Latest news with #EwanSpence
Forbes
4 days ago
- Forbes
Pixel 10 Pro Launch Dates Are Later Than Expected
Pixel 9 Pro Fold Ewan Spence Google may be inviting a small pool of influencers to an early preview of the Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro; however, the rest of the world might have to wait an extra week to see the latest Android-powered flagships. Initial reports suggested an event on Aug 13, but signs now point to a Made By Google event one week later. The new details come from the team at Android Headlines. The event will now take place on Wednesday, Aug 20, with the announced hardware going on retail sale on Thursday, Aug 28. While plans may change, Google is expected to announce four new handsets. The flagship Pixel 10 Pro and the larger Pixel 10 Pro XL will undoubtedly be the backbone of the four phones launched. These will come with the highest spec camera, memory, and storage options, tailored to Google's mobile artificial intelligence vision. Google's third foldable, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, will follow last year's trend and continue to be part of the main line of Pixels. The only non-Pro handset is the Pixel 10, and that might be the most interesting Pixel in terms of positioning and market impact, as I've noted previously: "While the headlines will no doubt focus on the extra features in the Pixel 10 Pro and the larger display of the Pixel 10 Pro XL, the Pixel 10 may have the heaviest impact on the market. The camera's hardware and software will be pushed to the limit, the latest version of Android will steer the conversation around mobile AI towards Google's vision, and the issue of the longevity of mid-range handsets will remain a point of discussion." The proposed dates of Aug 20 for launch and Aug 28 for availability would put the Pixel 10 launch one week later than last year's Pixel 9 family; 2024's Made By Google event was held on Aug 13, with retail releases on Aug 22 for the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro XL—he Pixel 9 Pro was delayed to Sept. 4. Now read more about the impact of the Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro smartphones on the Android market...
Forbes
15-04-2025
- Forbes
Why Is Google's Pixel 9a The New Template For A Successful Smartphone?
Google's Pixel 9a Ewan Spence Google's Pixel 9a is picking up critical acclaim, with many noting that offering the phone at $499 marks the 9a as one of the leading mid-range smartphones. While the Pixel 9a will be seen as a win for consumers, it will also be seen as Google's next play in defining what it means to be a smartphone. In this role, the Pixel 9a builds on the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro smartphones. So, what does the 9a tell us about Google's choices for the Pixel 9a and how they fit in the wider smartphone world? I've spent time with the Pixel 9a to find out how well its performance, photography, and AI impact today's consumer. Google's Pixel 9a Ewan Spence Since revamping the Pixel line with 2021's Pixel 6, Google has stepped away from offering a phone built around the most powerful chip of the day—generally seen as that year's Snapdragon 8 series from Qualcomm. Instead, it moved to its own design of chips, namely the mobile Tensor. The Pixel 9a sports the Tensor G4. This is the same chipset that drives the other current Pixel handsets (namely the Pixel 9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL, and 9 Pro Fold). The performance differential between the 9a and comparable phones at the $499 price point is less than that between the Pixel 9 Pro and other manufacturers' flagship handsets; online benchmarking shows the 9a closely matches Samsung's Galaxy A56. Google's Pixel 9a Ewan Spence Artificial Intelligence is the new yardstick for smartphones, which puts the Pixel 9a in a bind. While it does offer AI (and I do not doubt that the 9a/AI combination will be heavily marketed), memory is the limiting factor in the specifications. The Pixel 9a is the first of the Pixel 9 family to come with just 8 GB of memory; even with the hardware boost provided by the Tensor G4, the Pixel 9a's ability to use the growing suite of AI tools has to be restricted. While you might not grieve for the loss of Pixel Screenshots, Call Notes or AI Weather summaries, the 9a shows the technological limits of the current flavours of AI. If you want a full suite of AI, you will need to step beyond this phone. When I think of the AI features I want to see on a smartphone, it's clear that the Pixel 9a offers the experience you would expect. You have Google's widely advertised Magic Eraser to remove unwanted objects, pets, and people from a photograph; you have Best Take, which lets you pick the best facial expression for multiple pictures from the same moment; and you have Add Me, which composites two pictures so the person taking the photo can add themselves in. The Pixel 9a also has Google's Gemini Nano model, which runs the 'personal assistant' features, Circle to Search to query what's on your screen, and Magic Studio to help create images and text from natural language prompts. The core AI toolset, supported by services in the cloud, works as advertised. While the extra bells and whistles may not be available, Google is demonstrating the AI prowess a $499 phone can deliver. Google's Pixel 9a Ewan Spence It will come as no surprise to anyone that lowering the camera specs is one of the measures taken to get the cost of the Pixel 9a to stay at the $499 entry-level point. Google has retained a dual-lens format for the rear camera. The main lens is down from last year's Pixel 8a 64 megapixel sensor to 48 megapixel (which matches the main lens of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold). Ålongside that, you have the saw 13-megapixel ultrawide as the 8a. This is certainly a downgrade on the actual numbers, although, in practice, there's not a tremendous amount of difference between the 8a and 9a. That comes down to Google's investment in AI-assisted image processing, which carries over from the 8a and the Pixel 9 family. The macro mode is one addition to the Pixel 9a camera suite this year. This unusually uses the main camera lens and an assist from AI to capture focused images from 5 cm. As Google Product Manager Isaac Reynolds explained, consumers were already using portrait mode to take close-up pictures of food and objects, so why not ensure they had the best option possible in the Pixel 9a? Google's Pixel 9a Ewan Spence The new generation of the Pixel family (once again, from the Pixel 6) has carried a strong sense of brand identity. Like many manufacturers, the design and branding focuses on two areas. The first is the operating system and the UI. With the Pixel representing Google's view of Android, there's not much identity on offer here. The second area is the rear of the phone. Instead of an isolated