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CNET’s key takeaways
Android phones usually get a nasty rap for being overly convoluted. And to be truthful, that is usually effectively justified. Samsung’s Galaxy S25 vary, for instance, has deep menu methods for messing about with almost each side of the cellphone, together with options just like the Edge Panel sidebar and a wide range of Samsung’s personal AI instruments. You even get Samsung’s model of some apps, so you find yourself with two apps for photographs, two apps for net shopping and so forth.
For a lot of Android customers, the deep customizability of the OS has all the time been a promoting level over the extra simplistic iOS discovered on Apple’s iPhones. However simply since you need an Android cellphone, would not essentially imply you are a fanatical tech nerd who needs to tinker with menus all day.
The Pixel 9 Professional is the simplest Android cellphone I’ve ever used, and there is quite a lot of key the explanation why.
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My expertise with the Pixel 9 Professional
First, it is Google’s personal cellphone, which means there isn’t 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, electronic mail shopper and picture gallery, all of which sit beside Google’s Chrome, Gmail and Images apps, which means you have already got duplicates of every instrument.
Samsung is just not the one phone-maker to do that. Nearly all Android cellphone corporations load their telephones up with not less than their very own browser and gallery app, whereas some corporations, like Samsung and Honor, go so far as making their very own electronic mail shoppers and calendars.
With its pure Android software program, the Pixel 9 Professional affords a super-clean and easy-to-use expertise.
I lately reviewed the Honor 400 Pro, and one of many large points I discovered with that cellphone was how a lot unsolicited stuff comes pre-loaded as customary. Third-party apps from TikTok, LinkedIn, WPS workplace, Temu and a wide range of others are all proper there as quickly as you flip it on for the primary time, making the cellphone really feel cluttered, bloated and sophisticated earlier than you have even had an opportunity to put in one app of your individual. 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 along with your cellphone, its instruments are baked into the center of the cellphone expertise with out you needing to additionally activate and signal right into a third-party service.
This easy method extends to the digital camera, too. Open the default digital camera app and also you’re met with a neat interface, comprised principally of the shutter button and zoom ranges, with different taking pictures modes discovered alongside. It would not attempt to overcomplicate issues right here, as an alternative letting you rapidly shoot photographs with out messing about with settings.
It is an method that works right here, and in consequence, the Pixel 9 Professional takes a few of my favourite automated photographs from a phone camera, doing an ideal job of balancing publicity and colours. I really like the Xiaomi 15 Ultra’s camera, however to get one of the best from it, you want to shoot in Professional mode, taking handbook management of the settings, which makes it extra suited to superior photographers who wish to fine-tune their photographs.
The digital camera’s easy software program makes it straightforward to take photographs with little effort in your half.
The Pixel does provide deeper management in order for you it, conveniently hidden behind a small settings icon, reasonably than requiring you to change fully right into a “Professional” mode. For these of you eager to take handbook management of your white stability to heat up a phenomenal sundown, the Pixel 9 Professional affords a straightforward means in.
The specs
- 6.3-inch LTPO OLED show, 2,856×1,280 pixel decision, 1-120Hz adaptive refresh charge
- Google Tensor G4 processor
- 16GB RAM
- 4,700-mAh battery
- 50 megapixel primary digital camera, 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 cellphone’s success, and the Pixel 9 Professional feels just like the closest approximation of the Apple expertise you will discover on Android. Should you’re on the lookout for a clear expertise with a smartphone that does not attempt to get in your means with unnecessary extras, the Pixel 9 Professional is actually price a glance.
Watch this: Google Pixel 9, 9 Professional and 9 Professional XL Arms-On
