Google Pixel 9 vs Pixel 8 | Infinium-tech

You’re looking for a compact flagship and you stumble upon Google’s offer. At around €900, the Google Pixel 9 is quite expensive and you can easily see that the Google Pixel 8 will offer you a lot of features at a reasonable price of €500.

The new Pixel 9 brings improved design, performance, and camera quality, but most of its focus is on AI features. The older Pixel 8 still offers great hardware, imaging prowess, and excellent software, especially at the lowest price, so it’s not hard to choose it over the newer model.

So how well does the Google Pixel 9 fare for its price? Let’s take a look at it.

Table of Contents:

For starters, you can compare the full specs sheet or jump straight in with our editor’s review in the following text.

Size Comparison

The new Google Pixel 9 looks quite different from the Pixel 8. It is also slightly bigger due to the bigger display.

The Pixel 9 features a completely flat design, including the camera bar – this is different from the Pixel 8. It has two Gorilla Glass Victus 2 panels and a flat aluminium frame. The Pixel 9 is rated IP68 for dust and water resistance.

This means that the new model has a better, arguably stronger glass panel and a more comfortable design. But the increased size and flat design may not appeal to everyone, especially when it comes to compact smartphones.

Design and size are always a personal choice, so it’s up to you to decide which Pixel is better for you. However, whichever you choose, it will definitely have one of the premium builds.

Performance Comparison

The Pixel 9 has a 6.3-inch OLED display with a FullHD resolution and a 120Hz maximum refresh rate, along with a peak brightness (advertised) of 2,700nits. The Pixel 8 has a 6.2-inch OLED panel with the same resolution and refresh rate, but a lower advertised peak brightness – 2,000 nits. Both screens are HDR10 video certified.

In our testing, the Pixel 9 delivered a maximum brightness of over 1,200 nits when adjusted manually, and over 2,200 nits when using the Adaptive brightness option. The Pixel 8’s numbers were slightly lower – 1,000 nits in manual and 1,440 nits in auto mode.

Obviously, the Pixel 9 has a brighter display, but we never had any issues with the Pixel 8, so even if the new one is better, most people, if not all, will be perfectly satisfied with the older model as well.

battery life

The Pixel 9 has a 4,700mAh battery – slightly better than the Pixel 8 (4,575mAh) and 8a (4,492mAh). Meanwhile, the Galaxy S24 has a 4,000mAh battery, while the iPhone 15 has a battery of just 3,349mAh.

In our testing, the Pixel 9 proved a worthy upgrade over the Pixel 8 in the endurance department, achieving meaningfully better results in all four tests and delivering nearly two hours longer in the overall active use score. In doing so, it has become one of the better options in terms of battery life in this compact class.

Charging Speed

The Pixel 9 is capable of charging at up to 27W when using the new Google 45W adapter, though it should technically be able to reach that with other good USB Power Delivery chargers with the right volt and ampere combo in their specs. We didn’t have this new adapter, so we tested with a 30W unit as well as Samsung’s 45W adapter, which is surprisingly very close to the Google 45W one.

Google promises that the Pixel 9 will charge from 1% to 55% in 30 minutes with the new 45W adapter, and that’s exactly what we got with the Samsung charger. However, the Pixel 8 enjoys the same charging rate with the OG Google’s 30W charger.

There’s also a slight difference in full charge time in the Pixel 8’s favor since it has a smaller battery.

Both Pixels support fast wireless charging, and Battery Share is also on the menu – you can charge other Qi-certified devices from the back of both Pixels. As it appears, the Pixel 9 covers the new standards, but the maximum wireless charging speed remains relatively the same.

Speaker Testing

Both the Pixel 9 and Pixel 8 feature a hybrid speaker setup. There’s a speaker at the bottom that outputs through an opening in the frame, and a top speaker at the front that also doubles as the earpiece for voice calls.

The Pixel 9 got a ‘very good’ rating for loudness in our testing, which is the same as the Pixel 8. But while both offer similar loudness, the Pixel 8 has better audio quality with better vocals and richer output overall.

Display

The new Pixels run on Google’s next-generation chipset – the Tensor G4. It has a new processor with eight cores, one less than the G3 – 1×3.1 GHz Cortex-X4 and 3×2.6 GHz Cortex-A720 and 4×1.92 GHz Cortex-A520. All the cores have been upgraded to their respective latest generation.

