All Pixel 9 telephones ship with an older, slower storage tech. Are we okay with that?

Google has geared up the whole Pixel 9 collection, together with the Pixel 9 Professional Fold, with UFS 3.1 storage, regardless of the quicker UFS 4.0 reminiscence being out there since earlier than the Pixel 8‘s launch.

The UFS 4.0 normal was introduced in mid-2022 and we’ve been seeing it on flagships since 2023, although admittedly it is not the default storage protocol.

Having mentioned that, it is one factor for a mid-tier telephone and even an entry-level flagship like the usual Galaxy S24 mannequin with 128GB of storage to omit UFS 4.0 however a completely completely different factor for high-end telephones just like the Pixel 9 Professional duo and 9 Professional Fold to ship with UFS 3.1 in 2024. Particularly if they’re vying for the title of the greatest telephone of the yr.

And it isn’t mere hypothesis as Google has confirmed that each one of its new telephones characteristic the UFS 3.1 protocol.

UFS 4.0 affords double the learn pace of UFS 3.1 and 1.6x quicker write pace. This interprets to hitch-free multitasking and quicker app load occasions.

As Android Authority factors out, issues apart from flash storage specification additionally impression reminiscence pace, together with a telephone’s telephone’s chipset and reminiscence controller. The theoretical significance of a brand new storage tech cannot be undermined although, as proved by the truth that the Zenfone 11 Extremely, which boasts UFS 4.0, affords two and 3 times quicker sequential learn and write speeds, respectively, than the Pixel 9 Professional XL.

Whereas that will sound like an enormous distinction, you’re unlikely to really feel it whereas utilizing a telephone, as sequential reads and writes do not matter all that a lot until you routinely switch heavy information or play huge Android video games. For generally used apps corresponding to Fb, WhatsApp, and Maps, even UFS 2.2 will suffice.

The Pixel 9 is quick sufficient to benefit from a typical 5Gbps (625MB/s) USB 3.0 connection when copying knowledge from the telephone to a pc. Then again, transferring knowledge to the telephone is slower. To get essentially the most out of your UFS 4.0 smartphone, you want a quick USB port in your laptop computer in addition to a speedy SSD.

UFS 4.0 is 25 to 45 % extra environment friendly, so it sucks considerably much less energy than UFS 3.1. This is not going to have a perceptible impact on battery life, contemplating storage solely accounts for a small proportion of a telephone’s general power consumption.

It is perhaps tempting for individuals who usually switch heavy information, corresponding to movies, to go for a telephone with UFS 4.0 however since most smartphones apply compression, UFS 3.1 can simply deal with even 8K movies.

With all that mentioned, I nonetheless do not suppose Google did proper by its prospects by not going for UFS 4.0. In any case, the Pixel 9 begins at $100 larger than the earlier era, and the AI options aren’t sufficient to justify the hike.

Additionally, these are billed as AI telephones, in order that they’d have benefited from quicker storage speeds as this is able to have allowed for AI fashions to be shortly loaded into RAM. To make up for the deficiency, the Professional fashions have reserved 3GB of RAM for AI duties.

The Pixel 9 shall be supported for seven years, and the older storage tech may begin displaying its age just a few years into the possession. It does not assist that UFS 3.1 lacks lots of the new capabilities of UFS 4.0, corresponding to put on leveling, which is a course of that extends the lifetime of solid-state storage units.