Google recently announced its latest Pixel smartphones 8 and 8 Pro. Well, I haven’t yet got a hang of the devices. Going by the product details shared by Google so far, one can easily conclude it’s the best that an android can get today, when it comes to smartphones. Here in this blog I explain why, though with a caveat that this is a review in absentia (basis whatever is available from Google’s main page about Pixel 8).
With Pixel 8 Series, we can say Google has launched world’s 1st ‘AIndroid’ smartphone, a combination of AI and Android. This is taking the smartphone experience to the next level, making the intelligent besides being smart. Back in 2017, I had talked about a similar concept in this column featured in Your Story.
Pixel has been one of the promising smartphones not just in Android but across. However, Google has not been doing much beyond creating a great product for it to fly. Especially in markets like India, where its awareness is extremely low. Even the ones who get to know about Pixel don’t find it easily in the market. In India you have to go beyond the LFRs and ecommerce, if you want to make your brand big in sales! However, I am seeing some change with Pixel 8 launch as one can notice better marketing and visibility being created across offline and online mediums. I remember some few years back even the basics weren’t in order. For example, the SEO. Google’s page would rank 4th or 5th on the search results for Pixel and related keywords back then.
Google is attempting some fundamental changes in the smartphone industry. Very honestly, these are much required. First and foremost, Google is developing the product with a software first orientation. While looking at the output, one can be sure that Google designs its Pixel by defining what it wants the product to be capable of leveraging software including layers from AI, etc. Then through a backward approach it figures out the hardware it needs for that. This is perhaps the reason why it felt that the silicon from the pureplay chip companies isn’t perhaps enough and went up to design its own Tensor. The industry otherwise goes the reverse way. It looks at the kind of hardware available and then decides what all features can be made available to the end customer using this hardware. This is a major change in the thought process that Google is attempting to bring.
Be it the Pixel 8 or Pixel 8 Pro – both have several interesting features that leverage AI and machine learning making the smartphones much more useful and productive. Not only that, but these also make them intelligent. Something that we have been missing in the industry. With these power apps and functions that Google has built on top of the Pixel hardware, the smartphones seem to have finally started to think. Finally making them intelligent as well.
The other thing with Google is that we are seeing another smartphone maker, only after Apple, which isn’t overloading smartphones with hardware specifications. Google has gone with balanced specifications for all key hardware and not necessarily with the highest available configuration in the market. This makes the device optimally engineered and designed. Finally, the voice of having optimal hardware becomes stronger. The android smartphone OEMs would always argue that Android is a sub-optimal OS and hence they are forced to top up with the highest configurations to extract the smooth and flawless experience from the smartphone. Through Pixel, Google is showing that’s not the case. You can still make a smooth, efficient, and intelligent smartphone with optimal hardware configurations.
Finally, again taking away from the hardware, Google is wanting to convince consumers that they don’t need a smartphone every 2-3 years. Perhaps they just need one smartphone for every cellular generation, which typically spans between 7-10 years. With 7 years of OS upgrade, they will keep delivering the best of the experiences without the customer feeling the need of replacing or upgrading a smartphone. This will be another game changer. We need to reduce the replacement and upgrade cycles for several reasons. Sustainability being one of them. If Google can convince the consumers that they can use the same smartphone for at least 7 years and get the best of the experiences, it is a very big sustainability call. Leave aside the other benefits.
To me Google Pixel 8 and 8 Pro is a game changer both for the industry as well as the consumers. It is making smartphones intelligent, bringing the AIndroid power to them as well as putting across a software first thought in the ecosystem. With, what all it can do that too with such a great experience, I can only say it’s the best that an android can get!
