The standard timeline would put the Google Pixel 9 at one thing like 5 months away from launching, however that does not imply it is too early to leak! Actual-life photos of the “Pixel 9 Professional” mannequin have landed over at Rozetked.
This prototype appears to be like similar to the renders from OnLeaks that first got here out again in January. The most important change is a brand new pill-shaped digital camera bump as a substitute of the edge-to-edge design of outdated fashions. It appears to be like slightly trendy in real-life photographs, with the rounded corners of the tablet and digital camera glass matching the physique form. The matte again appears to be like prefer it nonetheless makes use of the wonderful “soft-touch glass” materials from final 12 months. The back and front of the telephone are completely flat, with a metallic band across the aspect. The highest edge nonetheless has a sign window lower out of it, which is normally for mmWave. The Pixel 8 Professional’s near-useless temperature sensor seems to nonetheless be on the again of this prototype. At the least, the spot for the temperature sensor—the silver disk proper under the LED digital camera flash—appears to be like equivalent to the Pixel 8 Professional. As a prototype any of this might change earlier than the ultimate launch, however that is what it appears to be like like proper now.
The telephone was helpfully photographed subsequent to an iPhone 14 Professional Max, and also you may discover that the Pixel 9 Professional appears to be like somewhat small! That is as a result of this is one of many small fashions, with solely a 6.1-inch show. Beforehand for Pixels, “Professional” meant “the large mannequin,” however this 12 months Google is supposedly transport three fashions, including in a top-tier small telephone. There’s the standard large Pixel 9, with a 6.7-inch show, which can reportedly be known as the “Pixel 9 Professional XL.” The brand new mannequin is the “Pixel 9 Professional”—no XL—which is a small mannequin however nonetheless with all of the “Professional” trimmings, like three rear cameras. There’s additionally the Pixel 9 base mannequin, which is the standard smaller telephone (6.03-inch) with cut-down specs like solely two rear cameras.
Rozetked says (by means of translation) that the telephone is “comparable in dimension to the iPhone 15 Professional.” It runs a Tensor G4 SoC, after all, and—here is a noteworthy spec—has a whopping 16GB of RAM based on the bootloader display. The Pixel 8 Professional tops out at 12GB.
Something might change between prototype and product, particularly for RAM, which is normally scaled up and down in numerous telephone tiers. A bounce in RAM is one thing we have been anticipating although. As a part of Google’s new AI-focused period, it needs generative AI fashions turned on 24/7 for some use instances. Google stated as a lot in a latest in-house podcast, pointing to some options like a brand new model of Sensible Reply constructed proper into the keyboard, which “requires the fashions to be RAM-resident”—in different phrases, loaded on a regular basis. Google’s want to maintain generative AI fashions in reminiscence means much less RAM on your working system to truly do working system issues, and one answer to that’s to simply add extra RAM. So how a lot RAM is sufficient? At one level Google stated the smaller Pixel 8’s 8GB of RAM was an excessive amount of of a “{hardware} limitation” for this method. Google PR additionally lately informed us the corporate nonetheless hasn’t enabled generative AI sensible reply on Pixel 8 Professional by default with its 12GB of RAM, so anticipate these RAM numbers to begin taking pictures up.
The draw back is that extra RAM means a dearer telephone, however that is the trail Google goes down. There’s additionally the problem of whether or not or not you view generative AI as one thing that’s so extremely helpful you want it constructed into your keyboard 24/7. Google needs its {hardware} to be “the intersection of {hardware}, software program, and AI,” so maintaining all this ChatGPT-like stuff quarantined to a single app apparently will not be an choice.
One remaining be aware: It is bizarre how regular this telephone appears to be like. Often, Pixel prototypes have a singular emblem that is not the Google “G,” and infrequently they’re coated in figuring out patterns for leak tracing. This appears to be like like a production-worthy design, although.