Google in 2024: the hits, the misses, plus what to expect in 2025
Google packed a lot into this year
· TechRadarFeatures By David Nield published 27 December 2024
Jump To:
The end of one year and the start of another is the perfect opportunity to assess how the biggest names in tech are faring – and specifically in this case, Google. There are a lot of different departments that make up the company that is Google, and we saw new products and upgrades across most of those departments in 2024.
Here, we're going to take a long look back at the year that's just gone, and pick out the Google hits and the Google misses from everything that happened.
After that, we've got some pretty good ideas about what Google has planned for 2025 – and it's possible that next year might be even busier for the company than this one was.
The Google hits of 2024
Google's year really got underway, at least from a hardware point of view, with the launch of the Google Pixel 8a. As with earlier phones in this mid-range series, it did a very decent job of balancing price and performance, and we described it as our "favorite bargain phone" in our Google Pixel 8a review.
Since then we've had the launch of the Google Pixel 9 series of course, and we'd say the phones are mostly big successes across the board: solid designs, good performance, and lots of AI. The Google Pixel 9 Pro is especially impressive, and we had plenty of praise for it on the way to awarding it 4.5 stars out of 5 in our Google Pixel 9 Pro review.
The pick of Google's hardware hits in 2024, however, may well be the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold. Okay, it's ridiculously expensive, but you can blame that on the form factor. Our Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold review tells it like it is: this is the first handset to really work as both a foldable and as a normal handset when it's closed shut.
Another hit for Google: the sheer number of software updates it rolled out for its Pixel phones, including features like Circle to Search, Theft Detection Lock, and smart call screening, as well as the main Android 15 updates. We saw a consistent flurry of updates to Google's key apps as well, such as incident alerts in Google Maps and filters in Gmail.
Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox
Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more.
Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors