Insane Deal! The ‘Phone of the Year’ Just Got Even Cheaper—You Won’t Believe the New Price!

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Google Pixel 9 Pro: My Phone of the Year

This is my phone of the year. Despite having a few key flaws that weigh down what could be an absolutely insane package, the result is a phone that started at £1,000 and has now dropped so much you can pick up the very latest model for around £500 on eBay, less than a year into its long life. That’s around a 50% depreciation in less than 12 months. And here’s why. Despite a bit of a rocky reputation, this is my favorite current-generation Android right now.

Initial Impressions and Flaws

Fun fact: I didn’t actually like the Pixel 9 Pro straight out of the gate because I was shocked that Google was recycling old technology, some of which could still be found in the Pixel 6a, if you can believe that. The UFS 3.1 storage in this one—a limiting factor of the Pixel—is the same as the one three generations ago in a four-figure device when it was new. That, combined with suboptimal performance out of the Tensor G4 chip and recycled cameras from a generation before, meant I was never going to be happy with Google churning this thing out at such a steep asking price. In many ways, this is a smaller version of a Pixel 8 Pro.

As the year has gone on, I’ve tried all kinds of phones, like the iPhone 16 Pro Max, the OnePlus 13 and 13R, and the latest S flagships, including the Ultra and the Edge. Every time, I’ve used the Pixel 9 series as a reference point to come back to, and I’ve always come away feeling like I haven’t given the 9 Pro as much credit in my review as I should have. The truth is, there’s a lot of tech that isn’t good enough inside this phone. On top of the aforementioned issues, there’s the small battery, slow charging, and RAM that is unfortunately locked off in portions—a quarter of it is reserved for AR, and you can’t use it for anything else. If you’ve been following my work, you probably know I have a particular distaste for AI.

The Value Proposition

But the fact that you can now go on eBay and pick one of these up for around £500 makes it a different kind of prospect. I’ve spoken before, both here and on Android Police, about how Pixels are some of, if not the fastest-depreciating pieces of tech you can buy. It’s almost never a good idea to buy one on release because, in a couple of weeks, it’s going to drop by 10 to 20%. That’s kind of insane—unheard of, even. And it’s not because these are supremely unpopular devices. Sure, Google can’t hold a candle to Samsung, Xiaomi, Apple, or Oppo worldwide, but Pixels are still relatively popular in Europe, North America, and Japan in particular, with strong upticks in Pixel adoption, especially with this ninth generation, which makes sense because it’s pretty good.

Display and Design

The Pixel 9 Pro has one of the very best displays you can get in a smartphone. It’s sharp, fluid, and colorful, making it really enjoyable for doomscrolling and watching any kind of content. You should definitely check out my second channel, Flat 4K, for sim racing content, by the way. What makes the Pixel 9 Pro’s panel a cut above the rest is its brightness in standard dynamic range—basically 97% of the content you’ll be consuming on the phone. I’ve found its HDR performance to be not the best in class, but HDR content is still so rare that it’s hardly worth mentioning. In this sort of footprint and form factor, it absolutely shines.

I’m still not the biggest fan of the flat sides, by the way. Google has tapered them into the rest of the chassis quite nicely, and the material choice, finish, and the fact that it’s not ginormous really help. But it’s not how I would have designed it. This phone doesn’t feel overwhelming or cumbersome like a Pro XL or the iPhone 16 Pro Max does with their flat sides because they’re just so much bigger. It’s also well-judged because it manages to be big enough to include a decent-sized battery, a great display, and all the cameras we’d expect on a Pro Pixel, without needing oversized hands to operate comfortably.

Camera System

Speaking of cameras, I might not consider these the very best in a smartphone, but taking into account the price, form factor, and the fact it’s a Pixel, this is probably the best camera system you can buy for most people. You can get an S23 Ultra or S24 Ultra for around this price point, which definitely have more hardware, but they’re also massive. The 9 Pro manages to do great work with a pretty small form factor, carried by excellent computational photography, as these sensors aren’t huge in the grand scheme of things. The 9 Pro gives you so much versatility and is still one of the most reliable cameras I’ve used in a phone. The telephoto is good for between 5x and maybe 15x, thanks to Google’s image processing. The 8K video boost, as long as you’re willing to wait for it to upload to the cloud, process, and redownload, is perhaps the best video you can get on a smartphone, particularly when discounting Log and ProRes options. The upgraded selfie camera is also a delight—probably the best selfie camera I’ve ever used in a smartphone, though I don’t take many selfies. As a complete camera package, the 9 Pro does one of the best jobs in a smartphone to this day.

Performance and Battery Life

The biggest dramas people have with this phone revolve around battery life and performance. I’m not going to claim this can smoke a OnePlus, even an R line, because in that area, it’s just not that good a phone. For the average person—not enthusiasts, but general consumers—it’s good enough. Coming from other flagships, you’ll feel a slight delay, mostly due to the outdated storage type rather than raw horsepower. It’s by no means a slow phone, but it can’t do a lot of what the 8 Elite can do for long because of the efficiency differences between the chips. With Tensor, it’s the idle power draw that does the majority of the damage. I’ve noticed this with my Pixel 7a, which I use as a teleprompter every day—it feels like it runs out of juice even when I’m not using it. But my 9 Pro gets me a full day of usage with no problem. I do need to charge it overnight, though, because it drains otherwise. As long as you’re charging overnight, you won’t have an issue. This isn’t the phone I’d recommend for a trip where there’s no way to charge—you’re probably better off with something Chinese for that. But for average day-to-day living, the 9 Pro is good enough, and I’ll die on that hill.

Software and Aesthetics

Perhaps the reason I’ve been tempted to move from my OnePlus 12 directly to this 9 Pro is the software. Google’s Material 3 Expressive, currently in QPR beta build, makes this phone feel so much more interesting to use. “Interesting” is the word I want to use here because I haven’t been excited about software in a very long time. M3E has me extremely excited. I’ve downloaded QPR on far more devices than just my 7a because the 9 Pro is due to receive OS upgrades into 2032, which is insane when you think about it. That means this phone will be on the latest version of Android going into the next decade. When you consider it now costs around £500, it makes you wonder if it’s really worth the switch.

Just look at it—it’s such a good-looking device. The camera visor pill bar thing is probably my favorite way of doing cameras. It looks super classy in the black version, and the pink one is just another level of nice. I love the even bezels, the small camera cutout, the mix of glossy and matte surfaces, and that iconic camera bar.

Conclusion

The Google Pixel 9 Pro is my phone of the year, and one that I think more people should take a proper look at given its insane drop in value over the last 12 months. It isn’t for the hardcore, but it’s an all-round champ with a proper camera setup.