Amazon Prime Day Deal: The Pixel 9 Professional is a strong smartphone that appears even higher throughout Amazon Prime Day. Proper now, you will get the 128GB model in Obsidian for $749 or you possibly can seize it Hazel or Porcelain for $734. Larger storage capability variants are additionally discounted. If you wish to go large, the XL fashions even have had their priced slashed for Prime Day.
CNET’s key takeaways
Android telephones usually get a foul rap for being overly convoluted. And to be truthful, that is usually nicely justified. Samsung’s Galaxy S25 vary, for instance, has deep menu programs for messing about with almost each side of the telephone, together with options just like the Edge Panel sidebar and quite a lot of Samsung’s personal AI instruments. You even get Samsung’s model of some apps, so you find yourself with two apps for images, two apps for internet shopping and so forth.
For a lot of Android customers, the deep customizability of the OS has at all times been a promoting level over the extra simplistic iOS discovered on Apple’s iPhones. However simply since you need an Android telephone, would not essentially imply you are a fanatical tech nerd who desires to tinker with menus all day.
The Pixel 9 Professional is the best Android telephone I’ve ever used, and there is plenty of key explanation why.
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My expertise with the Pixel 9 Professional
First, it is Google’s personal telephone, which means there is not any secondary producer software program pores and skin excessive of the working system. It is pure, uncut Android. Google’s interface is clear, straightforward to learn and uncluttered. Naturally, it makes use of Google’s personal apps by default. Samsung, in the meantime, masses its telephones up with its personal browser, e mail consumer and photograph gallery, all of which sit beside Google’s Chrome, Gmail and Photographs apps, which means you have already got duplicates of every software.
Samsung is just not the one phone-maker to do that. Virtually all Android telephone corporations load their telephones up with at the least their very own browser and gallery app, whereas some corporations, like Samsung and Honor, go so far as making their very own e mail shoppers and calendars.
With its pure Android software program, the Pixel 9 Professional presents a super-clean and easy-to-use expertise.
I lately reviewed the Honor 400 Professional, and one of many large points I discovered with that telephone was how a lot unsolicited stuff comes pre-loaded as customary. Third-party apps from TikTok, LinkedIn, WPS workplace, Temu and quite a lot of others are all proper there as quickly as you flip it on for the primary time, making the telephone really feel cluttered, bloated and sophisticated earlier than you’ve got even had an opportunity to put in one app of your personal. The Pixel has none of this.
It is the identical with AI instruments. Samsung has its Bixby assistant, plus an enormous number of its personal AI capabilities. The Honor 400 Professional packs a bunch of AI options for real-time translation and transcription, as do the OnePlus 13 and numerous different current Android telephones. However all of them include Google’s Gemini Superior, too, together with Circle to Search. The Pixel would not must pointlessly double up. If you wish to use AI together with your telephone, its instruments are baked into the center of the telephone expertise with out you needing to additionally activate and signal right into a third-party service.
This straightforward method extends to the digicam, too. Open the default digicam app and also you’re met with a neat interface, comprised principally of the shutter button and zoom ranges, with different capturing modes discovered alongside. It would not attempt to overcomplicate issues right here, as a substitute letting you shortly shoot photos with out messing about with settings.
It is an method that works right here, and consequently, the Pixel 9 Professional takes a few of my favourite automated photos from a telephone digicam, doing an incredible job of balancing publicity and colours. I really like the Xiaomi 15 Extremely’s digicam, however to get the most effective from it, you could shoot in Professional mode, taking handbook management of the settings, which makes it extra suited to superior photographers who need to fine-tune their photos.
The digicam’s easy software program makes it straightforward to take images with little effort in your half.
The Pixel does provide deeper management if you need it, conveniently hidden behind a small settings icon, fairly than requiring you to change fully right into a “Professional” mode. For these of you eager to take handbook management of your white steadiness to heat up a ravishing sundown, the Pixel 9 Professional presents a simple means in.
The specs
- 6.3-inch LTPO OLED show, 2,856×1,280 pixel decision, 1-120Hz adaptive refresh fee
- Google Tensor G4 processor
- 16GB RAM
- 4,700-mAh battery
- 50 megapixel foremost digicam, 48 megapixel ultrawide, 48 megapixel telephoto zoom
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Google has clearly taken notes from Apple’s method in making the Pixel vary. Apple’s telephones could also be derided by Android followers for his or her lack of customization and “locked down” nature, however iPhones are famously extra easy to function. They’ve built-in {hardware}, software program and companies that make them straightforward to know whether or not you are new to smartphones or a veteran gadget obsessive.
Apple’s “you do issues our means” method is an enormous a part of the telephone’s success, and the Pixel 9 Professional feels just like the closest approximation of the Apple expertise yow will discover on Android. If you happen to’re searching for a clear expertise with a smartphone that does not attempt to get in your means with useless extras, the Pixel 9 Professional is actually value a glance.
Watch this: Google Pixel 9, 9 Professional and 9 Professional XL Arms-On
