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Pixel 9 Pro / Pro XL vs. 8 Pro – Which Should You Buy?

by Josh Teder

Introduction

I’ve spent well over the past six months using a Google Pixel 8 Pro that I bought, and now that I’ve had a chance to use its successor, I’m going to take you through what sets them apart. If you just looked at the spec sheets of these phones, you wouldn’t think there’s much of a difference between them, but as you’ll soon see, spec sheets don’t always tell the entire story.

Design and Build

The first advantage of the Pixel 9 Pro and Pro XL is the brand-new design. The Pixel 9 Pro XL has a refreshed look that aligns more with recent iPhones. It’s got the same rounded corner and side rail look as the current iPhones. It’s slightly heavier at 221g, the same weight as an iPhone 15 Pro Max, and then there’s the back design. It’s stunning how pretty this Pixel is. The camera bar helps make the phone stand out in a good way. It’s uniquely Google, and it feels and looks premium in person.

Fingerprint Sensor and Display

One significant improvement with the 9 Pro XL is the fingerprint sensor. It’s way more responsive than the one on the 8 Pro, and it won’t blind you in the middle of the night when you’re trying to unlock your phone like the older Pixels did. Another advantage of the 9 Pro XL’s design is its display. The 9 Pro XL boasts 2,000 nits of brightness with a peak of 3,000 nits, even better than the 8 Pro’s 600 nits with 2,400 nits of peak brightness.

Audio Quality

I’ve also noticed an improvement in speaker quality between the two phones. When I listened to both, I noticed that the 9 Pro XL had improved mids and bass compared to the 8 Pro speakers, which sounded slightly more harsh.

Microphone Test

When I tested the mics in our video review, during the test, I thought the 9 Pro XL did sound a bit more apparent than the 8 Pro’s mic, but it was pretty close! You can listen for yourself here.

Size Options

The last advantage you get with the 9 Pro’s design is, for the first time, you can now choose between two sizes of Pro Pixels. So if you don’t want to get the larger one like this 9 Pro XL, you can get the smaller 9 Pro. And while I only bought the Pixel 9 Pro XL, you’ll hear me use Pixel 9 Pro XL and 9 Pro interchangeably in this video, and that’s because most of the features that I will talk about apply to both of the Pro phones. The only real difference between them is their size, battery capacity, and weight. Features-wise, they’ve got the exact same thing.

Camera System

The next advantage of the 9 Pro and Pro XL is the camera system. Now, when you first look at the backs of these two phones, just by looking at the cameras, you will see that they almost look identical. When you look at the spec sheets, aside from the upgraded selfie camera, it doesn’t look like Google did much with the camera system this year. But what the spec sheet doesn’t tell you is that Google redid the entire HDR+ imaging pipeline with this new Pixel 9 series of phones.

Photo Quality Comparison

Now, overall, I can barely tell the difference between the photos taken from both the 9 Pro XL and the 8 Pro in most situations. However, when you look closer, you will see more minor upgrades to things like saturation. I’ve noticed a bit more saturation with specific colors on the Pixel 9, which makes its photos look a little bit less dull, and the shots have a little bit less of a cooler tone to them as well. They look more balanced in their white balance and tint and slightly more true to life. My skin tones look way better in the 9 Pro XL’s photos compared to the 8 Pro, and that’s been pretty consistent throughout my tests. It fixes one of the main complaints I had in my review of the 8 Pro.

Selfie Camera Improvements

Another area where the Pixel 9 Pro’s camera shines is selfies. The color reproduction of skin tones is noticeably better here, too. I don’t look as pale as I do in the 8 Pro shots and the higher resolution 40-megapixel dual PD selfie camera handles low-light situations a bit better. I also like the wider field of view on the 1X you get on the 9 Pro XL compared to the 8 Pro.

Night Scene and Video Performance

For night scenes, again, I can’t tell that much of a difference between the two camera systems in videos as well as photos, except for the slight tweaks to processing with the skin tones and saturation. All in all, the Pixel 9 Pro camera system is the best camera system I’ve tested so far on a Pixel device.

New Camera Features

The 9 Pro XL also brings some new software camera-related features like “Add Me,” where you can digitally stitch together you and your friends and family so everyone can be in the same photo simultaneously. Then there’s “Reimagine,” which lets you add things to your photos that weren’t there before, and that feature is surprisingly good.

