Google’s Pixel 9 Still Considered Android’s Everyday Masterpiece in 2025 at $499, Here’s Why

Google’s Pixel 9 has flat sides that sort of hug your palm, like a well-worn paperback you’ve read a dozen times. The back is all glossy glass and it catches the light like a spark when you’re on the subway. But at 198 grams, this phone is light enough that you barely feel it when it disappears into the pocket of your jeans. Its matte aluminum rails and rounded corners are pretty familiar, yeah, they do kind of echo an iPhone – but then there’s that floating camera island that screams ‘this is a Pixel’.

Flip the switch, and its 120Hz 6.3″ display blasts out to 2,700 nits – that means you can still make out what’s on the screen when you’re walking out into the bright sunlight at noon, or binge-watching Netflix in the dead of night without straining your eyes. And the colors – well, they pop, but not in a cartoonish way. Scroll through Reddit at 7 a.m., dash off some emails at lunch, stream a soccer match on the train, and you won’t have to worry about the battery dying on you; a 4,700 mAh battery will still be at 30% juice by the end of the day, even if you’ve got all sorts of stuff going on like location sharing, Bluetooth earbuds, and 5G gobbling up the power. Casual users might get to 30 hours before needing to recharge – and heavier users, well, they should still make it to sunset without too much trouble.

Open up the camera app, and this phone really comes into its own. You’ve got a 50-megapixel main sensor working alongside a 48-megapixel ultrawide, which is actually starting to feel like a useful thing to have. Point the camera at a crowded market stall and the people will still be recognisable, the spices will still look like the real deal, and the shadows won’t make everything look like it’s been Photoshopped to death. And when it gets dark, the street-lamp alleys suddenly become the kind of postcard-perfect scenery you’d love to show off. Tap the shutter and Google’s image magic kicks in – skin tones are natural, skies are blue, and all that jazz. For the casual user, fire-and-forget is all it takes – and the result’s ready to rack up the likes on Instagram. Power users, on the other hand, will appreciate the manual white balance, 10-bit HDR video, and raw files that can withstand the most intense Lightroom surgery.


As for software, Android 15 is so fast that it launches apps before your thumb even has time to lift. And hey, full updates through 2031 mean that today’s purchase will feel like a timeless classic, like a well-worn oak chair that just keeps on keeping on. Google’s Gemini Nano lives on board, summarising long-winded articles in one tap, or turning some fuzzy kid photo into a keeper. Pixel Screenshots will catalog every receipt and meme you’ve ever collected – searchable by a keyword like ‘flight’ or ‘pizza’. And if you’re just a casual texter you can enjoy auto-replies that actually sound like you; power users, meanwhile, can chain Call Notes to transcribe all those meetings, then copy the transcript into Docs without breaking stride.


Games load in a flash, stay cool, and hardly ever stutter. Asphalt 9 cruises through downtown traffic at 60 frames per second; Genshin Impact explores Teyvat without so much as a whisper of heat warning. The Tensor G4 chip gives up a bit of raw horsepower for the sake of efficiency, which means the phone will never turn into a hand warmer, no matter what you’re doing. And then there’s the multitaskers – juggling 20 Chrome tabs, Spotify, and Slack is a breeze when you’ve got 12GB of RAM keeping everything in memory. That ultrasonic fingerprint reader unlocks in the first press, even if your thumbs are a bit damp.


Wireless charging, when you do need to plug it in, clocks in at a decent 15W on any Qi2 pad – and if you do need to plug it in, wired charging tops out at a nifty 27W; that means you can get full battery in 80 minutes. Satellite SOS is like a safety net, waiting patiently for the day you actually need it. IP68 rating means it can laugh in the face of a spilled coffee. Repair shops will have genuine parts in stock, and iFixit guides will walk you through swapping the screen if you ever need to. They come in some lovely colours too – Porcelain, Wintergreen, Peony – that’ll catch people’s eye at the coffee shop. Storage starts at 128GB and tops out at an impressive 1TB on the Pro models, but trust me when I say that the base model never feels cramped, even with smart compression to help keep everything tidy.