Google Pixel 9 Pro XL Review: AI Dominates This Phone video

The Google pixel nine pro and nine PRO XL are the new masters of mobile A I. But are they actually worth your money? Let's take a closer look. The pixel nine pro and nine PRO XL are Google's latest flagship phones packed with the best tech the company has to offer that includes the shiny new design, the tenet G four processor and a whole suite of new A I tricks. Now, I've been testing the PRO XL which is the larger of the two pixel nine PRO models, but it's spec are otherwise identical to the smaller version. So this video is going to be relevant whichever of the phones you're considering the new nine Pro range brings a whole suite of upgrade over the previous pixel eight pro. But really this phone is all about A I like all about A I. So let's start there while the pixel eight pro did have some A I skills. That was really just the beginning if the eight pro was Google just dipping its toe in the A I water. The pixel nine Pro is Google doing a full triple somersault with a pike off the high dive into the pool. So a lot of those A I skills are based around imagery. First of all, we have the reimagined function which lets you select a part of an image that you've taken type in a prompt and then it will magically fill that space with whatever you wanted to see. So let's take this selfie, I took sitting outside of a pub as an example. I just go to edit and then I can go to the magic editor function and I don't really like that. We've just got all of the outside of the pub in the shop. So I can just tap on that, go to reimagine and then I can type something like brick wall, give it a couple of seconds to do it's generating and it has cut me out and it's replaced it with something a little bit more interesting. I don't really love this one. This one don't know what's going on there. This one is very industrial so it does give you a few options. But if you don't like those, then you can just have another go. So I quite like this one actually. So I'm gonna select this one. But then what I can do is draw a nice big hole here and then say reimagine and let's put window with blue sky. That's quite nice. This is fun though. We even got some nice green hills in the background that it's put in. So yeah, let's go with this one and then I can continue playing around. I could put in here, maybe wall plants, a wall plants a thing. So now we've got some greenery up there on the wall and I'm just gonna tap this remaining bit of sky. It's actually selected both bits of sky reimagine as sunset. And so now we've got this lovely sunset out of the window and a sunset in the sky above. And so now with just a few prompts, I have taken this otherwise dull and forgettable pub selfie and turned it into something a little bit more interesting. You can use the tool to do all kinds of things from background replacements and adding objects to completely changing the sky to a beautiful sunset or adding a wolf behind you for some reason or just totally reimagine the image of some weird apocalyptic pirate scene. The possibilities are truly endless. Then there's a new ad me tool and that allows you to take a photo of a group of your friends and then you get in the scene, someone takes a photo of you in there and then the phone will blend those shots together so that you finally are in the photo together. Or if you're a total narcissist like me, you can use it to put yourself in the same image twice. Lovely stuff. All of these tools have actually worked pretty well in my testing time so far. And while not all of the results are perfect. You can generally just try again and the A I will maybe get it better next time. If you don't want to take actual photos, then you can use pixel studio which will generate an image solely based on the prompted you type. And again, though, it can be a bit hit and miss this blob of nonsense was supposed to be a flock of birds. And when I asked it to write, wish you were here like a postcard. This is what it produced. I mean, what even is that? But I've genuinely enjoyed playing around with the tool, especially creating these vintage inspired posters. Bigger question I suppose is do you actually need this with the results? Often being quite bizarre and the actual image quality and details themselves being really quite poor. The actual usefulness of these images seems a little bit limited right now and you'll find A I integration in the rest of the phone as well with Google's New Gemini Advanced being easily accessed by pressing and holding the power button while you ask it a question. And it's pretty good too, giving me genuinely useful answers to questions like why I shouldn't put glue into a cake or what I should do if I find a giraffe in my hallway or why I shouldn't make a car out of cheese. Apparently it's something to do with the structural integrity. Now, I know using Gemini Advanced isn't the end though, but you could also use Gemini Live which allows you to chat with the A I just as though you were having a conversation, the answers you'll get are gonna be