raised island, the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro saw a horizontal bar that stretched across the length of the smartphone. With that choice, the Pixel range became clearly identifiable by consumers, and the phone had an identity. The camera bar is no longer on the Pixel 9a. Instead, we have the complete opposite with an almost featureless flat back. There is a tiny raised lip around the camera lenses (functionally great to help prevent scratches on the lens) and an inlaid 'G'; otherwise, there is no style or substance. The Pixel 9a is far from iconic and is the most non-descript smartphone from a mainline manufacturer in years. The Pixel 9a is essentially a flat block. The corners are curved, and there's a slight chamfer to the edges so they are comfortable in the hand. The screen comes with bezels, yet the 4mm bezels around the display is are the stand-out feature, but not in a good way. Switching to a dark theme helps hide this, but there's no getting away from the larger size compared to others in the mid-range. Who wins out from all this? Google's manufacturing partners. Phones from the likes of Samsung, OnePlus, Honor, Xiaomi, and more have identifiable features that people look for. The Pixel 9a simply doesn't stand out in the mid-range. If you are looking for 'a brand', you will end up elsewhere. Google's Pixel 9a Ewan Spence I'd expect to see the Pixel 9a feature heavily in discussions around "the best mid-priced phone'. It's a phone that manages to hit 'above average' in every department. That message will come through to customers. The Pixel 9a's ability to highlight the potential of artificial intelligence on lower specification devices, the ability to deliver a new camera experience through software, and the bland design that leaves room for innovation and styling will all be noted by Google's manufacturing partners. The Pixel 9a is a critical success, but the real success may be in the signpost it offers the whole Android community. Now read about a UI innovation that Google could add to a Pixel 9a successor…
Forbes
06-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Why The Pixel 10 Pro Is Your Blueprint For The Future
Pixel 9 Pro XL Ewan Spence The Android ecosystem reaches around the world, running on countless machines, all with their unique features. How does Google herd all of these partners and point out the direction it would like Android and the smartphone ecosystem to go in 2025? With the upcoming Pixel 10 Pro. The Pixel series followed on from the Google Nexus devices, whose focus was very much on being developer devices, to create a reference Android platform. The Pixel series still fulfils that function, but the device's additional goal is to build and maintain a retail market for a Google Phone. Sales of the Pixel range have hovered around a share of ten to twelve percent. That stands against a fifty percent share for Apple's iPhone and twenty-five percent for Samsung's Galaxy. You have a wide range of manufacturers underneath the leading three; naturally, these numbers get shuffled depending on the region. Wherever you are, the impact of the Pixel is clear. The choices made by Google in software, hardware, and services set expectations for what a smartphone should be delivering. The Pixel 10 family will continue that tradition, with consumers and manufacturers waiting to decide if they should follow Google's latest signpost. The most significant influence on the Android ecosystem is Android itself. It may be an open-source project, but the lion's share of commits and vision comes from Google. Manufacturers are free to use code from the Android Open Source Project (such as the e/OS/ powered Murena tablets and smartphones), but consumers expect to see base apps such as the Google App Store, Gmail, YouTube, Chrome, and more. That means partnering with Google to gain access to those services. Manufacturers still tailor Android to their needs, but at the base, the additions by Google to AOSP set the tone. The smartphone's move to artificial intelligence in general and generative AI in particular has seen a rush of new software, tools, and practices offered to consumers. Google opened up this era of smartphones with Gemini AI taking up much of the time of the Pixel 8 launch event. This introduced features such as Magic Editor, Best Take and Magic Eraser. With these, the mobile AI revolution was not only underway but also clearly defined. Subsequent launches by Google's manufacturing partners complemented this approach. Samsung, in particular, released Galaxy AI with exclusive features provided by Google, including Circle to Search. Pixel was at the head of the AI charge, but the rest of the Android army joined in the charge over the next year. It's also worth noting that Apple's approach to AI would not be presented for another eight months and would not reach the iPhone for eleven months after the launch of the Pixel 8 devices. When Apple Intelligence did launch, CEO Tim Cook and his team echoed Google's approach to AI. The paradigm that the Pixel introduced was now all-pervasive. Next month's Google I/O Developer conference will reinforce the approach to AI, and the Pixel 10 family will be the first to bring that to the public. The Pixel platform is the only one that uses Google's Tensor Mobile chipset at the core of the hardware. Instead or focusing on outright power. Tensor is built around the idea of smoother user experiences. Part of that is increasing the utility of AI routines, something that is achieved by the latest Tensor chipsets offering hardware tailored explicitly to processing AI demands, making them fast, more efficient and as invisible as possible to consumers. That approach has been followed by major chip manufacturers, including Samsung Foundry, MediaTek, and Qualcomm—for example, the launch of the latest Qualcomm 8 Gen 3 highlighted Qualcomm's investment in client-side processing for AI to consumer devices. Part of Google's decision to design the Tensor Mobile chipsets was to set back from ultimate power and focus on practical power. The support of Google's AI software and the new code contributed to Android feeds into the design process, and echoes of these decisions can be seen in the latest hardware from competing chipset manufacturers. The Pixel series of smartphones has to balance some unique demands; Google needs to balance selling its own phone while allowing its partners to find their success, it needs to direct the ecosystem while enabling manufacturers to keep designing unique experiences, and it needs to maintain the base code to offer a stable platform with disparate options. It's a mix that has worked well over the life of the Pixel, and the upcoming Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro phones will carry on that approach. Now read more about the upgrades coming to the Pixel 10 Pro later this year...
