It cost 30,490 CZK, now it's almost half price. The flagship Pixel has updates until 2031

A flagship Pixel at the price of today’s budget flagships. Google Pixel 9 Pro XL is now available to AlzaPlus+ members for 16,641 CZK, roughly half of its launch price of 30,490 CZK. The reason is obvious: the Pixel 10 Pro XL has been out for a while, and in two weeks, Google will introduce the entire Pixel 11 series. For the buyer, this is an ideal moment – the phone still has updates until 2031, and in our review, we gave it 88 out of 100 points.

👍 Get it if you want a premium Android with an excellent display, long-term support, and AI features for half the original price.
🤔 Hesitate if you are a gamer or a demanding photographer – the Tensor G4 lags in benchmarks, and the telephoto lens is not among the best.
💰 Price Tag: 16,641 CZK for a phone that cost over thirty thousand and has updates for another five years.

Display, Haptics, and Build Quality Are Still Top-Notch

In our Pixel 9 Pro XL review, we called the display one of the best panels we’ve seen on a phone, and two years later, nothing has changed. The 6.8″ LTPO OLED with a resolution of 1344 × 2992, 120 Hz, and a peak brightness of 3,000 nits is perfectly readable even in direct sunlight. Similarly, the haptic feedback, along with iPhones, is among the absolute best – Samsung and most other manufacturers still can’t match it. Add an ultrasonic fingerprint reader that works even with wet fingers, surprisingly good stereo speakers with prominent bass, and premium build quality with a steel frame and Gorilla Glass Victus 2.

The specifications are still above standard for today: 16 GB RAM, Wi-Fi 7, UWB, 5G, eSIM, and a 5,060 mAh battery, with which we achieved six to seven hours of screen-on time in our test. And most importantly: 7 years of software support means major Android updates and security patches until 2031. That’s five years of life the phone still has ahead of it, even now.

Weaknesses That Were More Annoying Then Than Now

For thirty thousand, we criticized four things in the review, and it’s fair to reiterate them. The Tensor G4 significantly lagged behind Snapdragons in synthetic tests – in Geekbench 6, it scored 1,921 points single-core and 3,388 multi-core, while the competition at the time reached over 7,000. In practice, however, the system is extremely fluid, and apps open quickly. Benchmarks simply aren’t everything. Also disappointing are the basic 128 GB storage, 37 W charging, which is slow compared to Chinese competitors, and especially the telephoto lens – the 5x optical zoom is usable, but details and noise lag behind the competition, and for some inexplicable reason, Google does not allow portrait mode on it.

The other cameras, however, are excellent: a 50Mpx main sensor with realistic colors, a top-notch night mode, and a 42Mpx selfie camera, which we called possibly the best we’ve used on a phone in our review. A practical note at the end – get a protective glass for your Pixel right away; modern Gorilla Glass is more drop-resistant but softer and more prone to scratches. For thirty thousand, it was a phone with compromises; for sixteen, it’s one of the best buys on the market.

Would you wait for the Pixel 11, or grab a two-year-old flagship for half price?