Google’s Pixel phones are in trouble

Almost every review of the Google Pixel 8 and Google Pixel 8 Pro talks about how these two take us to the promised land of AI nirvana on smartphones. Is Google Assistant Screening Calls for you? check. More intelligent Smart Answer suggestions? Of course, my lazy soul deserves that convenience. Advanced zoom that relies on pixel-level image reconstruction to remove blurry edges? My Instagram dump would love this.

Remove noise from video? I want that too. Summary of web articles? It’s every tab-hoarding journalist’s dream. Those are all AI features that put the Pixel 8 Duo in a different league. But it is not impossible to imitate them. Additionally, it also appears that Google intentionally locked out some camera wizardry to justify the Pixel 8 Pro’s thousands-of-dollar price tag.

The pitch for Google Pixel phones is still good, but between some questionable decisions from Google this year — and fierce competition that isn’t going to stop — it’s not unreasonable to think that the Pixel family is in danger.

A dragon is burning Google’s house

For ease of comparison, let’s focus on the Pixel 8 Pro. This is a great phone for $999. But at $999 it’s not the best phone. And once smartphones powered by Qualcomm’s AI-savvy Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chips hit the market, the Pixel’s vaunted AI edge will further diminish. Also take a look at the Xiaomi 14 Duo, launched on October 26, and the OnePlus 12 sitting around the corner.

Thanks to the new Qualcomm chip inside and new HyperOS software, the Xiaomi device offers AI-aligned features like speech generation, an article summary trick that transcribes video calls into notes and concise summaries, AI image generation, text-to- -Constructs slides. , and the ability to turn doodles into artwork. Like the Xiaomi 14, the upcoming flagship from Honor using the same Qualcomm chip will also be able to run Foundation Generator AI models natively on the smartphone.

but that’s not all. Qualcomm says the advanced NPU and AI stack on its latest flagship chip will allow users to remove unwanted objects from videos, just like Pixel phones. Expanding the canvas of images by using AI plugins to complete multi-step complex tasks with voice prompts, as well as text-to-image generation, are among the many other tactics it could adopt.

The latest Qualcomm chip doesn’t completely nail down the Google Pixel’s AI credentials, but an average Android flagship has never been close to matching the intelligence Google often offers for its phones. Will the Pixel suddenly become “just another premium Android phone” after the onslaught of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones? Not necessary. But have their value diminished? Absolutely, and for more reasons than just fancy AI tricks.

And that’s what Qualcomm is doing. On November 6, MediaTek announced the Dimensity 9300 – its latest generation of mobile chipsets. Similar to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, the Dimensity 9300 also offers big AI upgrades that affect display output, 5G, and other aspects of your phone. We won’t see the Dimensity 9300 in as many handsets as we will with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, but regardless, Google’s days as an AI champion are fast coming to an end.

Of course, Google has some major leverage points — like a smart Google Assistant, a generative AI pup called Google Bard, and some software-side camera chops. But these are hardly the features that are “must-haves” on a thousand-dollar phone.

Even aging rivals rise up

What do you say, seven years of OS updates? This is very good. But is there any assurance that all the new software experiences Google develops in the coming years will run on your old Pixel 8 in 2029? Almost certainly not. Look no further than the Pixel 8, which can’t pull off every trick like the Pixel 8 Pro. And then you look at the wide feature differences between the Pixel 7 and Pixel 8 generations. I won’t go too deep into the past, but you get the idea where I’m going.

Now let’s talk about qualifications. Is the Pixel 8 Pro the best $999 phone? Certainly so. Can it beat the latest “Pro” iPhone? Certainly not on raw performance. Certainly not at the benefit of the ecosystem. Obviously, not on longevity of software support. Unfortunately, the Pixel lags even Apple flagships by a good margin in battery endurance and video capture finesse.

Let’s take a look at the Android world. Last year’s Galaxy S22 Ultra is still better than the Pixel 8 Pro’s Tensor G3 chip in some key benchmark tests. It has a great zoom camera and great night mode capabilities. From a customization standpoint, the software is more feature-rich than the Pixel 8 Pro. It has some neat ecosystem benefits that go well with Windows PCs. Older Samsung flagships also get a desktop-like subsystem called DeX. Battery life is better and thermals too.

problems, problems, problems

So, where exactly is the “wow” aspect of the Pixel 8 series, especially the Pro? Let’s say a phone is the sum of its parts. But the sum of the parts — even the most basic parts — isn’t the whole of the Pixel 8 series. Heck, Pixels can’t even rid itself of its predecessor’s curse.

