Pixelated - Mid by Google

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

Welcome to Pixelated episode 112. This week, Damien, Abner, and Will share their early impressions of the Pixel 11 series, offer a full breakdown of the actual Made by Google event, and share some big picture thoughts on the future of Pixel hardware inspired by this HiLight ad. Enjoy the episode? You can listen to our brand new weekly members-only Pixelated Pro bonus episode by signing up for 9to5Google Pro! Sponsored by Proton Unlimited: Pixelated listeners can save 30% on an annual subscription to the company’s suite of privacy-friendly services by signing up using our link. Thanks to Proton Unlimited for sponsoring the podcast. Subscribe YouTube Podcasts Pocket Casts Spotify Amazon Music Apple Podcasts Overcast

Welcome to Pixelated episode 112. I'm your host, Will Saddleberg. This week, we're breaking down everything out of Made by Google, with early Pixel 11 impressions, a full breakdown of Google's Trevor Noah hosted event, and some big picture thoughts on the future of pixel hardware in the Gemini era. It all starts right after this message from our sponsor, Proton. Grab your phone and take a look at your app drawer right now.

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which includes 500 gigabytes of cloud storage, custom email domains, a dedicated customer support team, and so, so much more. It's what's best for your current phone, not whatever you were using back in 2013. Upgrade to Proton today and save 30% on your annual subscription by heading to Proton. me slash 9 to 5 Google or by clicking the link in the show notes that's proton dot me slash 9 to 5 google thanks to proton for sponsoring pixelated so i guess we've officially been made by google made by google google made by google made by google made i don't know you have any years in i still that i still don't like google's penchant for going by google on it does feel weird it does feel weird It doesn't it? It does feel weird. So how are we feeling if this launch, Abner, because I know you were there in person. We've been remotely tuning in and stuff. And I have since watched the keynote because it was 11 o'clock my time.

Yes. So it, to me, my main takeaway is that it's tamer than last year. They kept the same studio format, live audience. That's how they phrase to the crowd. repeatedly. But yeah, it just felt tamer and how did you guys feel watching it? Okay. Do you want the, I guess, the corporate answer or do you want the personal answer? Because I know why they're trying to go down this route

and we said it multiple times on a podcast before. But at the same time, why is it so wooden? Why is nobody? Nobody seems to be relaxed. It's like it's supposed to be more relaxed atmosphere, but it feels even more stunted. And I don't know if maybe like there's added pressure on it because it's the third phone in the row, right? Third same phone in a row.

Third same phone in a row. Will, what did you think? I guess like before this, the question I kept asking was like, who was this for? And people kind of reassuring me like, oh, it's it's for normal people. like that Apple-like atmosphere around their event of like normal people watching it too. And having caught the event on replay last night because it was while it was making dinner. Like what a weird time. Yeah, I still don't know who this was for. Who is this for? It was so long, but it was not like entertaining, I thought.

Like it was pretty dry. I agree with you, Damien. Like, wouldn't is a great word for it. if I was just like a normal person, I would have, I definitely would have tuned out like pretty quickly. Do you think, like, do you feel like,

and this is just coming to me right now, I don't know why I've just thought of it now. So I know that US late night talk show television is much bigger than it is over here. We don't really have, we have Graham Norton, that's about it. We don't really have anyone who does this anymore. Can take John all over with you.

Yeah. Do you feel like this is, do you feel like this is Google, Google, Google effectively wants the pixel launch to be a segment in one of those shows. And does that feel like it would be better to do that anyway? Would it not make more sense if Google, they want to have to have a keynote, right? They have to have a huge Rasmataz and that we're launching a product.

But at the same time, would it not make more sense for them to just be like, do you know what? Here's 30 minutes. 30 minutes of every single, every single thing that's new. We're going to absolutely hammer the internet with adverts anyway and then do 30 minutes on these shows and have it a bit more kind of, oh, it's a bit more fun. I don't know, maybe, maybe there's, maybe there's too much control. That makes sense of too worried about making a mistake and not coming across as fun and and approachable. It's also, I mean, I don't know, I feel like if I was like a casual viewer of like the

Tonight Show or whatever, right? And like the segment, like I was watching the show one night and the segment came on that was like clearly sponsored by Google showing me this phone. It wouldn't like endear me to the phone. So they can't do that. I think like I genuinely think people would be. turned off by being like this isn't just like

Jimmy thinks this is cool like you know Conan used to have like like Nintendo on and like that felt different than if Jimmy Fallon had Google on it would feel like a mini advert in the show surrounded by adverts so Jimmy

Fallon on his before Raid Night the rate whatever before the tonight show on Raid Night he used to bring Engadgett Joshua Topolski on to like talk cool tech for like a five minute segment and one time they gave everybody in the audience a Chromebook like one of the first or second generation Chromebooks. That was the thing that happened. But to your

point, David, I don't think any of these companies could do that on a right night talk show because that would just be an editorial. That would be QVC or whatever. But So the point about wooden, about it being dry. Like, I think, I guess a diplomatic answer is that this is tamer than last year. I feel like Jimmy's personality runs himself to be more wild and out there. And with Trevor Noah, they got more of a straight man. And I'm told that Trevor is like super into technology, like generally into technology. You can discuss the ins and outs of it.

