Much like the Samsung Galaxy S24 event before it, the Google Pixel 9 launch was as much a showcase for new software as it was for new hardware. Sure, Google debuted no fewer than seven new devices (including four new phones) at its Mountain View, California headquarters, but infinitely more time was spent on the Google Gemini features powering those devices than on the cameras, displays, or batteries beneath their respective hoods.
Apple, too, will undoubtedly make Apple Intelligence front and center with the launch of the upcoming iPhone 16, with rumored button and battery upgrades likely to play second fiddle to a smarter Siri and other generative AI tools. Software rules now, then – at least in terms of how its best phones are brought to market (how many AI-focused Samsung ads have disrupted your soccer match?). But that doesn’t mean hardware no longer matters.
AI-heavy smartphones require immense amounts of processing power (read: strong chipsets) and RAM capacity that’s big enough to juggle multiple power-hungry software features at once. Google never managed to equip its top-tier Pixel phones with iPhone-beating chipsets, but it has at least future-proofed the Google Pixel 9 Pro and Google Pixel 9 Pro XL with a whopping 16GB of RAM.
Such a large RAM capacity should ensure that both phones can handle the inevitably demanding AI features that Google will bring to the market in the future, while also setting a new standard for other mobile manufacturers to follow.
As Philip Berne, head of US phones at TechRadar, noted in his hands-on review of the Google Pixel 9 Pro: “[16GB of RAM is a] massive amount of storage for a mobile device. Samsung’s most powerful phone, the Galaxy S24 Ultra, only has 12GB of RAM, and you’d have to buy a gaming phone like the Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro to get 16GB or more before the Pixel 9 Pro comes out.
“I think that [such a large amount of] RAM isn’t for today – it’s for what’s next. I was very skeptical that today’s Pixel phones, like the Pixel 8, would really survive the seven years of updates that Google promises […] but adding more RAM than needed at launch is one way to ensure the Pixel 9 Pro has extra headroom for whatever AI vehicles end up parked in the Pixel garage.”
So RAM is now perhaps the most important spec to look for when considering a new phone. Powerful chipsets are certainly a bonus, but they are no longer the be-all and end-all.
There’s a reason Apple limits Apple Intelligence features to iPhones with 8GB of RAM, after all. At the time of writing, that’s just the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. Even 8GB is thought to not be enough to get the most out of Apple’s large language model (LLM).
Google isn’t making any concessions, and while we wait with bated breath for the inevitable AI-packed iPhone 16 Pro, Apple still has its work cut out for it if it wants to thwart Google’s dominant position on the list of best AI phones.
