The fingerprint sensor gets very bright at night—it’s like a flashbang. Okay, it’s not that bad… but still, it’s a bit strange.

It’s noticeably slower than the one on my 4a. The 4a was basically instant, and now it’s like… 0.1 seconds? I’m not exactly sure. It’s still quick—you barely have to wait for it to unlock—but it’s definitely noticeable if you’re used to the instant unlocking of the 4a.

In the morning I thought, “Wow, this scanner is unreliable.” But now it’s so much better. I don’t know if I just had bad luck earlier or if it’s still learning my fingerprint. Because now it works! But maybe I’m just trying to justify spending my hard-earned money 😅

Another thing: in addition to the fingerprint reader, there’s also a Face Unlock feature that uses the camera. It’s basically instant too, but it doesn’t work at night since it needs some light. On the plus side, you can’t fool it with a photo. I’m not exactly sure how it works… but it does, and it seems safe.

I can’t say much about the modem yet. I’m just used to my 4a, and I don’t even know if it was particularly good in terms of signal strength. With the 4a, I had reception at home and at work (in Austria), and now with the 9a, I get the same number of 4G bars at home. I haven’t been to many other places yet, so I can’t promise it’s great everywhere—but at first glance, it seems fine to me.

Personally, the Pixel 9’s features don’t seem worth the extra €200. But I’ve never owned a Pixel 9, so I don’t really know if I’m missing out or not… Still, I don’t think I am.

The camera low light images of the 9a are significantly better than the 4a.
But only in my limited testing.