But that really did not get reflected in the keynote, in my opinion. There was an interesting dynamic where I feel that several times Trevor went off script to get a laugh from the audience. That I don't think the Google, the PMs, those are the people actually in charge the products of the features knew what was happening. and that I think Noah did his best to keep the audience energy alive, which he inherently knows how to do as a stand-up comedian. But I think maybe there was maybe of a mandate to be a bit more serious in overcompensation of last year. And I didn't think it ended up being a fun show or like a meme-reli-show.

I think, I mean, let me just talk about Trevor Noah for a, first. I'm a big stand-up fan anywhere. I'm a big stand-up nerd, particularly here in the UK. And it's weird to see that Trevor Noah was like he was just a kind of a job in comic here in the UK, like a stand-up. And then he suddenly had this glow-up in the US. It's crazy to me. That's by the by, but I think it does feel like by going down that route and he's tried to make it more endearing to the audience. And there is, like, I don't know how to describe it.

The only way I can kind of describe it is, say, for instance, if I shove a camera in front of someone's face and they're not used to being on camera, they're going to go into fight or flight mode and you're kind of like a deer in the headlights, I get that impression from some at certain PMs or the people who do the demos, like, not the PM, sorry, certain people who do the demos or they've been chosen to do the demos might have been chosen, but they may not have really desperately wanting to be on camera and be in that kind of high pressure situation. I don't know if, I don't know if like, I mean, this is not me giving Google advice, but. realistically, the personalities that you can get in front of camera can really sell the product for you, i.e. the people are passionate about it. And I've spoken to probably hundreds and maybe a thousand people throughout the time going to I.O. and all these kind of things. And there's a lot of people are very passionate about what they do. And sometimes it's like, that might not come across in the keynotes. And I'm like, where is that passion that was there when I saw someone talking about it behind those doors? And now it's a case of like, you're putting it on screen and scared, like, it's like, oh, I make it, I make it hit by the car.

Which is, it's, it's a, it's a, that's, yeah, it's a genuine concern. Maybe that's not the right word, but most people don't do well in those high pressure situations. What that says, especially knowing it's live, like that is like a crazy high pressure situation versus something like apples, we call it keynotes. But then at the same. time does it matter. I feel like Google should lean into it. And like these, a lot of tech companies, they want to have this veneer of like,

we are perfect. Everything goes right all the time. But if in a situation like this, I don't think there's any need to. You've got Trevor Noah hosting the thing. And then Jimmy Fallon last year, I think if I'm being completely honest, last year's was quite funny because it was like, this is, this is absurd. Why is this guy hosting this? It was memorable at the very least. Yeah. Like, I'm not going to remember this in a week or two. Like, it's, it's just not going to stick in other than being like, oh yeah, that was the kind of like boringish follow up to the Jimmy Fallon. But like I, I were, oh, year on. I remember the Jimmy Fallon one like fairly well for a show that I only watched. I watched it through twice, but like, I don't know. Like that was,

I don't know. I don't even know what advice to give Google though, because I feel like every time I think of a solution to one of the problems we're describing, I'm like, well, that's, that creates like three more problems. Like, like, it is a tricky line to, to walk, right?

Like, of like, is this for tech people or is this for normal people? How much of this is funny or how much of this is played straight? If it's played straight, is that just like boring for the audience

because it is essentially an advertisement. Like, I don't, finding where to land on that is, is difficult. And I think the best thing Google could probably do is what you guys are kind of saying, which is embrace the authenticity of the people

have on stage, but that comes down to making an environment for those people that they're actually comfortable in. And I don't think standing next to Trevor Noah, they were comfortable. No. But then again, then again, I feel like in the grand scheme of things, there wasn't as much to talk about this time around realistically for the phones. Like if we had a brand new phone and it was brand new, then it's going to be very, very different. I mean, keynote aside, it was a, I'm not going to say forget, it was forgettable because it was quite bland. I don't think it was forget it because it was bad. I think it was just forget it because it was fun. Let's talk about the phones because I think a lot of people have maybe have preconceptions

about the devices. We've all spent a bit of time with them now. I think some of us have reviewing it's and we obviously can't talk about them right now until I can't remember when it is, but we will give you some deeper reviews soon. But we've had hands on. I spent some time with every device, Abnes spent some time with every device and he's absolutely exhausted from that experience. Let's get into what do you think, what do you think is a stand out this time around because I found this kind of difficult to really pinpoint and pin down the other day when I was kind of parsing all the information I'd like delved into. So I think I'm going to start on the watch and something with Adaglads.

