The best Pixel 9 colorway has one major drawback for me

The cat’s finally out of the bag with the squeaky new Pixel 9 family of smartphones. Google gave us not two, not three, but four new flagship phones in one go. That’s quite a lot to process. While our final verdict is still pending, it’s easy to say that the Pixel 9 series gets a lot right. There are plenty of upgrades and AI magic to make the devices enticing for anyone. Yet, despite all that, there’s one problem with the Pixel 9 series that bums me out, and it has to do with the pink color option.

I won’t lie; the biggest draw for me was purely superficial at first. My inner Elle Woods screamed in dignified delight when the leaks first showcased a pink Pixel. To top it off, it turned out to be an all-pink lineup of Android phones with pink accessories to match! How can a girl say no to that?

Now that we know for sure that three of the four Pixel 9 models come in pink, all I needed to decide was which model to buy. To me, Rose Quartz is the most interesting shade of the upper-tier Pixel 9 Pro series, followed by the deeper Peony hue of the basic Pixel 9. The Pixel 9 Pro stood out as the obvious choice since it has practically no other difference compared to the 9 Pro XL in any aspect other than size. I prefer smaller phones as they’re easier to use one-handed.

My mind was pretty much made up about bumping my Pixel 8 over to the 9 Pro, but that’s when I ran into an unexpected problem. When I’m looking to buy a phone, naturally, I value other specs as well. Storage is a very important factor, especially because Pixels are famously superior photographers. So it was shocking to me that Google does not offer the Pixel 9 Pro or the 9 Pro XL in Rose Quartz with more than 256GB of storage.

That’s a major roadblock for me because I’ve already got around 200GB of images and videos on my current phone. If I were to upgrade to 256GB — not all of which is usable — I’d run out of space on my brand-new phone in a few short months. It’s not like I can use a nice microSD card to fix that issue, seeing as most flagships like the Pixel 9 Pro and Pro XL have ditched expandable storage slots.

Even with the underwhelming performance of the Tensor G4 and the stuttering fingerprint sensor, I was onboard with the Pixel 9 Pro. The cameras and the Pixel UI are what I was willing to pay for, and of course, the sweet coat of pink paint. All things considered, storage simply isn’t something I can compromise on.

Google One is one possible solution here, offering additional online storage and a few bonus features for a monthly or yearly fee. However, this requires you to be connected to the internet at all times. Additionally, relying on a cloud storage solution also means that any of the files that don’t fit on your Pixel will have to be stored in the cloud fully, with no on-device availability. In areas with poor or no connectivity, this is a big drawback.

I don’t know why Google passed on a 512GB option for the pink Pixel 9 phones, but based on experience and my gut, I’m assuming it’s because someone doubted the popularity of this color. When a brand doesn’t have enough confidence in color, they don’t offer larger storage options for it because it assumes that the demand will be low. I reached out to Google for clarification regarding color and storage options but did not get a response in time for publication. I will update the article if I hear back.

But let’s be honest, 256GB doesn’t cut it anymore. Each colorway should have enough storage to last for a phone that’s promised seven years of upgrades. Samsung offers more than twice as many colorways on its phones, and you can go as high as 1TB on many of them. If Samsung can do it, why can’t Google?