I’ve been using the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL for nearly two months now, and I keep getting surprised by how good the camera is. I know, I know, this is a Pixel, it’s supposed to have a good camera. But my past year with the Pixel 9 Pro XL left me with a sour taste in my mouth.
The Pixel 9 underwhelmed me, repeatedly, with its camera performance. I’d see a beautiful, colorful scene, try to snap it, and get a boring, lifeless shot instead. While the Google Pixel 10 series fixes this, it has opened my eyes to how bad the Pixel 9 has been, so much so that I think what Google has done to that camera and its users is criminal.
If you don’t believe me, or if you need proof that I’m not exaggerating, I just want you to look at these two photos that I took a couple of weeks ago. Just look.
Turning such a vibrant, colorful shot into a single-hue cold blue scene is so discouraging. You’d think one of the best camera phones, the one that comes from a long succession of phones lauded for their realistic photos, would capture the “real” scene. The real tones. The real colors. But no. In its search to desaturate and force a single white balance on every photo, the Pixel 9 Pro XL strips all nuance and color from that scene. No amount of Photoshop or Lightroom editing can salvage this. Truly unforgivable, Google.
Pixels used to capture the real scene, real tones, and real colors. The Pixel 9 captures a fake reality.
Some of you will say it’s a fluke or user error. Maybe the phone didn’t analyze the scene well enough. Maybe I didn’t wait or focus properly. Well, no. I tried to snap this photo several times, and the result was the same, time and again. What I noticed was that the moment I opened the Pixel 9’s camera, it saw the purples, then it slowly drowned them out. By the time the photo was shot and processed, everything was drenched in blue with colder yellow lights instead of the vibrant orange.
I can’t get over the difference. I’ve tried to joke about it since I took these photos, but the more I look at them, the sadder and angrier I get. It is disheartening to think that many pics I’ve taken in the past year were affected by this phenomenon and stripped of their colors, forever saved as a lifeless version of reality. It’s even more depressing to think that many Pixel 9 users out there are still getting the same results to this day, since the majority probably didn’t upgrade to the Pixel 10. Maybe some of them had bought a Pixel for the first time, noticed this camera performance, and decided to never buy a Pixel again. In fact, thousands of votes and dozens of comments did confirm that over 50% of Pixel 9 owners weren’t always happy with the camera performance.
It’s sad to think that many Pixel 9 owners are still getting these sad excuses for photos until this very day.
I’ve already done a more thorough investigation of the issue and how differently the Pixel 10 behaves, but let me give you a quick recap. In bright daylight, the Pixel 9 Pro takes good photos — nothing to talk about there. But dark, moody scenes with orange, red, and warm tones are its biggest enemies. So are green and purple. Basically, the Pixel 9 Pro does well with blue and white, and that’s it. Here’s what the phone sees in the camera view versus what the final processed image looks like. Check how the real-life warm airplane shot turns into a fake, cold, flat white photo, and the bright red hoodie is darkened to no end.
Whatever Google is doing during the processing phase on the Pixel 9 Pro XL is stripping away the bright, colorful bits of every photo. This screen recording below shows how the phone previews and processes a Ferris wheel shot in the Camera app, massacring all vibrancy. If this isn’t damning, I don’t know what is.
And here are some other comparison shots between the Pixel 9 Pro XL and Pixel 10 Pro XL, showing how last year’s phone turns a Coca-Cola can orange and a green storefront blue. And then you’ll see one final example of a blue, purple, and orange concert crowd — similar to the Pommery Museum shot at the top of this article — that turned into simple blue and yellow on the Pixel 9. All of these are maddening examples.
Look, I know I’ve spilled enough ink about this, and I know I’m repeating myself and beating a dead horse here. But the more evidence I have of how bad it was with the Pixel 9 Pro, especially now that I have the Pixel 10 Pro as proof of what good camera performance looks like, the more disappointed I am. To be frank, I don’t think I (or the tech community) have made enough noise about this or damned Google enough for it.
The more I see how the Pixel 10 processes photos, the madder I get about the Pixel 9’s photos.
The only thing that’s left to do is just wait for Google to release a software update that fixes this travesty for existing Pixel 9 users. They may never get back all their wasted photos, but at least they won’t lose more of their pics’ colors, nuance, and tones to this sad excuse for a post-processing algorithm.
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