Google Unveils Pixel 8 Lineup and More at Its Latest Hardware Showdown

On Wednesday, Google unveiled its latest products and software updates during the ‘Made by Google’ event. The new Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro smartphones stole the show, featuring the advanced Tensor G3 chip, which Google claims is their most powerful chip yet. With this new chipset, both devices offer numerous AI features, making the Pixel 8’s machine learning model ten times more complex than the previous model, the Pixel 7.

This year, Google has kept the iconic design of the Pixel while making some subtle changes. The Pixel 8 and 8 Pro feature rounded corners, giving them a softer look. Both models are available in unique colors such as Hazel, Rose, Obsidian, Porcelain, and a new blue color called Bay. The matte finish on the back of the Pixel 8 Pro adds a touch of elegance.

Google has introduced several new features to enhance its user experience. In addition to its existing innovations, the Call Screen feature can now effectively filter out spam calls, while the Clear Calling and Audio Magic Eraser features ensure clear audio and video communication. Furthermore, Google Assistant has improved its capabilities, allowing it to summarize text from websites and create summaries of audio captured in the Recorder app. This ensures that voice-generated messages are quicker and smoother for users.

The displays have been ramped up in brightness, reaching up to 2,400 nits on the Pixel 8 Pro, ensuring crystal-clear visibility indoors and outdoors. The smaller Pixel 8 now operates at a smooth 120Hz refresh rate, matching the fluidity traditionally reserved for more premium models.

In the camera department, the Pixel 8 sports a robust 50-megapixel main camera, while the Pro variant pushes the envelope with a 48-megapixel Quad PD ultrawide and telephoto lens, coupled with Google’s image-processing prowess to capture stunning visuals.

Inside, the phones house the new Tensor G3 chip, marking the third generation of Google’s in-house silicon. While the performance boost wasn’t overly emphasized, the real deal lies in the enhanced AI processing capabilities, promising a smarter smartphone experience.

Google promises an unprecedented seven years of security and feature updates, reinforced by camera and mic toggles, Google One VPN, and a Titan M2 security coprocessor.

Moving on to wearables, the Pixel Watch 2 made a grand entrance with a sleek design and enhanced health and fitness tracking features. The watch now boasts a new multi-path heart rate sensor and a body-response sensor, helping users stay on top of their wellness game.

The Pixel Buds Pro also made a cameo with new color variants and features like a low-latency mode and Conversation Detection to enrich the audio experience.

On the software frontier, Android 14 was rolled out with a focus on customization and enhanced accessibility settings. Additionally, the Assistant is set to become more intuitive and handy with integrating Bard AI, aiming to provide a more seamless user experience across various apps and services.

Google’s latest additions to their product line showcase their signature blend of modern design and advanced software capabilities. The Pixel devices and Pixel Watch 2 cater to photography enthusiasts, tech geeks, and anyone seeking a reliable and intuitive companion, providing an elevated user experience.

The post Google Unveils Pixel 8 Lineup and More at Its Latest Hardware Showdown first appeared on Yanko Design.

Pixel 6 Launch: Google gives us a deep-dive into the new Pixel’s refreshed product design





It’s rare for Silicon Valley companies to actually explain their design choices and decisions to their customers. Google flouted convention by beginning their Pixel Fall Launch keynote with a pretty comprehensive look at how they designed their latest flagship phone, from its hardware right down to its software.

Just yesterday Apple had us baffled with their MacBooks bringing back ports, connectors, and keyboard elements that Apple took away 5 years ago. Apple’s design process has always been a complete mystery, so it was really odd to see them finally walking back on their past design decisions and bringing MagSafe, HDMI, the SD Card slot, and the Function keys back to their MacBooks. While the Cupertino giant has a reputation of being shrouded by secrecy, Google on the other hand is perceived as much more open, forthcoming, and vocal… After all, they deliberately leaked their own Pixel 6 design MONTHS before it actually launched.

Just 10 minutes into the Pixel 6 reveal, head of hardware Rick Osterloh hands the stage to designer Isabelle Olson to talk about the Pixel 6’s design. Isabelle mentions the Pixel 6’s redesign on the back involves highlighting its breakout feature – its camera. With a bar running across the screen almost like a highlighter running across important text, the Pixel 6’s camera is the first thing you look at.

“So the Industrial Design team designed the phone to celebrate the camera”, Isabel mentions. “The camera bar brings a clean, symmetrical design that puts the camera front and center.” The bar, as strange as it looked back when the images were first leaked, is now an icon of the Pixel’s not-so-subtle evolution, and provides the perfect separating element for the phone’s dual-color back. The Pixel phones originally pioneered this with their split-tone design that had two different colors on the top and bottom of the phone’s rear surface. With the Pixel 6, that split-tone design gets a hearty refresh, with a black belt adding its fair share of contrast in the middle. The phones instantly look refreshing, and are immediately recognizable (a feature that really helps in a market where all smartphones are beginning to look alike).

The Pixel 6 comes in two variants, a 6 and a 6 Pro, which are different sized, and have slightly different designs, but are unified by the same visual language, UI, and the Tensor chip inside the phone. The 6 sports a black metal armature, with 3 color variants with their signature quirky names – Sorta Seafoam, Kinda Coral, and Stormy Black. The 6 Pro, on the other hand, has a more chrome armature (the team used jewelry references to highlight the differences between the Pro and regular models), and comes in Cloudy White, Sorta Sunny, and Stormy Black.

