Not even the same. The 9P screen has lower PPI than my 7P, the camera has worse field of view and the battery has lower capacity.
Beyond that https://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Google-Pixel-9-vs-Pixel-8... shows:
- Much brighter screen - Next gen tensor chip - 50% ram upgrade - Better camera + battery - SOS functionality - Better ultrasonic fingerprint sensor
Holistically felt like meaningful improvements across the board to me, but I understand where you're coming from. I think maybe I have lower expectations for improvements year to year
I think perhaps one of the reasons for the negativity here is that the price is approaching flagship from other companies, but that Tensor G4 performs like chips from four years ago.
I think that overshadows a lot of the improvements. Perhaps if the whole package was significantly cheaper, the reception would be more balanced.
On paper, it’s largely the same as prior years for the SoC at least. I think the fold has the most obvious upgrade but nothing I’d consider really major. Other than that, it seems like mostly a camera bump year?