This is, it obviously shares the name as a pixel phone feature, but on the watch, it's a space at bottom of your watch face that shows you any real time. critical information. Like if you are, if you have navigation on, maps navigation on, it shows next directions, ETA, that kind of thing.

And you can use the double pinch hand gesture, your thumb and forefinger, to expand it. The same kind of redundant music. So I think in terms of a UI interface that will actually change how I will use and interact the watch.

I think this is a really promising space. All your live updates appear here and it honestly makes more sense than on the phone. So this might be an exciting way to use the watch and definitely said I'm exploring during the review period. But other than that, it works the same. It is physically identical. internally there are some changes new chip well

new is chip it's like it's like a hybrid new hybrid new we'll call it hybrid new hybrid new that's a good one it's accelerated the chip is accelerated like 13% CPU there's an extra gig of RAM and 64 gigs of storage I am very curious to see the performance of how that

extra gig will help general performance, which it's supposed to make, we've been told it's supposed to make scrolling smoother app launches, which hasn't been the biggest issue on wireless. I can't say I've ever had an issue since the Pixel Watch 3. So, like, the Pixel Watch 3 has almost nailed all of the issues at. Like, I don't know. Have you had, have you seen any hangs on the phone? I've never had a play store. It's always so slow. Okay. Yeah, yeah. It's just a play cell. Like, it's rare. but when in general, system-wide, like it just hangs for a second and like, oh, that would never happen on the phone.

I can't say, I think with the watches, I agree with you, the watches are kind of nice. It is one of those products that I'm like, well, you kind of made it perfect or as perfect as you're probably going to get it last year. Like I don't necessarily see anyone looking for this as an upgrade and it doesn't look like there's any great,

at least I'm based in this in the UK only, so I'm being a bit isolationist and saying that UK buyers, there aren't that many great deals with the watch this year. So it's almost like maybe get the Pixel Watch 4 if you can at discount, because I don't think there's enough necessary different. The colours are great. I will say I do quite like the colours this time around. They've nailed the colours of the strap,

and I think there's a new texture for that as well. The fog ban is just white. Let's be clear. It is not good. But yes, this is the second generation active ban. It switches from the, I'm not. to pronounce that. Is it fluorolastomer?

Fluorelastomers or something like that? I think I might have nailed that. I think that's closed. Yeah, I think you got it. It's basically the has vasp. The new band has rest plastics, which is microplastics, which we as a society should probably care more about,

but yeah, I'll be a bit of that. Yeah, it is, the, it looks exactly the same. is, I mean, all the Apple Watch stays the same for many years. Samsung, once they pick a design, they pick it for a few generations. I do think that if there is any device that probably shouldn't be upgraded on a yearly cycle, I'd say the watch, like, would happily suffice on an 18-month cycle, but yeah. I mean, with watches, like, do we think, I mean, I'm going to ask you a question now as well,

because I'm kind of humming and harring if I'm going to do it. Are you going to switch to the Pixel Watch 5 on a long-term basis? Because I don't think I'm ready to let go of the Fitbit Air. I genuinely don't think I'm ready to let go of it because I'm loving the fact that it just stays. It does, as much as I love the Pixel Watch 4,

and it is easily my favorite wearOS watch, save maybe the One Plus Watch 3. I genuinely going to find it really difficult to go back to a smart watch, plinging and plonking and vibrating in it every day when I get 500 emails like I'm going to have to just be like no turn off aOD and just make it really basic

just don't have emails on your watch that's what I do turn off Gmail notifications on your watch it's drastically changes the usage cycle so yes I was on the fit bit there before this in terms of sometimes

just like not wearing the the the watch when I was deep into that Fitbit Air cycle. But I do miss the time. I still, with the Fitbit Air, I still look at my wrist and like, what's the time? And media controls, I have, since I've actively gotten back

to wearing the Pixel Watch all the time ahead of this review, media controls are great. Yeah, that's a very good point, actually. I do miss being able to skip on PocketCast, but I think, yeah, Pixel Watch 5 were pretty kind of, it feels very much like the most uniterative update we've had and we're about to get into some really uniterative updates or more iterative updates.

