And back to Google Pixel

After a few months with my Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra I found a good offer and jumped to the Pixel 9 Pro.
I hope that this “oh this other phone looks nice, too” spiral that affected me a few years ago is not coming back, but I have a few good reasons for this switch 😅
Let me explain how I excused this switch to myself:

Size

Phones nowadays are big.
Much bigger than in the past. What is considered a “normal” phone was a “Max” 7 years ago.
Today’s “Max” phones (like the S24 Ultra) are huuuuge. The pockets of my trousers barely cover the whole phone and god forbid if you need to bend forward to close your shoes.
The only reason for me selecting the Ultra was the camera system. Sadly Samsung still only cramps the best camera they have to offer into the “Max” phone.

Big camera, “small” phone

Then - shortly after I bought the S24 Ultra - Google decided to release the Pixel 9 (what a surprise 😄).
This time they decided to give the “normal” Pixel 9 Pro the same camera capabilities as their “Max” variant.
I was jealous but resisted to immediately jump over to the Pixel.

Raving reviews

Then the reviews for the Pixel 9 Pro appeared.
Great camera, great battery life (for its size), OK performance.
The price for the Pixel 9 Pro (more expensive than the S24 Ultra at that time) was the only thing holding me back.

MediaMarkt offer

Then MediaMarkt had an offer: Pixel 9 Pro 256 GB for €949. Additionally, you get access to the Google trade-in program offering additional €150 on top of what they are willing to pay for an old Pixel phone.
So I looked into my drawer and decided that the Pixel 7 has to go 😀
The current value of the S24 Ultra (with some margin), the additional trade-in bonus, the value of the Pixel 7 and the MediaMarkt offer allowed me to switch without loosing money (I even made a slight plus but lost the Pixel 7).

So here I am. With a normal-sized phone and a great camera.

The Pixel 9 Pro

So far I really like what I got and don’t regret the switch at all.

The performance is enough. Only if I’m currently navigating using Google Maps and switch back to my launcher to open the music app then it is slightly sluggish. Other than that I can’t think of any issue that I had performance wise.
I don’t use my phone to play games, though. If you are into high-end mobile gaming then this phone is probably nothing for you.
It took a few days to get used to the smaller screen again. Might be an age thing, but I got really used to the bigger screen of the S24 Ultra.

The Pixel 9 Pro even has better Bluetooth compatibility with the cars we have. That has been a surprise as in the past the Pixel line of phones would be the one having Bluetooth connection issues.
I really like that amount of options the Android ecosystem gives me. Pixel 9 Pro with OnePlus earbuds and a Samsung Watch? (Almost) no issue!

Fun fact: Pairing the Samsung Watch with a non Samsung phone removes the “modes” feature that I did not use at all. The removal of this feature makes it one tap less for me to get to the “bedtime mode” on the watch 😅.

I used the switch to also do a quite drastic change in my launcher setup. Maybe I will create a dedicated blog post about this but after some days of getting used to it, I really prefer the new setup that uses Niagara Launcher and its “Apps can be folders” approach of organizing the home screen.

Btw: If you wonder yourself “why is that guy using two music streaming services?” then stay tuned for the next blog post 😉 (they are not 2 but 7)