixel 9, including its slim form factor and light weight. The screen has a higher maximum brightness than ever before, so it’s easier to see in direct sunlight. You also get a battery life up to 24 hours, a powerful camera system, robust AI-driven features, and so much more.
However, despite the advanced technology — like the Tensor G4 processor — this phone is surprisingly easy to use and extremely customizable. It comes with Android 14 preinstalled, along with an impressive collection of preinstalled Google apps and services. So right out of the box, it’s ready to serve as a feature-packed communications, productivity, time management, photography, entertainment, health/fitness and safety tool. But with the more than 3 million apps available from the Google Play Store, it’s easy to add all sorts of features and functions.
For someone who is a moderate to power smartphone user, I’d recommend the slightly more expensive and powerful Google Pixel 9 Pro phone as opposed to this base model, but for anyone who’s budget-conscious, but needs a full-featured smartphone, the Pixel 9 is a really good choice.
Display size: 6.3 inches | Display type: Actua OLED touchscreen | Display resolution: 1,080 x 2,424 pixels | Max. display brightness: 2,700 nits | Processor: Google Tensor G4, Titan M2 security coprocessor | Available colors: Peony, wintergreen, porcelain, obsidian | Dimensions: 6 x 2.8 x 0.3 inches | Weight: 7 ounces | Storage options: 128GB or 256GB (12GB RAM) | Port: USB Type-C 3.2 | Wireless connectivity: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3 | Battery life: Up to 24 hours | Operating system: Android 14 | SIMs: Single Nano SIM and eSIM | Audio: Stereo speakers (with spatial audio), 3x microphones
Right out of the box, the Pixel 9 is easy to set up, especially if you already have a free Google account and want to transfer your content from another Android smartphone to this one. One of the first noticeable enhancements is that Google Assistant has been replaced by Google Gemini, which is an advanced, AI-driven tool that’s simple to use, yet very versatile and powerful. It understand the words you use to ask questions or issue commands, and understands your intent, too.
It also handles tasks that no smartphone has been able to perform in the past — like streamline your scheduling and to-do list management, summarize incoming emails and translate content between languages.
Gemini AI tools are integrated into the Android OS and most of the apps that come preinstalled on the phone, including Recorder. After you record the audio from a call, class, meeting or conversation, Gemini creates a text-based transcript and a summary of key points from each recording. 
Especially if you purchase the Pixel 9 from Best Buy or AT&T, there are a bunch of trade-in, financing and promotional offers that bring the cost of the phone down considerably from its $799 base price.
Google Gemini provides some mind-blowing new ways to interact with your phone. While there are many, here are three of the AI-driven features I found to be the most powerful and useful:
The Pixel 9 offers just two rear-facing cameras, which are the same cameras found in the Pixel 9 Pro and Pro XL models. Since this phone lacks the third telephoto camera on the back, it has more limited zoom capabilities. You get up to 8x Super Res. Zoom, compared to 30x zoom offered by the more advanced models. The front-facing camera is also lower resolution. 
Despite the less-advanced tech, most of the picture taking, video shooting, and editing capabilities found in the more advanced Pixel 9 phones are offered in this base model. The Gemini AI tools make photo and video editing a breeze, while providing new tools for removing items from images, enhancing image quality, sharpening images and more. 
As you’ll see from the sample images below, the picture taking capabilities offered by the Pixel 9 are rather advanced. It’s surprisingly simple, however, to achieve consistently high-quality images or video content, even if you’re a novice smartphone photographer. Any photography or videography skills you may lack are made up for by the advanced AI tools offered by the Camera and Photos apps. This includes real-time tips for helping you frame your shots and having the phone auto-adjust settings based on your shooting location and situation.
Built into the Camera app are advanced picture-taking shooting modes, like Action Pan, Long Exposure, Add Me, Portrait, Photo, Night Sight and Panorama. Action Pan is ideal for adding a motion blur when taking photos of a fast moving subject. Long Exposure is also a tool for adding a creative blur to moving subjects. The Add Me tool allows you to take a group photo with you as the photographer, but then seamlessly add yourself to the image during the picture taking processes. 
Portrait mode is ideal for taking pictures of people or objects when you want the background automatically blurred. This puts more emphasis on your subject, Photo shooting mode is what’s used most frequently for taking single, rectangular-shaped photos, while Night Sight is used to low-light situations. 
Panorama mode is used to taking extra-long rectangular shots of large groups, skylines or landscapes. While taking photos or shooting video, you also have access to a wide range of other AI-driven features designed to streamline the shooting process, yet provide impressive results you’ll be proud to share with family and friends or post on social media. 
All of the Pixel 9 phone models run the same version of Android 14, come with the same collection of preinstalled apps, and operate using the same Google Tensor G4 processor. The battery within the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro is also the same. There are, however, a few notable differences between the Pixel 9 and the more advanced models, including:
Not sure which model is right for you? Also be sure to check out our in-depth reviews of the Google Pixel 9 Pro and Google Pixel 9 Pro XL smartphones.
In a word, yes. Once again Google has done an excellent job pushing the capabilities of the Android operating system and Gemini AI tools (both of which Google developed). In this case, Google has made advanced capabilities easily usable by everyday smartphone users through an intuitive interface.
For in-depth reviews of the Google Pixel 9 Pro, Google Pixel 9 Pro XL, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max, OnePlus 12 and other popular phones, check out our ever-expanding tech coverage.