Google Pixel, Google Pixel XL Smartphones Launched

Google at its much-anticipated #MadeByGoogle event in San Francisco unveiled the Google Pixel smartphone in two sizes. The launch event was however one of the worst kept secrets from Google, and almost everything was leaked in advance of the event. The company has announced the India price to start at Rs. 57,000, and “pre-sales” in India from October 13 and will be available from Flipkart, Reliance Digital, and Croma. The smartphones will also be available from smaller retailers, the company said, but did not announce which ones. The company says interest free EMI programs and attractive upgrade offers will be available in India.

Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, at the launch discussed the company’s efforts with artificial intelligence and machine learning to build tools like the Google Assistant. To recall, the Google Assistant was first unveiled at Google I/O, and has already reach the general public with the Google Allo instant messaging app. Rick Osterloh, the new head of Google’s newly formed hardware division, introduced the presence of Assistant in two new surfaces – in the context of the Pixel phone, and the Google Home speaker.

The Pixel is the first phone made and designed by Google. It is also the first phones with Google Assistant built-in. Google Pixel smartphone will come with 24×7 Customer Care feature which can help resolve issues on the device real-time. Pixel users will have access to a toll free phone support number along with 54 walk in service centres across over 30 cities in India.

The Google Pixel comes in two sizes – 5-inch full-HD Amoled display and Google Pixel XL featuring 5.5-inch Quad HD Amoled display. Both the models will be available with almost identical innards except the screen size and battery size.

Google Pixel will be available exclusively via Verizon and unlocked version from Google store. The smartphone will be available for pre-orders starting Tuesday in Australia, Canada, Germany, UK, and the US. It has been priced at $649 (approximately Rs. 43,000) for the unlocked version while on Verizon, Pixel will be available at $27 per month. It will be available in Quite Black, Really Blue, and Very Silver colour.

The Google Pixel phones sport aluminium unibody and also feature polished glass combination at the back. Both phones are powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor, with two cores clocked at 1.6GHz, and two cores clocked at 2.15GHz. Pixel smartphones will pack 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM and sport Pixel imprint fingerprint sensor. Both the smartphones sport 12.3-megapixel rear camera with large f/2.0 aperture. Both sport 8-megapixel front camera.

As rumoured ahead of the launch, Pixel smartphones will only come in 32GB and 128GB storage models. The Android 7.1 Nougat-based Pixel smartphones will come with USB Type-C and will include the 3.5mm audio jack.

Source: Gadgets360