The Best Smartphones for 2025
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The Pixel 9 Pro is the same size as the Pixel 9 but offers a brighter screen, improved cameras, and more AI features.
Who it’s for: People who want a bigger phone that captures the best images will like the Pixel 9 Pro.
Why we like it: The Pixel 9 Pro is a higher-end version of the Pixel 9, adding a brighter 6.3-inch OLED display, a polished metal finish, a longer-lasting battery, a 5x-optical-zoom lens, professional camera controls, better video quality, and support for Google’s AI-powered Gemini Advanced features.
The Pixel 9 Pro is one of the fastest phones you can buy. Scrolling and navigating apps is exceptionally smooth, and certain functions, such as Gemini and Google Assistant responses, are much faster than on other phones thanks to Google’s Tensor 4 processor and the Pro’s 16 GB of RAM. The new screen is even brighter than that of the Pixel 9, capable of up to 3,000 nits of maximum outdoor brightness.
The Pixel 9 Pro is also an upgrade over the Pixel 9 in that it has an additional camera lens: It has a third, 48-megapixel lens on the back with a 5x zoom that retains detail even when fully zoomed in. It takes the best photos of any Android phone we’ve tested, and you don’t have to tinker with the settings to get stunning images, though the Pixel 9 Pro offers manual controls to adjust things such as white balance, focus, shutter speed, and ISO if you want more granular control of your photos. It can also utilize the full-resolution 50-megapixel main camera instead of relying on a compressed 12-megapixel image. The Pixel 9 Pro’s Super Res Zoom makes photos zoomed in from 5x to 20x zoom look clearer with more visible details. And the Pro has a better selfie camera than the Pixel 9—42 megapixels versus the lower-priced Pixel’s 10.5-megapixel sensor—which makes your selfies as nearly as good as photos you take on the rear-facing cameras.
The Pixel 9 Pro has 16 GB of RAM to power an on-device, advanced version of Google’s Gemini Assistant, which analyzes images, speech, and text in addition to answering queries, supporting voice typing, and handling all of the other features Google Assistant offers. It also includes access to Gemini Live, Google’s new conversation-based assistant, which lets you ask questions just as you would type them into a Google search. Pixel 9 Pro owners get one year of Gemini Advanced for free (which usually costs $239 a year), and that also includes 2 TB of Google One cloud storage and access to Gemini AI within apps like Gmail and Google Docs.
Flaws but not dealbreakers: The Google Pixel 9 Pro has the Pixel 8 Pro’s gimmicky temperature sensor, which we find useless. But you don’t have to use it.
The Pixel 9 Pro’s Video Boost feature, which requires you to upload your videos to the cloud via Google Photos to improve your video details, colors, and stabilization, is tricky to use, because it requires you to turn the option on before pressing record. It also requires you to upload your video files to the cloud via Google Photos for processing instead of letting it happen on your device. The entire process can take several hours to complete—and if you’re shooting in 8K, even longer.
For more information on the Google Pixel 9 Pro, read our full guide to the best Android phones.
