The Pixel 9 Pro XL lives up to the 'extra large' abbreviation in its name. It is a rather big phone at 162.8 mm height (taller than the iPhone 15 Pro Max), although at 221 grams, it is light for its size, without being lightweight, In broad terms, it looks like a bigger Pixel 9 - you have similar straight sides, a flat back, and the camera bar is replaced by a massive horizontal, sticky-outy-prominently metallic capsule. It is pretty solidly built - Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 front and back and metal frame, and IP68 dust and water resistance. The colours are more sober than those of the Pixel 9 - we got Obsidian, Googlespeak for black! Looks handsome enough, but in a sober way. Like a tuxedo! Classy rather than sassy, although those straight sides and back will lead to "iPhone copycat" allegations.

That hood hideth some terrific hardware. The chip is the same Tensor G4 processor from Google that we saw on the Pixel 9, but there is a massive 16 GB RAM here, and the display is a 6.8 inch OLED one with a resolution of 2992 x 1344 with a refresh rate of 120 Hz, The bigger size also means that there is room for a bigger battery - 5060 mAh - although there is still no charger in the box (that cheering comes from Mother Nature), and charging speed remains a rather modest 37W.

Yep. this is a Pixel so of course, special attention will be given to cameras. And Pixel 9 Pro XL has some hefty camera hardware on board - a 50 megapixel main camera with OIS, a 48 megapixel telephoto camera with OIS and 5x optical zoom, and another 48 megapixel ultrawide with autofocus. In front is a 42 megapixel selfie camera. Of course, cameras in a Pixel are not just about hardware - there is a lot of computational photography and AI magic onboard too. Expect great snaps from these.

Pixels are also about software too, and the Pixel 9 Pro XL comes with clean Android and a truckload of AI including Pixel Studio that lets you generate images by just writing their descriptions, Gemini which is a more conversational and informative version of Google Assistant, Magic Studio that lets you add, remove and even resize objects from an image, and a whole lot of translation and transcribing tools and much more. What's more, you are assured of seven years of Android updates on this device!

The big question is whether all this is worth a rather stiff Rs 1,24,999? Well, it really depends on how much you value those cameras and all the AI tools on the phone. If you are just a hardware freak, then the S24 series and the OnePlus 12 can give you more, and frankly even in the camera department, there are the likes of the Vivo X100 Pro and the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, which can make any phone sweat. All this without mentioning the iPhone! This is really for the hardcore Pixel crowd. It is not about being cutesy and fun like the Pixel 9 - this is Big Brother meaning business!