The Google Pixels: Seven Years of Software Support in Apple, Google, and the Tensor Families of Smartphones vs. Apple
On October 12th, Google will launch a pair of phones, the $799Pixel 8 and $949 Pixel 8 Pro, each of which look like a $100 price increase over last year’s phones. But the showstopper feature of the new Pixels may be Google’s software support, as it’s claiming the new phones will see seven whole years of OS and security updates — rivaling Apple’s reign as the longest-lasting phones.
Seven years of software support is a big step up compared to what Google has offered previously, which has been limited to five years of security updates and only three years of Android OS upgrades. It’s also a longer support period than what is currently offered by all of the other Android competitors. Four generations of version updates and five years of security updates are all promised by several manufacturers of flagships.
The two lineups also come with different software support policies. Both thePixel 8 andPixel 8 Pro will receive at least seven years of security updates from Google. In contrast, the Pixel 7 lineup only offers five years of security updates and three years of Android upgrades, meaning its software will start to go out of date sooner than that of the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro.
Thanks to the fact that it uses its own hardware, the freedom to offer this extended support period is more granted than most of its competitors. Fairphone, a competing Android manufacturer that prioritizes lengthy support periods for its devices, has publicly spoken about how difficult it is to continue to support a phone after a chipset manufacturer like Qualcomm ends support for the processor used. In Google’s case with Tensor, the power is in its own hands.
Apple, another manufacturer that also produces its own processors for its phones, offers similarly lengthy support periods. Although the company doesn’t promote explicit promises about the number of years it supports its devices, it released five major updates for the 2017 iPhone X before removing support with iOS 17 this year. Even then, however, Apple will occasionally release security patches for older devices.
Camera Upgrades in the Google Pixel 8 Pro and 8 Pro: New Features, New Upgrades, and New Updates In The Google Photos App
Powering these new features is the new Tensor G3 processor, which is paired with 8GB of RAM in the Pixel 8. Google boasts that the G3 runs an AI machine learning model that’s 10 times more complex than what was used on the Pixel 6, and it can do a better job filtering out spam calls, erasing unwanted background audio from video recordings, and making your calls sound clearer. New features in the keyboard and recorder app support seamless switching between multiple languages when using voice transcription, and the Pixel 8 can translate a website and read it aloud to you. It can also provide bullet point summaries for sites in the Google app and Chrome browser, similar to how Bard and other online AI assistants work on the desktop.
Speaking of photography improvements, the cameras on the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro offer a few upgrades as well. Unlike the base models, both the Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel 7 Pro feature a 48-megapixel telephoto lens with up to 5x optical zoom. The 48-megapixel ultrawide camera lens on the Pixel 8 Pro allows it to focus as close as 2 cm in macro mode. That’s an upgrade over the 12-megapixel ultrawide camera found in the Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 7, and Pixel 8, as well as the Pixel 7A’s 13-megapixel ultrawide camera.
Some of the most significant new camera features aren’t related to the hardware at all but are seen in the Google Photos app. The Magic Eraser feature that was announced back at Google I/O will be available after launch for the Pixel 8 and lets you completely change an image by moving subjects around and changing backgrounds. The new Best Take feature will combine images taken from a series to make sure that everyone is smiling at the same time.
There is a slightly brighter f/1.7 lens on the 50-megapixel main camera sensor. The Pro’s 5x telephoto module gets an upgraded 48-megapixel camera with faster autofocus, and there’s a higher-res 48-megapixel sensor in the ultrawide camera, which is now capable of focusing as close as 2cm in macro mode. The front-facing camera is getting an upgrade. You can control the focus, shutter speed, and lens with the pro camera controls on the Pro phone.
The Photo Service: Updates and Adaptations for the Pixel 8 Pro and High-Resolution Photos with Cameras, Camera App, and Face Recognition
There are lots of new software features in the photo service. When you take a series of photos of a group of people, you’ll have the option afterward to choose the best face for your subjects and save it all in one final frame. There’s also Audio Magic Eraser, which aims to isolate distracting sounds in videos so you can minimize or remove them.