A concern I had earlier with the Pixel 6’s odd camera bump (it’s now referred to a camera bar) was how it made case-design impossible, or rather, difficult to elegantly execute. To subvert these worries, Google even released its own set of cases with a slightly tinted frosted design, matching colors with the phone you have underneath. When paired correctly, the case would actually complement the phone and highlight its color palette rather than being an obstructive piece of plastic that’s only purpose was to protect the phone. The cases, Isabelle claims, are also designed out of recycled plastic (the phone’s chassis is made from recycled aluminum too), helping further Google’s mission to build devices that have a minimal negative impact on the environment. From what it looks like, though, the cases don’t do much to protect the Pixel’s camera bar from direct impact, although that’s the kind of thing you find out months after customers actually buy and use the phones.

Moving onto software, Google has big plans for the Pixel thanks to how powerful its Tensor SoC is designed to be. The new chip unlocks a new era of Material Design that Google calls Material You. Instead of having you adjust to your phone’s settings, Material You has the phone adjust to YOU. For starters, the entire screen’s color palette changes to match your wallpaper, giving you an experience that’s unified. Widgets, icons, and elements complement your theme and they change when you change your wallpaper too. The phone also understands context exceptionally well, serving you up with the information you need right when you need it, from your fitness app’s stats while you’re jogging, to your boarding pass while you’re heading for a flight. As Rick Osterloh keeps reiterating, the Pixel 6 is a completely new take on smartphones, both inside as well as out.

Designer: Google

Watch the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro video below.





Google Pixel 6 leaked images show a smartphone with a ‘camera belt’ instead of a bump





When John Prosser leaks or predicts something, one usually takes it with a grain of salt. He’s been right about a bunch of designs, including the colorful iMacs, the AirTags, and even the AirPods Max, but he missed it with the Pixel 5, and even made a pretty big bet about the date of Apple’s Spring Loaded event this year. A bet which he lost and had to shave his eyebrows on YouTube for. However, taking things in his stride, Prosser is back for yet another prediction/leak which he feels is right on point. It’s the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, which Google is slated to release this year… with Google’s first homemade silicone chip on the inside to rival Apple’s M1, and more noticeably, a whopper of a camera bump.

I wouldn’t really call this a bump because it’s so wide and protruding, it’s practically a shelf. Prosser claims these images are as legit as they come, because they’re based on actual leaked photos from his inside source. Deciding it was better to protect the source by creating fresh 3D renders rather than just circulating those leaked images, Prosser collaborated with Ian Zelbo to bring the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro to life. Now I’ll be much more critical of Google’s strategy when the phone actually drops (because Google did such a horribly half-assed job with the Pixel 5 last year, drawing the ire of many Android lovers… me included), so let’s just look at these renders for what they are. According to Prosser, Google’s working on two phones, the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro (they ditched the XL name). The smaller 6 has a dual-camera setup on the back, while the slightly taller Pro opts for 3 cameras. The Pixel’s design language has been famous for its color-blocking design, with the upper half being glossy and black, and the lower half being a variety of colors and finishes. This concept develops on that original style, adding a band of black running between the upper and lower blocks.

Objectively speaking, the band protrudes at least 2-3 millimeters from the phone’s back, making it look almost like a belt or a shelf emerging from the phone. Subjectively, it kind of makes the phone look like a criminal – serves them right for stealing the ‘Pro’ nomenclature from Apple! However, that really isn’t an indictment on the phone’s design itself, it gives the Pixel a strong new character, which makes sense, because this is a new era for the Pixel.

Prosser further breaks down the renders, talking about how the two phones come in different colors too. The smaller Pixel 6 has an orange band on top and a pure white block at the bottom. The Pro version, however, ditches the white bottom for an orange-tinted white. Prosser also mentions the presence of a Champagne-Gold Pixel 6 Pro (the first image in this article) that I personally really love.

The renders are as close as possible to the leaked images Prosser has his hands on. In fact, it even exactly mimics the wallpaper and widget on the screen. The screen even comes with a centrally aligned hole-punch camera, and we still have no word on whether there’s an in-screen fingerprint reader, so the jury’s still out on that. Interestingly though, the final image in this piece has the Pixel 6 sitting beside a rather interesting-looking smartwatch. Could it be the highly anticipated Pixel smartwatch?? Let’s wait till Google’s product event to find out!

Image Credits: Jon Prosser & Ian Zelbo

Google teases image of what the Nest Home smart-speaker will look like in 2020

Even though the Pixel 4a didn’t pan out the way Google wanted to, the rest of the company’s hardware seems to be on track. Images of the new Nest Home speaker inadvertently leaked online during regulatory filings, so Google decided to release a much more cosmetic-looking official photo of what the new Nest smart speaker would look like. The image (which can be found immediately below) was provided to The Verge, and was used as a framework for the renders created by Yanko Design (above and at the end of the article).

The new Nest speaker kind of sits between the large Google Home Max speaker and the small, dottish Nest Mini. There isn’t much clarity on what color options Google will be looking at, although the blue displayed in the images sort of ties in with Pantone’s Color Of The Year (Google released a coral-colored Nest Mini last year to match the 2019 Pantone COTY too). Apart from that, the standard grey and anthracite seem to be Google’s go-to hues.

Details on the speaker’s hardware are scant at the moment, but it looks like the new Nest Home 2020 smart speaker should be a sort of spiritual successor to the Google Home which released in 2016. The Nest Home 2020 (we’re yet to see if it’ll be called that) should make its appearance at the company’s Made By Google event later this year.

Designer: Google

Supplementary Images by Sarang Sheth

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