Google's new Pixel 9 phones have a lot of AI and a lot of camera tech

The Google Pixel phone has never had the impact in the market that models from Apple have had, or even Android brethren such as Samsung. After some lackluster previous models, the four Pixel 9 phones just announced are serious contenders.

The four new models are the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro XL, and the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. Pricing starts at $799, $999, $1099, and $1799 respectively. And while the XL is indeed bigger (6.8in as opposed to 6.3in), as with other manufacturers there’s also differentiation in the features it offers.

As you would expect, AI features prominently. Google has stuffed the new phone full of Gemini Live features. While the onstage demos took a few times to get it right — welcome to AI 2024 stylee —  some of this is impressive. Gemini Live introduces more naturalistic conversation; Pixel Studio features an on-device diffusion model for prompt-based creative image generation’ Pixel Screenshots is like Microsoft’s canned Recall but you’re in charge of what it records; there’s a Gemini overlay you can deploy that will answer questions about what’s on your screen; there’s a better weather app and more (we’ll talk about the photos stuff later).

Gemini Live is launching immediately for Gemini Advanced subscribers on Android, with iOS coming soon. As we suspect with Apple, the AI tools will eventually be monetized as an extra subscription, but a free year of Gemini Advanced is bundled into a Pro and Pro XL purchase. Unlike Apple Intelligence, they are available now. After a quick trawl through Google’s documentation, there also seems to be no unease about a European deployment of them, but the devil might be in the detail of that and there is always a chance that the phones could ship with some features turned off in the EU. We await clarification…

This has all necessitated new custom silicon. The Tensor G4 is optimized to run the company’s most advanced AI models and will be the first processor to run Gemini Nano with Multimodality (ie understanding text, images and audio). It has also meant memory upgrades across the entire Pixel 9 family, with 12GB of RAM for Pixel 9 and 16GB for Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL.

New camera tech

All three of the main models have two cameras on the back: a 50 MP wide-angle coupled with a 48 MP ultrawide the pro and the XL feature a third camera, a 48 MP 5x telephoto which zooms up to 10x optical and will digitally push an image up to 30x. The bog standard Pixel 9 can manage up to 2x and 8x respectively. Front-facing cameras are pegged at 10.5 MP on the Pixel 9, and an impressive 42 MP on the Pro and Pro XL.

The 48 MP ultra wide is a nice specced camera. It is said to gather 110% more light than the previous Pixel camera and can focus as close as 2 cm (0.8 in).

The Pro and XL models are both capable of (AI uprezzed) 8K video recording at 30 fps along with 4K and 1080p at up to 60 fps. Digital zoom is available here as well, 7x on the base model and up to 20x on the other two. Features and editing tools are not common across all. As you would expect from other manufacturers positioning, the Pro and XL models get the best of these.

The Fold cameras are slightly different: a 48 MP wide and a 10.5 MP ultrawide 10.8 MP telephoto and 10 MP front and inner cameras for video content conferencing, selfies and that sort of thing.

There’s a new HDR+ imagine pipeline that Google says optimizes exposure, tone mapping, sharpening, contrast, and more, to better capture things like textures, shadows and skin tones in everyday scenes.

As mentioned, AI also features with the new cameras and phones, specifically machine learning-based editing tools to help with shooting and touching up after the event.

The Pro and Pro XL feature a  20x Super Res Zoom in Night Sight Video or Video Boost that combines details from the upgraded telephoto camera with advanced machine learning to add rich details whatever the lighting. “The next time you’re in the back row at a concert, you can capture videos like you’re front and center,” says Google. We’re skeptical about exactly how good that will be, but interested to see it in action.

Video Boost on Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL uses AI upscaling to provide that 8K recording. With that high of a resolution, you can save high-quality still images, up to 33MP, from the video or zoom in up to 2x in post-production and retain 4K resolution.

Magic Editor image manipulation includes all the generative AI tools and more you’d expect to see nowadays, while Add Me does exactly that: uses AR tech to enable a second photographer to add you into a group shot so everyone can appear in the frame.

Pixel 9 series tech specs

Courtesy of The Verge, here's a collated table of the tech specs