I’m a die-hard Apple fan, but even I’ll admit that the Google Pixel 9 Pro is the best-looking phone of the year

Back successful 2021, I penned an op-ed connected why I’m comfortable being trapped successful Apple’s ecosystem, and though I’ve tested (and loved using) galore of nan best Android phones since then, nan comparatively boring iPhone still calls to maine each twelvemonth for illustration a titanium information broad successful a world of analyzable package and obnoxiously ample camera bumps.

Sure, a large logic for that sustained liking is convenience – arsenic personification who uses a MacBook, an Apple TV, and AirPods distant from nan office, I’ll ever take inter-device ratio complete invention – but Apple has damn adjacent perfected its merchandise design, too.

I don’t request to show you that iPhones and MacBooks are manner statements arsenic overmuch arsenic they are productivity devices – caput to your nearest java shop for nan proof. And nary different Android telephone has travel adjacent to replicating nan iPhone’s unsocial synergy of simplicity and style. That is, until nan Google Pixel 9 Pro.

The Google Pixel 9 Pro was precocious crowned TechRadar’s Phone of nan Year, and for bully reason. It’s nan only caller flagship successful 2024 that feels genuinely caller versus its predecessor, and contempt not being nan astir powerful instrumentality connected nan block, nan Pixel 9 Pro nails nan things we return for granted: making telephone calls, dealing pinch notifications, sending messages, and truthful on.

Most of all, though, nan Pixel 9 Pro is simply a genuinely good-looking phone. As we’ve established, I’m a immense iPhone fan, and moreover I recovered myself looking doubly astatine nan Pixel’s level aluminum sides, frosted solid rear panel, and perfectly sized pill-shaped module. The telephone is impressively durable, too, pinch Gorilla Glass Victus 2 connected nan beforehand and an IP68 particulate and h2o guidance standing to boot. Put simply, nan Pixel 9 Pro is simply a world distant from nan Google Pixel 8 Pro. Just look astatine it.

The Google Pixel 9 Pro successful Obsidian(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

The Google Pixel 8 Pro successful Bay(Image credit: Future)

There is, of course, a ample elephant successful nan room here: nan Pixel 9 Pro is much iPhone-like than immoderate Pixel telephone (heck, immoderate Android phone) that’s travel earlier it. I’m efficaciously praising Google for leaning connected Apple’s creation philosophy, erstwhile others mightiness knock nan institution for not bringing thing genuinely caller to nan table.

But honestly, why not play to a winning strategy? Just arsenic Samsung is correct to return inspiration from Apple’s iPhone design, Google, too, should proceed to riff connected this cleaner, much business aesthetic, 1 that intelligibly resonates pinch consumers of a definite purchasing power.

In immoderate case, what does Google person to suffer by designing an iPhone-style Pixel? We cognize that more Android users are switching to iPhone than vice versa, and though nan Pixel 9 Pro isn’t going to person iPhone users to move to Pixel en masse, it mightiness thief clasp existing Pixel users. Or amended yet, person different Android users to clasp nan best Pixel phones alternatively of, say, nan best Samsung phones.

Yes, possibly nan Google Pixel 9 Pro represents a nonaccomplishment of characteristic for nan Pixel family – but Apple has proven that characteristic isn’t what group bargain phones for.

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