This year, Google added a new model to its flagship line: Google Pixel 9 Pro XLwith which he dethroned last year Google Pixel 8 Pro as a top-tier Pixel in the family. Despite what its name suggests, the 9 Pro XL is more of an iterative update than a revolutionary reboot.
Additionally, the Pixel 9 Pro XL has a significantly higher launch price than the 8 Pro’s starting price, so on paper the 8 Pro seems like the smarter choice. But the devil is often in the details, so let’s take a look at whether the 9 Pro XL is worth the extra cost.
Table of contents:
To get started you can: compare full spec sheets or continue directly with our editor’s review in the text below.
Size comparison
The Google Pixel 9 Pro XL and 8 Pro have nearly identical dimensions, although this year’s 9 Pro XL has a 0.1” larger display. Google was able to reduce the bezels and gain more screen real estate.
The newer Pixel is slightly thinner and heavier at the same time, but we doubt anyone would notice that in real life.
Build quality and appearance are pretty much the same. Gorilla Glass Victus 2 sits on the front and back with an aluminum frame in the middle. The Pixel 9 Pro XL has a slightly different camera island design, but that doesn’t affect the handling or usability.
Display comparison
The two devices share the same underlying display technology: LTPO OLED with a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. Adaptive refresh rate and HDR10+ support are available on both devices, but the newer 9 Pro XL is the winner here for two simple reasons.
First off, the Pro XL has the brightest display we’ve seen yet, at over 2,300 nits, while the 8 Pro maxes out at 1,600 nits. That’s not to say the Pro XL is actually 40% brighter, since luminance is measured on a logarithmic scale, not linear. Still, the newer Pixel certainly offers a better outdoor viewing experience.
Second, you get an extra 0.1 inches of screen diagonal with the 9 Pro XL, and more screen real estate. The thinner bezels also look more modern on the newer Pixel.
Battery life
While the Pixel 9 Pro XL has the same battery as its predecessor (5,060mAh vs. 5,050mAh), battery life has been improved. This may be due to the newer Tensor G4 chip or other under-the-hood optimizations.
Anyway, the new Pixel has a Active usage score of 12:32hbetter than the 11:14am Active Usage Score of the 8 Pro. While call and gaming runtimes are about equal, the 9 Pro XL outperforms its predecessor with better web browsing and video playback, and these are reportedly the tests that matter most.
Loading speed
Both devices use the Power Delivery 3.0 standard for wired charging, but the 9 Pro XL’s is rated at 37W, up from the 8 Pro’s 30W. And according to our testing, the gains are noticeable.
The 9 Pro XL may not yet be the record holder, but it is noticeably faster than the 8 Pro in the 15- and 30-minute distances, by more than 10 percentage points.
However, the curve flattens out as the 9 Pro XL gets closer to 100%. As a result, fully charging the newer Pixel is only 5 minutes faster.
In terms of wireless charging, both phones feature a maximum power output of 23W and that’s with the optional Pixel Stand, which offers the fastest wireless charging for these phones.
Speaker test
Technically, the 9 Pro XL offers louder speakers than the 8 Pro, but in real life the difference is not that noticeable. What is noticeable is the sound tuning.
The 8 Pro’s speakers emphasize vocals and mids, while the XL sounds warmer, with deeper, more pronounced bass. We can’t say which is better, as it all comes down to personal preference, but we suspect the newer Pixel will appeal to more users.
Performance
Pixel phones have never been the type to deliver high-performance, and Google has always focused more on the software side of things. As such, the Pixel 9 Pro XL’s new in-house Tensor G4 SoC isn’t all that much better than last year’s G3. That’s not to say the phone isn’t good. Quite the contrary: both devices are snappy and responsive in their day-to-day tasks.
There’s no significant change to the memory configurations, either. The newer Pixel gets 16GB of RAM across all storage variants, which is a step up from last year’s 12GB configurations, but it’s hardly an improvement that you can feel or measure. The base storage option remains just 128GB, but can be bumped up to 1TB. Valid for both phones.
Benchmark performance
Unfortunately, the benchmarks we ran on the new Pixel 9 Pro XL weren’t reliable at determining the Tensor G4’s performance, with some showing worse performance compared to the older G3. It could be a software issue, or an issue with our review sample. Either way, we’ll hold off on posting results for now.
Camera comparison
The jump from just Pro to Pro XL doesn’t bring many camera improvements, as you might expect from the price increase and naming scheme. The two devices share largely the same camera hardware.
We have the 50MP f/1.7, 1/1.31″ main camera, 48MP f/2.8, 1/2.55″ 5x periscope telephoto camera, and a 48MP ultra-wide camera with a few changes this year. The newer ultra-wide unit gets a wider aperture (f/1.7 versus f/2.8), but the sensor size drops from 1/2.0″ to 1/2.55″. It’s hard to say which approach will produce better results until you look at the samples.
The selfie camera does get some love this year. The front-facing shooter is now 42MP, up from 10.5MP, and still offers autofocus and an ultra-wide lens.
Image quality
As expected, the quality of the camera remains largely unchanged. The samples we took were from different days, which makes it harder to compare, but the overall quality seems almost identical. We struggled to find any significant differences in rendering, colors, etc.
Pixel 9 Pro XL: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 5x
Pixel 8 Pro: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 5x
This is true for all cameras and in both daylight and low light. Although the ultra-wide lens has changed, we couldn’t find any noticeable change in image quality there either.
Pixel 9 Pro XL: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 5x
Pixel 8 Pro: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 5x
We noticed a slight tendency toward lighter exposure, and therefore lighter shadows, in some low-light scenes captured with the Pixel 9 Pro XL.
Selfies are excellent on both phones, but we expected a significant improvement on the new model.
Pixel 9 Pro XL selfies
Pixel 8 Pro selfies
Video quality
For some reason, the Pixel 9 Pro XL’s videos are noticeably worse than those of the 8 Pro. They’re soft and lack fine detail, and this applies to all three rear cameras. We suspect this is a software issue that Google will address in a future update, but for now, the Pixel 8 Pro is the clear winner in this segment.
To be fair, the videos captured by the Pixel 9 Pro XL’s main camera in low light appear to have slightly better definition, thanks to less aggressive noise reduction applied.
Pixel 9 Pro XL: 0.6x • 1x • 5x • 1x low light
Pixel 8 Pro: 0.6x • 1x • 5x • 1x low light
Pronunciation
The 9 Pro XL offers upgrades that are too modest to justify the roughly €500/$500 price difference at the time of writing.
Sure, the 9 Pro XL has a brighter and slightly larger display with thinner bezels; it offers modest improvements in charging, battery life, and speaker volume, but that’s not nearly enough to convince a potential buyer to spend a few hundred dollars extra. Especially when you consider that both devices enjoy lengthy software support and near-identical camera performance. In fact, the 8 Pro outperforms its successor in this regard, with better video quality.
- The brighter and 0.1″ larger screen.
- The slightly improved battery life.
- The slightly faster charging.
- The differently tuned speakers.
- An additional year of software support.
Buy the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL for:
- The significantly lower price tag.
- The better video recording.
- The user experience is largely identical.
Buy the Google Pixel 8 Pro for: