Google Pixel 9

Great cameras, long battery life and seven years of software support make this a solid long-term choice

- TOM PRITCHARD

Next to its Pro-branded siblings, the regular Pixel 9 might not seem like an exciting prospect.

But Google has clearly put a lot of effort into updating its mainstream handset for 2024, introducing major improvements over the Pixel 8 (see issue 351, p72).

First, though, the bad news. For the second year in a row, Google has hiked the price by £100, so you’ll now pay £799 inc VAT for the base Pixel phone with 128GB of storage. The new model is also a touch thicker and heavier than the Pixel 8, and there’s not much in the way of snazzy new colours: alongside the classic Obsidian and Porcelain, your options are Peony and Winter Green – fancy ways of saying pink and mint green.

Still, the design has been refined in a few other ways. A jaunty oval camera housing replaces the staid edge-to-edge bar of previous generations, although it does protrude a little further. The rounded edges of the Pixel 8 have been flattened too, and the bezels have been shrunk.

This refactoring allows for a slightly expanded 6.3in display, which feels like a good middle ground between large and small phone sizes. Its 1,080 x 2,424 resolution works out to 422 pixels per inch, with an adaptive refresh rate of between 60Hz and 120Hz. Perhaps the biggest news is the brightness: I measured an excellent peak of 1,769cd/m2 at 100% HDR, which is much brighter than any similarly priced rival phone and a massive step up from the Pixel 8.