The GPU remains the same as the Tensor G3 (inside the Pixel 8) – the Mali-G715 MC7 – but its clock speed has increased from 890 MHz to 940 MHz.

The TPU for AI tasks hasn’t changed much since the Tensor G3 — which is still in its third generation.

Probably the most important update here is the increase in RAM – 12GB LPDDR5X – which will work better for multi-tasking and AI tasks.

Finally, there is a new energy-efficient modem provided by Samsung – the Exynos 5400 – with satellite connectivity support (supported).

Strangely, in our testing, the Pixel 9 scored lower than the Pixel 8 in all benchmarks. We suspect our specific Pixel 9 unit may be tuned differently as online reports vary from source to source, so it’s not possible to objectively verify them at the moment. We’re not posting benchmark comparisons at this time, but Google promises better performance with the new chipset.

Google has promised that most of the Pixel 9’s AI features will eventually make it to the Pixel 8 as well. However, only the Pixel 9 is getting one year of free access to Gemini’s most advanced subscription tier, which comes with sharper generative AI smartness.

Camera Comparison

The Pixel 9 has the same camera system as the Pixel 8 – it has a wide primary camera and an ultrawide on the back, then the selfie camera on the other side. However, the Pixel 9 model has a few upgrades – a new sensor for the ultrawide camera and autofocus for the front camera.

image quality

The Pixel 9’s main camera saves great photos with great detail, which are naturally rendered with well-judged sharpening. There’s the usual high contrast you’d expect from a Pixel, with a focus on highlight preservation and somewhat dark-ish shadows. Colours are also really nice, without pushing the saturation slider to extremes.

The Pixel 8’s main camera produces equally great photos, and while the newer model could be a little more adept at sharpening, we’re really finding some flaws here.

The 2x high-quality zoom on the Pixel 9 is better, albeit by a small margin. Detail looks a little more natural, especially at higher complexity, and blurry areas are a little less obvious, though still present.

The biggest upgrade comes with the ultrawide camera, which now takes more detailed and natural-looking photos with less noise, thanks to the new sensor and lens.

Pixel 9: 0.6x • 1x • 2x

Pixel 8: 0.6x • 1x • 2x

Low light photos taken on both phones are equally great. The main cameras, both in regular and zoom modes, deliver great photos with almost no difference. The ultrawide camera also delivers great quality, although due to the brighter aperture on the Pixel 9 – it delivers slightly brighter and tinier photos

Pixel 9: 0.6x • 1x • 2x

Pixel 8: 0.6x • 1x • 2x

And finally, the selfie camera. The Pixel 9 has autofocus, which will help deliver sharper and overall better photos in some situations. And you can see that difference when shooting at close distances — the Pixel 9 takes sharper photos and shows more facial detail than the Pixel 8’s front camera, and backgrounds look a little more defocused. The difference is small, but it’s there and it will be appreciable for those who shoot selfies all day and all night.

pixel 9 • pixel 8

video quality

Both the Pixel 9 and Pixel 8 offer the same video capturing capabilities, stabilization, resolution, and frame rates.

Strangely, the Pixel records softer footage than we’d expect for its class – from both the main and ultrawide cameras. The Pixel 8 delivers more detailed and sharper video from its main camera, even in 2x zoom mode.

Pixel 9 4K30: 0.6x • 1x • 2x

Pixel 8 4K30: 0.6x • 1x • 2x

Decision

The Pixel 9 and Pixel 8 are great small phones, and no one will be disappointed choosing either of them — they both have similar screens, performance, cameras, and speakers.

The Pixel 9 is better in terms of battery life, faster AI tasks, and ultrawide photo quality, and arguably – in terms of looks too – but it costs more. The Pixel 9 costs €899, while the Pixel 8 now costs around €500. And that’s a huge difference and the biggest reason why you should buy the Pixel 8 instead of the Pixel 9.

But wait, there’s more! The Pixel 8 is capable of capturing better videos and perhaps right now, it’s the better device for performance and stability.

Of course, if you’re looking for the latest and greatest phone, the Pixel 9 is available now and no amount of reviews will stop you from buying it.