999 Photos on the Pixel 9 Pro XL
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00:00When I get a product in for review, I get busy living with it.
00:04Because while spec sheets and benchmarks tell part of the story,
00:07a device's true colors always come out in the real world.
00:11And what I immediately noticed about the Pixel 9 Pro XL is that the software company finally
00:16nailed the hardware. With squared off edges and a really sleek oblong camera bar, the Pixel
00:23devices finally mean business. They're no longer just fun. But when you mean business, small
00:29mistakes are much harder to forget. Take off filler, put on, boom. I don't like it. After
00:37taking 999 photos with the Pixel 9 Pro XL, I can tell you that the Pixel isn't all business
00:43just yet. I'm Becca, welcome back to my channel where we take tech outside. Let's get into it.
00:47The colors are amazing. It's like the sky is muted. Oh, oh, oh, okay.
00:56The very first thing I noticed about the Pixel 9 Pro XL is that it loves
01:00faces. And unfortunately, it's going to make them brighter at all costs.
01:07I got a little obsessed with testing this.
01:13My biggest complaint with computational photography at large, which is when a computer
01:17system processes an image for better results, is that it can make things look artificial by
01:21adjusting contrast levels to unrealistic amounts. And this system is doing that so heavily,
01:27yet not quickly enough during video, that it becomes instantly noticeable and distracting.
01:32There have been times where my skin tone starts to appear differently over time,
01:35my face gets smoothed out, and even times when my shirt color changes.
01:40Now that I've seen this problem, I can't unsee this problem. So I'm very sorry if
01:44now you live in this sort of hell that I've been occupying for the last two weeks.
01:51Who's the worst offender?
01:55Oh, man. Okay, direct sunlight.
02:00Away. I'm actually going crazy at this point.
02:03Of course, all this processing is being done to create the most pleasing image, but in its current
02:09state, it's simply distracting and unrealistic. And then there was one more problem I had with
02:15color representation. This video of a very cool camera rig that I saw was shot at 4K,
02:2030 frames per second with HDR on. But you'll notice that this person's shirt color just changes.
02:26I sent this clip to Google and I asked them what the hell happened here,
02:29and they said that they haven't had any other users experience this,
02:33and they may have already identified the problem and they're on a fix.
02:36And I do believe that they'll fix it. And again, I haven't been able to recreate it.
02:40But these color shifts are a problem that have been present in the Pixel line for a while now.
02:45And a quick comparison between footage from the Pixel 9 Pro XL and an iPhone 15 Pro Max
02:50proves that it is possible to adjust exposure without making it so obvious.
02:54It's not all doom and gloom with the Pixel 9 Pro's video, though.
03:00I really enjoyed shooting in 4K, 60 frames per second.
03:03It captures smooth slow-mo with decent stabilization and the ultra wide.
03:08It's just warped enough that things are slightly exaggerated in all the right ways.
03:13The five times telephoto is crisp and it flattens out the image elegantly.
03:18And video boost got a boost.
03:20It can process your footage faster to clean up those lens shifts,
03:24noise at night, and make digitally zoomed footage crisper.
03:28The caveat is it's processed still off-device and you have to shoot in HDR.
03:33And it's the latter part of that that's annoying to me,
03:35because I shoot on many different camera systems,
03:37some of which don't have HDR filming capabilities.
03:40So matching that footage is such a pain in the butt.
03:48The experience I had taking photos with the Pixel 9 Pro XL was much different than taking video.
03:53I love the colors this camera can produce.
03:56They're punchy and they don't lack contrast.
03:58And my only real complaint is that portrait mode still feels lacking.
04:02You're still stuck with a 1.5 and 2x crop, no tele,
04:05and the cutout's not excellent around hair.
04:08Otherwise, this is still the same solid camera we have come to expect from Google.
04:13Like, literally.
04:15If you compare these photos to that of the Pixel 7 Pro or 8 Pro,
04:19there isn't a huge difference between them.
04:21There's some better background blur here,
04:23a more accurate representation of the blue in the sky here.
04:27But at large, I've been struggling to find a real difference between these three cameras
04:32outside of, say, white balance.
04:34And I'm not terribly surprised by this, because in the last three years,
04:37while we did get some more pixels in the wide angle and selfie cameras
04:40and wider apertures pretty much all around,
04:43Google has been heavily focused on software features,
04:46such as an improved panorama mode on the Pixel 9 Pro.
04:50So if you're thinking of upgrading from the Pixel 7 Pro or the Pixel 8 Pro
04:55for the camera alone, I don't think you need to.
04:57The larger differences between these three devices is in the processing power,
05:02the fingerprint sensor, which is so much faster in the 9 Pro,
05:06brighter screens, better batteries,
05:09and of course, AI smarts.
05:11There's been a lot of noise around the AI capabilities built into Google's Magic Editor.
05:16Besides being able to move objects, erase objects, and change the look of the sky,
05:20all of which were available on the Pixel 8 last year,
05:23you can now use text prompts to alter specific parts of an image.
05:27But many folks, including Chris Welch of my alma mater, The Verge,
05:31have been able to create incredibly realistic AI altered images
05:34that depict emergency situations.
05:36Chris is not only a good friend of mine,
05:38but also being responsible in tagging these images as AI
05:41and doing it to sound the alarm about AI image generation.
05:45Anyone can create these images and cause some real problems.
05:49There are, of course, bad actors who, out of the gate,
05:51are going to use this to create imagery that is harmful.
05:54But what I'm more worried about is how fun these tools are.
05:58When tools are fun, folks use them and they want to share what they create.
06:02But we don't have the infrastructure right now to clearly label these things.
06:05So it's less of a question of if something bad can happen
06:09from everybody creating false images and posting them all over the internet
06:13without noting that they're AI generated,
06:15and when something bad will happen
06:18because everybody's having fun and posting AI generated images all over the internet.
06:24On a lighter note, there's another software feature in the Pixel 9 Pro
06:28that got a lot of buzz.
06:29It's called Admi.
06:30In my hands-on video that I made while still at The Verge with the Pixel 9 Pro,
06:34I said that the Admi feature will likely just become a bar trick
06:37and not a tool that folks will use regularly.
06:39And in my few weeks with this device, that has proven to be true for me.
06:44Last night, though, I did make my partner use it with me
06:46so that I had B-roll for this video.
06:48Ooh, cool, cool.
06:51Okay.
06:52And in case you do, in fact, live under a rock,
06:55Admi allows you to add the photographer of the group photo into the group photo.
06:59It's fun.
07:00But again, I've had zero need for this.
07:02And apparently my partner Hannah is not going to use it either.
07:05Do you think you'd ever use this?
07:07No.
07:09So that's the Pixel 9 Pro lineup this year.
07:11And it does come in two sizes,
07:13the $1,000 6.3-inch Pixel 9 Pro and the $1,100 6.8-inch Pixel 9 Pro XL.
07:20Google finally made a device that really feels like business
07:24and photos from it continue to impress.
07:27But there's still a lot of issues around video
07:30and I would really like to see Google get to a point
07:32where they stop relying on solving all of their problems in post.
07:36I'm Becca.
07:37Thank you so much for joining me.
07:38If you like this, a subscribe would mean the world.
07:41And of course, next week's iPhone.
07:43So I'll definitely be putting this device and the new iPhone head-to-head.
07:46So let me know what specific features you want to see me test there.
07:50I appreciate you so much.
07:52And I'll see you in the next one.
08:00Bye.