The new pro controls on the Pixel 8 Pro allows you to control settings like focus, zoom and so on, and it also allows you to use the camera app to shoot up to 50 photos per second.
Though it is far from being full-on Bard, the Assistant gets some updates. Google says it will be able to understand speech better and recognize pauses and fillers like “um” more effectively. It will be able to read the web pages aloud to you. Even the keyboard gets a little AI flavor with a one-touch option to clean up typos and grammatical errors.
The Pixel 8 maintains the two-lens camera setup, updating its 50-megapixel main camera with a wider aperture and its 12-megapixel ultrawide camera with autofocus and macro capabilities. The main camera on the new phones is said to be more sensitive to light than the old one, and the same sensor as the one used on the new phones. You have to buy the Pixel 8 Pro if you want a telephoto.
That new display now refreshes at 120Hz, up from the Pixel 7’s 90Hz, but it is not LTPO and can only vary between 60 and 120Hz for battery life savings. If you want a screen that goes from 1Hz to 120Hz, you have to pay for the Pixel 8 Pro. The same price as the Pixel 8, the iPhone 15 has a 60Hz screen.
The brightness of the screen will increase to 2000 nits, and it supports always-on display features. The Pixel 8’s battery is 4,485mAh, up about 5 percent over the Pixel 7. That battery is not huge but also not small — Google claims “beyond 24 hour battery life,” but I would read that with a skeptical eye. Google’s 30W wired charger (not included) will bring the Pixel 8 up to 50 percent in 30 minutes, or you can use wireless charging for a slower but more convenient top-up.
One of the more surprising additions to the Pixel 8 series is support for secure face authentication. If you’ve been following Pixel hardware over the years, you’ll remember that the Pixel 4 was the only one to ever support facial recognition as a secure biometric authentication method, utilizing Google’s radar technology. The Pixel 8 series doesn’t have the Soli chip that powered that function in the older handset, but these new phones have the same capabilities. This means you can use your face to securely access banking and payment apps, or anything that usually requires a PIN or fingerprint authentication. Both of the phones have face recognition but they don’t have fingerprints.
The phones are capable of shooting 4K videos at 60 frames per second, but the main camera can only shoot at 60 frames per second. The Pixel 8 Pro will also arrive with new video capabilities in December, like Video Boost for more true-to-life colors, which will even work in low-light conditions when using the Night Sight feature.
How much the phone costs and its size is what we need to discuss first. The 6.1-inch Google Pixel 7A is the smallest of all of the phones and also the most affordable, starting at $499. The average size of the two phones is 6.1 and 6.3 inches, and both cost $599 and $699. Meanwhile, the Pixel 8 Pro — like the 7 Pro — is once again the largest at 6.7 inches and starts at $999, which is $100 more than the 7 Pro’s original price. The Pro models also offer more storage configuration, with the 8 Pro maxing out at 1TB and the 7 Pro offering up to 512GB. The other phones are less than optimal at being able to fit in more than just the recommended amount of storage.
There are a lot of issues that can be solved with an iPad, one thing that allows them to be used for years is the huge amount of processing power of the A-series processors. So, how do Google’s new Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro stack up in the spec department? If these phones are to last users seven years, what kind of specs are they packing to get the job done and not feel like someone ends up in the penalty box of sluggish performance after a new Android OS version drops years down the line?
You can use its new features no matter what series you own, since both thePixel 8 and thePixel 7 lineups can run onANDROID 14. You can only describe their appearance on the phones at the time of their launch. One of the features available on the phones is the ability to sign in to third-party apps with your fingerprint or use your phone as a webcam.
In our testing, we found the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro offered all-day battery life, while the 7A offered slightly less. Google claims both the Pixel 8 phones should at least last over 24 hours if not up to 72 hours with the battery saver mode on. Of course, we’ve yet to test the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, so it’s hard to tell how long they’ll last in reality.
What distinguishes a phone from a rival: a comparison with a guide to the other devices in the category of high-performance smartphones
That is only a brief comparison of what distinguishes each phone. If you want to dig in even further, we’ve gathered all the specs you need to know in the table below.