Pixel 9 Pro may still max out at 30x zoom, old Google Camera UI oddly shows up in leak [Video]

More information continues to leak about Google's upcoming Pixel 9 series. A new TikTok video gives an overview of the camera, including the fact that it still offers up to 30x zoom.

The big difference between Google's base Pixel and the "Pro" tier in recent years is the use of a better zoom lens. From the Pixel 6 Pro to the Pixel 8 Pro, a periscope zoom lens was used for various levels of optical zoom, reaching up to 5x on the Pixel 8 Pro. With a combination of hardware and software processing, this value could increase to 30x.

However, there doesn't appear to be an upgrade for the Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL.

A video from TikTok's @pixo_unpacking (the same source that recently leaked several other Pixel 9 hands-on videos) shows the camera in action and the Google Camera app with default increments of 0.5x for the ultrawide, 1x for the main camera, 2x for the sensor crop, and 5x for the telephoto lens. Zooming further manually from there shows the camera hitting a maximum zoom of 30x, just like the past few generations of Pixels.

This isn't surprising, as we're not expecting any major changes to the software, but it would have been interesting to see Google bring a bit of AI to the Zoom situation to give it a bit more range.

But what's really odd about this video is that the Google Camera app on this Pixel 9 Pro XL runs on the old UI that it replaced last year (first on the Pixel 8, then on other devices in December). This is easy to see, as the brightness, contrast and saturation sliders appear as overlays on the viewfinder rather than underneath the shutter. There's also no new button to go into more advanced settings.

It's unlikely that Google will completely revert all of the changes to the camera app, so the most likely scenario is that the device is just running an older version of the app. This is odd as well, though, since early Pixel 9 series devices are definitely running the new version of the app at this point. However, if you're running an older version, it's possible that the new version of the app will unlock additional features and zoom.

Either way, Google is set to launch its four devices on August 13, so we'll know more about the Pixel 9 series in a month's time.