If I had $599 and wanted a new phone, I’d grab this excellent Pixel 9 deal

Google’s six-month-old phone is still a top smartphone with an impeccable design and build quality that just screams premium every time I hold it. That aluminum frame and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 sandwich are just classy — especially on the Porcelain colorway, if you ask me. And the more compact form factor fits so nicely in my hand.

The smaller 6.3-inch Full HD+ OLED display with 120Hz refresh rate is a beaut, and the Tensor G4 chip with 12GB of RAM is enough to handle everything I throw at it. I’m not a fan of the missing telephoto camera, but if you don’t care about zoom and rarely shoot photos from afar, you’ll find that the 50MP main camera and 48MP ultrawide lens are excellent. Secure face unlock, which works in apps as well as for unlocking the phone, is a nice everyday perk on top of the fingerprint sensor.

The Pixel 9 comes with a 4,700mAh battery that can charge at speeds up to 25W — something my colleague Robert complained about in his Pixel 9 review, but at this dropped price, there’s very little competition in the US market.

You also get an IP68 rating, wireless charging, a lot of AI features, seven years of updates, and the awesome perk of nabbing Pixel Drops and Android betas before anyone else. Add Google’s excellent spam-fighting Call Screen feature, its life-saving car crash detection, and all those Pixel-only features, and the phone’s value goes beyond just hardware. I’ve been using Pixel phones for eight years because of all these small improvements it brings to my everyday life, and I can’t imagine switching to something else.

All of this usually costs $799, which is a lot less appealing than $599, isn’t it? Amazon has a deal on the phone today in three colorways: Obsidian (black), Porcelain (white-ish), and Peony (bright pink). Wintergreen is, unfortunately, $50 more at $649. I’d grab Porcelain or Peony, personally. If you prefer the black option, you can upgrade to the 256GB variant for $600, also $200 off its original price.

This is the lowest price the Pixel 9 has ever been on Amazon since its launch. Other retailers have had some better discounts around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but none of them has had such a nice deal since December. So if you missed your opportunity to grab the Pixel 9 then, this is one of the best chances you’ll have to grab one at such a low price.