2024 Winners and losers: Google

Google has been busier than usual this year, mainly due to a glut of Pixel phones and rapid growth in the field of artificial intelligence. But as is often the case, not all products are well-received by users and critics alike. But let’s start with the winner.

Winner: Pixel 9 Pro XL

Despite the new XL name, the Pixel 9 Pro XL is essentially the successor to last year’s Pixel 8 Pro, so expect it to get most of the attention from those three phones. This is also Google’s best Pixel phone yet.

The phone brings improvements over its predecessor, such as a brighter and larger screen, better selfies, longer battery life, faster charging, and an ultrasonic fingerprint reader instead of an optical one Fingerprint reader. Frankly, it’s one of the best big-screen Android experiences on the market right now.

Losers: Pixel 9 and 9 Pro Fold

The regular Pixel 9 feels neglected this year, just like Samsung has ignored the regular Galaxy S for years. The Pixel 9 is the same size as the Pixel 9 Pro, but has inferior hardware. Sure, the price is lower, but not enough to make it cheap, and we feel like the Pixel 9 will be obsolete once the Pixel 9a becomes available.

If you’re looking for a compact phone, we believe the Pixel 9 Pro is a smarter choice, despite the higher price tag.

As for the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, it’s completely behind the curve. It’s expensive technology that doesn’t match the feature set of other foldable devices on the market. You could argue that it’s a better foldable than its predecessor, but that wouldn’t be difficult to achieve. The original Pixel Fold was definitely a first-generation product.

Pixel 9 Pro folding screen

While the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is an improvement over its predecessor in all key areas, it still disappoints in areas like charging, performance and camera experience, and features a polarizing design. We know this is subjective, but those thick bezels and asymmetrical corners just don’t do it for us.

Winner: Pixel 9 Pro

As you might have guessed, we like the Pixel 9 Pro. It’s one of the few proven compact flagships on the market. It packs a serious punch and is actually as powerful as its bigger brother, the Pro XL, but in a smaller, more manageable package.

Loser: Gemini

Google’s artificial intelligence chatbot Gemini feels like an unfinished product. It’s as if Google rushed its artificial intelligence capabilities to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, but its solutions are nowhere near as useful.

There’s certainly an opportunity for Google to offer advanced integration with Gemini on Android, and we’ve seen a lot of effort put into that, but for now, we’d rather look to ChatGPT for help. Still, it’s not often we see Google fail at its own game, and the race is far from over.

Winner: Pixel Buds Pro 2

We really like this year’s Pixel Buds Pro 2, especially at their current price. Both products feature significant improvements over their predecessors—better audio quality, better ANC, the same long battery life, and they feel more comfortable. If you’re invested in the Pixel ecosystem, the Pixel Buds Pro 2 are a great deal.

Loser: Pixel Watch 3

Many expected this year’s Pixel Watch 3 to feature major upgrades, but the actual improvements are quite minor. A slightly larger display, mediocre battery life, and the same old design just won’t cut it in 2024.

Still, for the asking price, we believe you can get a better wearable that also runs Wear OS.

We’re eagerly awaiting Google’s next move in 2025, and we hope to see the company catch up on some hardware, especially the Fold, Pixel Watch, and its chipsets. The Tensor G4 deserves an “honorable” mention in the “loser” team because it once again failed to meet our expectations in terms of raw performance and cooling capabilities.