The Pixel 8 is quickly approaching its October 4 unveiling, however earlier than then there are a bunch of leaks on the market. Dependable leaker Kamila Wojciechowska has an entire record of Pixel 8 and eight Professional specs over at 91mobiles, together with some Pixel market materials. The massive information is that Google is lastly giving its Pixel telephones an extended help window. Pixel telephones are getting seven years of updates, which is longer than Apple. Google pitches the Pixel telephones because the flagship of the Android ecosystem, and now, if this spec sheet pans out, the OS maker is lastly giving them an replace plan to match.
At present, Pixel telephones have three years of OS updates and 5 years of safety updates, which isn’t solely overwhelmed by Apple’s replace coverage however can also be inexplicably worse than lots of Google’s Android companions. As an example, Samsung and OnePlus provide 4 years of OS updates, albeit with some caveats round arrival occasions and the safety replace cadence. Apple would not have a coverage written in stone wherever, however with the iPhone X not making the leap to iOS17, that makes for a five-year main OS replace coverage should you’re counting to 2022’s iOS16, although with some level updates in 2023 you would argue six years.
Google has messed round previously by calling its present “three years of main OS updates and 5 years of safety updates” plan “5 years of updates,” however this spec sheet very clearly says “seven years of OS, safety, and have drop updates.” That will comfortably lead all main producers, leaving solely Google and Fairphone on the high of the charts.
In a lot of the Android world, producers are depending on their system on a chip vendor’s replace coverage (that is normally Qualcomm) to supply Android updates. The method of delivery an Android replace is an ultra-complicated relay race from Google’s Android builds to the SoC vendor to the cellphone producer. With the launch of the Pixel 6, Google began making its personal SoCs (with quite a lot of assist from Samsung’s Exynos division), so each firm in every step of the Android replace course of is simply “Google.” With nobody else to collaborate with, the updates can final so long as Google desires.
The specs for the Pixel 8 Professional embrace one thing known as a “Tremendous Actua” show, which the advertising docs say will work “even in direct daylight.” The spec sheet lists 1600 nits in HDR mode and 2400 nits in “peak brightness” daylight mode. That is most likely a excessive level for a daylight mode—it is definitely higher than the peaks of the S23 Extremely (1750 nits) and iPhone 15 Professional Max (2000 nits)—however midday daylight is 1.6 billion nits. Producers hold choosing this combat with the solar, and whereas I assume brighter is best, I am nonetheless not assured any cellphone will put a dent in daylight.
The Professional show is the same old 120 Hz, 6.7-inch OLED, however the side ratio is tweaked a bit to twenty:9 (the 7 Professional is nineteen.5:9). This spec sheet additionally lists a cool decision of 2992×1344 as an alternative of the same old 3120×1440. The system dimensions have probably not modified past a factional millimeter, and the Professional clocks in at 162.6×76.5×8.8 mm. The battery is just about the identical at 5050 mAh, and it nonetheless solely has 30 W charging. It nonetheless has 12GB of RAM. The storage is all kinds of disappointing, with the bottom storage tier nonetheless 128GB, whereas a number of telephones begin at 256GB, and it is nonetheless UFS 3.1 storage, whereas most different flagships have UFS 4.0.
The non-pro Pixel 8 is smaller, now 6.2 inches as an alternative of 6.3 inches, with a noticeably smaller width and top as well. It is now at 150.5×70.8×8.9 mm. The Pixel 7 is 155.6×73.2×8.7 mm. The show is branded “Actua,” and never “Tremendous Actua,” and which means 1400-nit HDR and 2000-nit peak brightness. It is nonetheless 120 Hz 2400×1080, and the decrease energy mode nonetheless caps at 60 Hz as an alternative of the dynamic refresh fee of the Professional mannequin, which might go all the way down to 1 Hz while you aren’t scrolling or watching a video. The battery is leaping from 4355 mAh to 4575 mAh, and the cellphone continues to be packing 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.
The one replace we all know is coming is the Google Tensor 3 SoC. This would be the first Google SoC to have an precise CPU improve. The Tensor 1 and a couple of had CPU clusters headlined by two Arm Cortex X1 CPUs and benchmarked equally. Wojciechowska beforehand reported the Pixel 8 would swap to a more recent Cortex X3 CPU, adopted by 4 Cortex A715 cores and 4 A510 cores. This might put it in the identical class as a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
As for crucial spec, the value, 9to5Google has a leak for that and says every thing is getting $100 dearer within the US. The report has the Pixel 8 at $699 and the Pixel 8 Professional at $999, with a ship date of October 12. Examine again on October 4, when all of this may be formally confirmed.