Video Capabilities

With the 9 Pro, you also get 8K video recording with Video Boost, but even more important in my book, you get 4K 60 with Video Boost, which does make a difference in your shots, especially the ones in lower light. The 9 Pro also gets you Super Res Zoom, and it does appear to be an upgrade from the quality of the 8 Pro. You also get a pretty impressive new zoom capability that can go up to 20x, and you can use it in conjunction with Video Boost, which is awesome. The 8 Pro cannot do Video Boost and 20x zoom simultaneously.

Pixel Screenshots app

The next advantage of the 9 Pro XL is the Screenshots app. This app takes all of the screenshots and moves them into their own dedicated app. Pixel Screenshots uses Gemini Nano, Google’s on-device AI model that has multimodality, which means it can look at photos as well as text to help you save, organize, and recall the information embedded in your screenshots, all using on-device processing.

For example, I screenshotted the page for my old high school’s upcoming drama performances, and Screenshots was able to extract that performance date information and times. From there, I can set a reminder to buy tickets a few weeks before the performances and add the dates to my Google Calendar with a single tap. It does all of that for me, just taking a single screenshot, which is pretty cool. Now, it is not perfect. You can’t ask the Gemini assistant for information in your screenshots yet, and if you lose your phone, all of those important screenshots are gone unless you flag screenshots to back up via Google Photos. But if you do that, then they’re going to clog up your main Google Photos view by default.

Will the Screenshots app come to earlier Pixels?

Now, I know what you might be thinking: Isn’t the Screenshots feature just a new app that Google developed? Like, surely this is going to come to more phones down the line, right? One of the odd things about Google’s business model with their Pixel phones is that they’ll restrict software features to the newest devices, but only for about six months. So it is possible that some of the exclusive software features like Reimagine and Add Me will come to older Pixels. Still, for features like Screenshots that are powered by Gemini Nano’s multimodal version, there is a chance that older processors may not be able to run that as fast. Google might just keep that feature exclusive to the Pixel 9 phones, which have the newer chips. We’re just going to have to wait and see.

Battery Life

Battery life is another advantage I’d give to the 9 Pro XL. The 9 Pro XL is rated for up to 100 hours with Extreme Battery Saver on, compared to 72 hours with the 8 Pro. This is likely due to better power efficiency with the new Tensor G4 processor, though both phones so far have been able to last me all day for my use, and that’s a screen-on time of about 1 to 2 hours per day with 2 to 4 hours of background activity, mainly podcasts and music.

Advantages of the Pixel 8 Pro

Those are all of the advantages I found with the 9 Pro XL. Now let’s talk about the 8 Pro because it actually has some advantages over the newest Pixel. First and foremost is its price. With the 9 Pro and the Pro XL now on the market, you can expect to see some great deals on the 8 Pro remaining in stock, often going on sale several hundred below the newest Pixels. The next advantage I’d give the Pixel 8 Pro is its design. I think some are going to find its more rounded edges make it a bit more comfortable to hold for extended periods, though there are going to be those, and I’m probably more in this category, where the flat side rails, especially if you don’t have a case on the phone, I think makes it easier to hold. However, one advantage the 8 Pro has is in weight. It is lighter at 213g compared to the 9 Pro XL’s 221g, though the Pixel 9 Pro is the lightest of them all at 199g.

Price Comparison and Recommendations

Okay, so by now, I think it’s pretty obvious that the Pixel 9 Pro and Pro XL will be the better option for most people, but the question is, at what price does it still make sense to go for the Pixel 8 Pro? For me, if they’re within $200 of each other, I would go with one of the newer Pixels because of their improved skin tones and HDR processing, improved selfie camera, new software features, and a more premium feel and just prettier design. If you can find the Pixel 8 Pro on sale for around $750 to $700, which has been the lowest price in the past six months, that’s where, if it were me, I would probably go with the 8 Pro. The caveat there is if your skin tones look good in the photos that this camera system takes. If it does, then I’d say go for it, but if not, and you want your selfies and photos to look as good as possible, even at that price difference, I’d probably have a hard time recommending going for the 8 Pro over the new 9 Pro or Pro XL. Now, if photos don’t matter to you all that much, then I don’t think the benefits of going with the 9 Pro and Pro XL outweigh the money that you’re going to save by going with the Pixel 8 Pro. At the end of the day, you’re still getting a good Pixel experience.