Genuine Pixel 8 series users are, once again, complaining about a poor antenna on Google phones – resulting in poor network reception. A user ran a Tested using Android app and found that the latest Pixel is giving low level network reception results. This is a basic quality, and a phone Sure get it right. After all, we buy phones to be able to make calls. Apple legend Steve Jobs is still ridiculed for downplaying the iPhone’s poor antenna problem by calling it a “you’ve got it wrong” mistake.

It’s sad that Google still hasn’t fixed the serious issue of Pixel phones not being able to call the 911 emergency hotline. The last 911 issue post was dated just a few days ago on Reddit. There’s a whole series of posts documenting the 911 call failure on Reddit that recount this scary incident. There is no guarantee that Pixel 8 users won’t face similar issues.

There are already a lot of complaints on Reddit regarding connectivity issues with the Pixel 8 series phones. The Pixel 7 duo and the earlier Pixel 6 series also gave buyers similar headaches. There are also dozens of complaints related to other problems like heating, battery drain, and various types of software bugs.

tensor tension

Now that we’re done discussing pixel problems in depth, let’s discuss the lagging status of Tensor chips, which reach their third iteration in 2023.

Things were shaky from the beginning. Google has confirmed this 9to5Google said it blocked benchmarking apps – which run synthetic load scenarios to test a processor’s capability – to prevent leaks. Some say Google did this to prevent ineffective benchmark scores from causing an uproar online. Let’s give Google the benefit of the doubt here. But the numbers don’t lie.

In demanding tests like the 3DMark Wildlife Extreme simulation, the Tensor G3 was in the same league as the two-generation-old Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Apple’s A15 Bionic chips. On GFXBench Aztec running at 1440p in offscreen mode, it once again delivers lower numbers than the aforementioned Qualcomm and Apple processors and even lags behind MediaTek’s Dimensity 9000.

Moving up to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and Apple A17 Pro, the Tensor G3 doesn’t even deserve to be in the same league as other 2023 flagship chips. The A17 Pro averages around 2,800 on the Geekbench 6 single-core test and above. 7,000 on multi-core runs. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (inside the Galaxy S23 Ultra) clocks 2,000+ and 5,200+ in the single-core and multi-core tests respectively. Comparable numbers from the Tensor G3 are in the around 1,700 range in single-core and 4,400 range in multi-core tests.

On AnTuTu, the A17 Pro proves to be around 60% faster, while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is around 40 to 45% more powerful. The A17 Pro’s lead on some demanding graphics-intensive tests is nearly 150% above the Tensor G3. These are not small numbers by any stretch of the imagination. And as the Pixel 8 series gets older, they’ll fall out of favor as more new AI experiences come along that demand more firepower.

Combine all this with the impressive chip design used on MediaTek’s Dimensity 9300 – a chip that’s already benchmarking slightly higher than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 – and there’s no doubt that things are looking good for Tensor. Are not visible.

What does this mean for Google Pixel

So, here’s a brutal overview followed by a rough Pixel 8 Pro review. Ultimately, your phones will continue to get Android OS upgrades over the seven annual generations, but they won’t get all the fancy features that will appear in new Pixels in the years to come. And this brings us back to position one. How forgivable is negligence in favor of a few AI tricks before deciding to spend money on a Pixel when the competition clearly offers a better experience?

Phones aren’t just about AI. It is forgivable to lag behind by one or two generations. But after that, you need to re-invent the wheel. We are on the verge of a paradigm shift where on-device generative AI is knocking on Android’s door. On the other side of the mobile ecosystem, Apple is pushing console-grade games and pro-grade camera tricks on the iPhone. The Pixels look worryingly weak and definitely not ready for that change.

At the end of the day, the Pixel 8 duo isn’t bad, at least not in 2023. But Google needs to catch up, and by doing a lot.