In an age littered with great Android smartphones, Google’s new Pixel 2 smartphones remain intriguing. The company is hailing the devices as an integration of hardware, software, and artificial intelligence, and judging from its announcement earlier today, the new smartphones certainly look very interesting.
As always, the new Google Pixel 2 devices are impossible to fully judge based on their hardware alone – but it is a good indicator of how good they are. During the presentation, Google made little emphasis on the Pixel 2’s hardware list – but its product page revealed that it is very similar to a lot of 2017 Android flagships in the market. In fact, it loses out in some areas, too.
The Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL are both similar devices, with the only differences being the display size and resolution, as well as the battery capacity. Both phones are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor with 4GB of RAM, 64 or 128GB of storage, and are rated IP67 for dust and water resistance.
As for the cameras, the Pixel 2 phones have a single 12.2MP f/1.8 dual-pixel rear sensor with OIS – an interesting choice given the dual-camera craze these days. But, with Google’s machine learning algorithms, the Pixel 2 phones have Portrait Mode in both the rear and front 8MP cameras.
Until the phones are officially available, their hardware is all we have to go by. With that in mind, we’ve created the following table to compare the Pixel 2 phones with other flagship smartphones released this year. We’ve also included the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and iPhone X too, even if the iPhones cannot be judged by its hardware alone.
As can be seen from the table, the Google Pixel 2 smartphones aren’t exactly groundbreaking in their hardware. The Snapdragon 835 chip is present in virtually all flagship 2017 devices, and 4GB of RAM today can be found on budget devices such as the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4.
What the Pixel 2 devices does have as a true advantage is in the software. With pure Android, there is no bloatware and duplicate apps to bog the phone down. Plus, the Pixel devices are the first to receive the latest Android updates – Google is also guaranteeing an impressive three years of updates.
As for the camera, Google is leaning on a combination of machine learning and new hardware instead of jumping on the dual camera bandwagon. It has already received a near-perfect score from Dx0Mark, which provides some justification on Google’s decision.
The original Google Pixel and Pixel XL were already touted as one of the best Android smartphones of last year. With the Pixel 2, Google is aiming to go one step higher – even if the hardware isn’t particularly outstanding.
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