Pixel 9 battery and charging: The test results are impressive
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Google's Pixel 9 series has made significant strides in battery life, offering impressive endurance even for power users. The Pixel 9 Pro XL, despite its larger screen and higher resolution, delivers exceptional battery performance, thanks in part to the efficient Tensor G2 chip.
Surprisingly, the standard Pixel 9 outperforms its larger Pro sibling, offering even longer battery life, especially in video playback and gaming. This could be attributed to its smaller display and optimized software.
In terms of charging, the Pixel 9 series supports faster wired charging speeds compared to its predecessors. However, wireless charging speeds remain relatively standard.
Let's delve deeper into the battery life and charging performance of the Pixel 9 series, comparing them to other flagship smartphones and analyzing the factors contributing to their impressive endurance.
Surprisingly, the standard Pixel 9 outperforms its larger Pro sibling, offering even longer battery life, especially in video playback and gaming. This could be attributed to its smaller display and optimized software.
Let's delve deeper into the battery life and charging performance of the Pixel 9 series, comparing them to other flagship smartphones and analyzing the factors contributing to their impressive endurance.
The standard Pixel 9 and the Pixel 9 Pro XL left us quite pleasantly surprised during our battery life tests. Both models outperformed their main competition from Samsung, coming up much higher in our ranking.
Contrary to what you might believe, the standard Pixel 9 actually did even better than the pricier and larger Pixel 9 Pro XL. The smaller Pro model is the worst performer out of the three, but it still has a commendable 6h 52min of estimated battery life.
Neither the Pixel 9 Pro XL, nor the Pixel 9 were particularly impressive charging-wise in the grand scheme of things, but they did perform better in our charging tests compared to their predecessors. You can see the results in the Charging section of this article.
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Pixel 9 battery upgrades
The Pixel 9 Pro XL has almost the same dimensions as last year's Pixel 8 Pro, and its battery has mostly the same capacity at 5060 mAh (5050 mAh on the predecessor).
The Pixel 9 and 9 Pro have considerably smaller batteries than the Pro XL at 4700 mAh, which is more than last year’s 4575 mAh on the Pixel 8. Here's a breakdown of all Pixel 9 series battery sizes:
| Battery capacity/phone | Battery size |
|---|---|
| Pixel 9 Pro XL | 5060 mAh (vs 5,050 mAh on Pixel 8 Pro) |
| Pixel 9 Pro | 4700 mAh |
| Pixel 9 | 4700 mAh (vs 4,575 mAh on previous model) |
Google claims that all three Pixel 9 models can last more than 24 hours on a single charge, and up to 100 hours if you turn on the Extreme Battery Saver mode. It also states that the Tensor G4 has better power efficiency than the Tensor G3, which is probably the main reason for the much better battery life we saw in our tests.
First we have our web browsing test, which emulates a browsing flow with the screen manually set at 200 nits of brightness. This specific scenario is where the Pixel 9 Pro XL performed the worst, although that definitely does not mean it performed bad. In fact, it is just about an hour below the Galaxy S24 Ultra from Samsung. However, the standard Pixel 9 beat the standard Galaxy S24 with an hour difference.
Then we ran our video streaming battery test, again at at 200 nits of brightness, where the Pixel 9 Pro XL beats the S24 Ultra by about an hour. The interesting part here is that the smaller Pixel 9 manages to beat even the larger XL variant with give or take 2 hours and 30 minutes! This is probably due to its smaller display, and the ratio between display and battery size.
Both the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro XL lasted the exact same time during our 3D Gaming test, and both beat the S24 Ultra and regular S24 by a landslide. It is important to mention here, though, that the Pixel 9 series' Tensor G4 chipset is significantly less powerful than the Snapdragon Gen 8 Gen 3 inside the Galaxy S24 series. In other words, you sacrifice power but gain more battery life with the Pixels.
Pixel 9 charging upgrades
Faster charging
Google has managed to make the Pixel 9 lineup charge faster compare to its predecessors. The Pixel 9 Pro XL can go from 1-70% in just 30 minutes of charging, while the Pixel 9 and 9 Pro from 1-55% for the same amount of time.
However, since the battery size has significantly increased on the Pixel 9 compared to the Pixel 8, the overall amount of time to get it from 1-100% is a tiny bit longer.
It’s worth mentioning that Google has done these measurements with its new 45W power adapter, whereas last year the company used its 30W adapter.
Pixel 9 Pro XL charging specs:
- 37W wired
- 23W wireless (w/ Pixel Stand)
- 12W wireless (w/ Qi compatible charger)
- 5W reverse-wireless
Pixel 9 Pro XL charging specs:
- 27W wired
- 23W wireless (w/ Pixel Stand)
- 12W wireless (w/ Qi compatible charger)
- 5W reverse-wireless
Pixel 9 charging specs:
- 27W wired
- 15W wireless (w/ Pixel Stand)
- 12W wireless (w/ Qi compatible charger)
- 5W reverse-wireless
Charging test results
How do of all those raw numbers transfer to actual charging time? Here's the data we gathered:
Does the Pixel 9 have reverse wireless charging?
Yes. Just like its predecessor had reverse wireless charging, all Pixel 9 models come with 5W of reverse wireless charging on board. Google calls this feature Power Share.
What charger does the Pixel 9 use?
The Pixel 9 series works with the old 30W charger, but Google has done the charging tests with its new 45W fast charger.
The cable you get with the Pixel 9 is a USB-C to USB-C one, although you are still able to charge the phone via a USB-A to USB-C cable too.
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