This one feature could've helped the Pixel 9 beat Samsung and Apple

The Pixel 9 series is one month old now, and I've spent some time with some of the models in the lineup. After a couple of weeks of analyzing our lab tests, checking out the competition, and putting the Pixel 9 family against the newly launched iPhone 16, a notion started to form.

There seems to be one single feature that would've made the Pixel 9 series so much better that it would've been a real threat to flagships such as the iPhone 16 or the Galaxy S24. I know you guys don't like the tease, but we have to build up the arguments one by one and find the missing piece.

Could it be the Pixel 9 series camera?

Let's start by investigating the camera, one of the most important areas of modern smartphones, and one in which there are still some differences and innovation going on. The Pixel phones have always punched way above their pure hardware when it comes to camera performance, and the Pixel 9 series is no exception.

Google has been perfecting the image processing algorithms since the first Pixel, and many people consider the Pixels as best when it comes to computational photography, I won't argue about that statement, but instead let's look at our camera rating and compare it with the competition.

We spent quite some time developing our camera testing procedure, and it focuses on many aspects you probably never thought even existed. I'm not gonna boast about it, as there's no such thing as a perfect test, but it's as good and as objective as we were able to make it.

Looking at the scores, the Pixel 9 Pro not only holds its ground against the iPhone 16 Pro and the Galaxy S24 Plus, but it's able to beat those in aggregate photo score, main camera score, and zoom.

So, even if we're pretty conservative, we can safely say that the Pixel 9 is "at least" on par with the latest Apple and Samsung flagships when it comes to camera performance. This isn't the missing link!

The display is the connection to the smartphone and its main interface. For quite some time, Samsung was the benchmark in this category, and unsurprisingly, most of the flagship display panels were and still are made by Samsung.

This year the Pixel 9 series managed to do something unthinkable: beat Samsung at its own game when it comes to display brightness and color reproduction. I'm not sure how Google did it or what new panels the company ordered, but just take a look at the comparison below.

The Pixel 9 Pro obliterates the competition when it comes to maximum brightness (it's actually THE brightest phone we've ever tested), and it also has better white balance and color accuracy than both the Galaxy and the iPhone. So, the Pixel 9 series sports an amazing display in all models. This is not it! Let's keep digging.

If you ask me, the battery life is the most important feature of a smartphone. After all, if the phone is dead, all the bells and whistles won't ring and… well, whistle. No camera, no fancy AI, just a cold, dead brick of silicon, aluminum, and glass.

You know the drill by now; let's compare the battery life of our three competitors and see what's what. Maybe the battery life of the Pixel 9 Pro is severely lacking?

Well, this doesn't seem to be the case. The Pixel 9 Pro is on par with the iPhone 16 Pro when it comes to web browsing, beats both the Galaxy and the iPhone at video streaming, and lags behind in the gaming test.

Our battery life estimate puts these three phones extremely close together, the Pixel 9 Pro is just 2 minutes behind the Galaxy S24 Plus. The battery life is not the issue, and not the feature we're looking for.

Some of you have already guessed where this was going. Well, here's the bad apple in the basket. No need to dig any deeper or further. The fourth generation of Tensor silicon is still not good enough to be able to challenge Apple and Samsung.

Some may argue that modern smartphones are plenty fast, with more than enough raw power to handle pretty much anything, but still the companies boast faster and faster chips every year. To be honest, I didn't notice any significant difference in smoothness or responsiveness when I tested the Pixels, but there's another part to this equation. Longevity.

In the current smartphone climate, seven years of major OS updates is the new maximum, and I really don't think that the Tensor G4 could survive these seven updates. Especially with the ever-growing software demands. That said, I don't think a Snapdragon or an A-series Apple chipset could do the seven-year stretch, not without lagging and stuttering, but I'm sure both of these will outlive the Tensor. Easily.

Our Phone Rating widget tells the whole story

Actually, the reason I started to investigate this matter lies in our new phone widget. Now some insights from the kitchen. We have a huge, and I mean HUGE, spreadsheet with all the measurements from all the different lab tests, alongside other stuff to calculate the final rating of a phone.

While I was punching in the Pixel 9 series results, the thing that stood out like a sore thumb was the performance. The raw power and everyday performance. It was clear as day that the Tensor was the culprit. I did a little experiment and just replaced the Tensor scores with those from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and the Pixel came on top of EVERY phone we've tested so far as a final rating.

I know the Tensor is much more than just a powerhouse; there's AI-specific silicon inside doing its magic, but at the end of the day, most people pay attention to final ratings, scores, and numbers. And if the Pixel 9 series was equipped with Snapdragon chips, the lineup would've made some waves in the smartphone ocean. Big waves.