Only the important bits about the new hardware product Google announced today at its New York event.
Google’s big hardware event in New York just concluded and there’s quite a few products to talk about. The primary focus is the new Google Pixel 3 and the Pixel 3 XL which has been leaked countless times over the past few months. The launch event essentially confirmed most of what we already knew. Google also launched the Google Home Hub, the Google Pixel Slate and the Pixel Stand.
Here are the important bits about the new products that you need to know:
Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL
There wasn’t much surprising about the Google Pixel 3 and the Pixel 3 XL smartphones as most of the key info was already leaked before the launch. Like its predecessors, the Pixel 3 comes in a 5.5-inch form factor while the Pixel 3 XL tout a 6.3-inch panel. The big one has a big notch and may not be up to everyone’s tastes. Both phones have a flexible-OLED display with smaller bezels around it. There is a single lens camera at the back that is capable of doing some interesting machine learning trickery like capturing the photo at the right moment, enhance low-light photos (Google claims you don’t even need to use the flash), insert animated characters like Marvel’s Avengers in photos and videos and more. Up front is a pair of 8MP sensors, one of them has a wide-angle lens with a 184 degree field of view capable of taking sweeping wide group selfies.
The new Pixel phones run on Android 9 Pie out of the box and comes with useful new features like call screening where Google Assistant will take the call on your behalf and let you who it is and why they’re calling. Google Lens is also integrated in the camera and throws up information in real-time.
The Google Pixel 3 and the Pixel 3 XL are powered by the Snapdragon 845 chipset paired with 4GB LPDDR4X RAM and are offered in 64GB and 128GB storage variants. The Pixel 3 starts from Rs 71,000 while the Pixel 3 XL starts from Rs 83,000.
Pixel Stand
The Pixel Stand is Google’s own wireless charging pad. The new Google Pixel 3 and the Pixel 3 XL support wireless charging and the Pixel Stand can charge the phone wirelessly while it’s upright. While on charge, the phone doubles up as a photo frame displaying photos in a carousel. The dock is powered by a USB-Type C charger and supports fast charging based Qi wireless charging standards. The phone’s UI also changes itself by throwing up album arts if music is playing. The Pixel Stand is designed to be kept beside the bed to act as a do-it-all device including waking you up with a special ‘sunrise’ alarm.
Pixel Slate
The Google Pixel Slate is a tablet, but doesn’t run on Android. Instead, it runs on Google’s Chrome OS that powers Google’s Chromebooks. The Pixel Slate has a 12.3-inch display with 8MP cameras on the front and the back, housed in an anodised aluminium chassis. The Slate can be attached to a keyboard wirelessly via Bluetooth or you can use Google’s own Pixel Slate Keyboard sold separately. The keyboard attaches magnetically to the Slate and has a set of full-sized keys that are roundish in shape. There’s also a trackpad on it.
The Pixel Slate is powered by 8th Gen Intel Core m3, i5, i7 or Intel Celeron processors. There’s 4GB, 8GB or 16GB of RAM on offer with storage options starting from 32GB to all the way up to 256GB.
The Pixel Slate also has the Titan C security chip for hardware-level privacy protection. There are two front-firing speakers. Sadly, there’s no LTE connectivity.
Google Home Hub
The Google Home Hub adds to the family of smart devices. It’s a smart display that serves as a photo frame or a kitchen companion. There are a lot of other use cases for it and is the home to a more visual version of Google Assistant. You can watch videos on YouTube, control your smart home gadgets and schedule routines for them. The Home Hub uses Voice Match so it operates only with your voice or other members of the family. When not in use, the display shows information such as the time, calendar appointments, weather and traffic.
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