basically the same no matter which one you use. But with Gemini Live, you can interrupt the flow to ask important follow up questions or to rephrase something when it's getting it wrong or simply just to throw in some random opinions and see how it reacts. I've spent a lot of time testing it while I've been reviewing the phone and while it is definitely great fun, the actual information it provides is not always accurate one time. It recommended I go and listen to a song that simply doesn't exist. And on another occasion, it suggested I go for a beer at a nearby spot that had actually closed down years ago. There are various other quirks and bugs I found all of which are pretty common with something that's so new. So I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how it matures over the coming months and crucially whether I actually find a use for it in my day to day life. Keep in mind though that using Gemini Advanced and Gemini Live, both require a subscription to Google one. And while you do get a year's subscription, when you buy the Pixel nine Pro, eventually it will cost you $20 a month. Although it does also come with two terabytes of cloud storage. So yes, there is a lot of A I on this phone. So, what else has it got? Well, it's got a refreshed design with a new camera bar and the edges are now flat and polished rather than smoothly round it personally, I think it looks great. I thought the pixel eight Pro looks a little bit cartoony and childlike even. Whereas the pixel nine Pro is classy all the way. While the base nine Pro has a 6.3 inch display, the nine PRO XL that I've been testing has a 6.8 inch display. So you get that bit of extra screen real estate to make the most of your games or your movies want something that slides more easily into your jeans. You go for the smaller Pro, the XL display looks great with vibrant colors and more than enough resolution to make tiny text and high resolution videos look beautiful, powering the phone and all of its A I stuff is the latest Google made tensor G four processor everyday use. I've found this to be swift and responsive with games like Genshin impact playing with smooth frame rates and even the A I image generation only taking a couple of seconds to do each one. It actually launches with last year's Android 14 on board with an updated version 15 promised later this year. It's a shame that Google hasn't taken the opportunity to launch Android 15 with its new phones, but at least we do get a generous seven years of software and security support. Meaning that this phone will still be good to use in 2031. The cameras are one area that I hope to see some bigger improvements. Well, there's all kinds of new software trickery from the A I skills and the add me mode and a new Panorama function. The actual hardware remains pretty much unchanged since last year's pixel eight PRO. Don't get me wrong. The pixel nine Pro can take beautiful photos with great colors, spot on exposure and tons of detail from all of its cameras. I have been really impressed with many of the shots that I have taken so far. But the Pixel eight Pro also took great photos and beyond some of the new A I tricks, the cameras haven't really moved on. The selfie camera is one area that has seen a significant bump though going from 10.5 megapixels on the pixel eight pro to a much more generous 42 megapixels on the pixel nine pro and surprisingly selfies look great. Even if your hair doesn't. There is certainly a lot to like about the pixel nine pro and nine PRO XL. I love the new design. The cameras take great photos. There are now two sizes of pro for you to choose from and those new A I skills are definitely a lot of fun to use on the downside though, that camera hardware really could have seen some improvements. The A I results can definitely be hit and miss and using some of the advanced A I features like Gemini Live will require an additional monthly subscription. So are the pixel nine pro and nine pro XL actually worth your money. Well, that really comes down to how much you want A I to be part of your life right now, the pixel's image generation and its conversational Gemini Live are the main thing setting this phone apart from his competition. So if those features leave you cold, then you can safely look elsewhere. But even that will change as Gemini Live rolls out to other Android phones A I is only going to become more a part of all phones with Samsung expanding its Galaxy A I and Apple launching its Apple Intelligence on the iphone later this year. So whether you want A I on your phone or not is going to be a moot point. You will have it, you just will and the pixel nine Pro's combination of attractive design, slick software and solid cameras do make it a great phone to get your first true taste of A I on your phone. What do you think to the pixel nine pro and nine pro XL? Do the new A I skills tempt you to spend your money or are you simply looking towards better hardware? Make sure to leave your thoughts in the comments below and check out the video description for a lot more information.