What do we think then in terms of like the trio, it's a trio of, no, four phones, I was going to say trio because I'm class in pro as one, but there's two pros. How are we feeling about everything now we've seen them? We've held them in our hands. We kind of know all quantities are kind of accounted for. I'm in a really strange position now because it's kind of going to be difficult to review these products

without the fact that we're going to be looking at Pixel 9, we're going to be looking at Pixel 10, and we're going to be comparing it. I think it's almost impossible to not look at those and think, is there anything realistically that people will care about here? I just have to say that, thank God, I know I'm going to have to use Moonstone,

the worst brandless non-committal color on earth. It was really exciting for one week. But after a week, you're like, what is this? It's gray. Okay, wait, my main takeaway is also about colors. Can I just say? Google called the Matt Black Pixel 11 Pro luxurious on stage last night. Like, they know, they know Matt is good.

Why are the other one not Matt? They know. They admitted it. Make them all mad. It's always strange to me how Google adapts their colors and they make minor changes to certain color options. And then all of a sudden, like I say,

they will throw in one that's a little bit out there. I think the color lineup is pretty decent. I think it's pretty good. I think it's a good way to differentiate from last year. At least none of them look too similar in terms of the color lineup. So that's kind of a good way doing it. I wonder if they know. deep down that the black is the obsidian is the biggest seller. So they've kind of like, yeah,

we've done something to this one. So at least if you get this one, it's slightly different because it has a matte frame. I'm so sure they would save some money by just doing mat and all of them. Like the shiny polish requires not the past rules, whatever, but colors, yeah. Yeah, so we've talked about that. We've talked about adenosium. I have just had my review units turned up about an hour ago and I have been gifted the color of is it a canyon so I'm going to be rocking a canyon pixel 11 Pro Excel for a while so that's going to be strange that that's exactly what I yeah the test the review unit I got as well I wouldn't have chosen it I've gone for the fog is it fog of the pro I pre-order the pro there's some fantastic deals out there if you want

if you want trading deals the trading deals are they differ from country to country but you can get some insane trading values for really, really old devices on the UK store. And they were sending out discount codes as well. So double stack, get your discounts. If you do want to upgrade or you think, do you know what? I'm looking at this phone and thinking I want to pick it up. But in terms of like experience, it's really tough to talk about, isn't it? Because it's almost like we've had not enough time to really ascertain what's changed. I didn't feel any difference here. Google barely talked about the tenter chip in the keynote, apart from 20%,

or was it 17, 17, 20%, I can't remember exactly the top of my head. But yeah, it's a really, really strange time. This feels like the weirdest post-event kind of rundown. We don't, it's almost like, it's almost like everything leaked a week ago, a week, two weeks ago, and now we're like,

piecing it together. The software didn't really weak, just if we want to review the week cycle. I think software was very minimally reed and I think that very much influenced the perception of the phones

going in anyways yeah and is there anything else about the hardware of note it's highlight how do we feel about highlight because now we've seen it now we've seen its limitations I think that's the biggest thing that's just

stood up to me was like I don't know where I stand on it now I kind of I don't want to sour on it already, but we're going to need more features. I can sour on it already. I think it's soured on it last week. Let's start with,

okay, during the keynote, there was an ad, the emotional ad, about highlight. Do you remember that? Yeah. So Google started the highlight section by playing,

what's it, a minute-long clip? Yeah, it was about that minute and a half, maybe. I guess that's at a high level that's like the emotional tech ad it fits into that bucket

it will link to it in the description so you can watch it so just yeah I would put it in but it's just a song wouldn't work in audio yeah so what do we think about it I think it doesn't not feel at odds

with what a tech company should be doing they're like trying to they're trying to sell this idea that highlight resolve some, it kind of brings you more into the real world, whilst at the same time, I think it's one of the messages it says, like, you'll put your phone down more or something like that. I'm like, right, but aren't you trying to sell a phone here? Like, I kind of get what they're trying to say, but it feels really at odds with the entire keynote message. Like, we are going to sell you this phone. It's very, uh, Steve Bouchemmy, how do you do fellow kids? You know what I mean? Like, it's like,

hey, no, no, we're just like you. We, we hate, we hate. phones too, man. Like, they don't, they don't get it. Do you want to buy this one? Yeah, I know it's really weird. Interesting. That was my, that's my

that's my read on it. Yeah, my takes the same. And that's even like kind of apropos of the feature itself, which I don't think lives up to what they're describing here. Like, I don't think it does enough to keep you in the moment. Because one of the two things it does is

sync up with, with Gemini. And I don't think, I think that really goes against what the ad itself is trying to say. I don't know. It's curious. Okay, so I'm the odd man out here. I think that was one of Google's pixels, if not Google, entire companies, best ads that they've done in a long time.

Like, if you're a Parisian love, that was a Super Bowl ad about somebody using Google search, too. basically meet somebody and move to another country. This was like 10, 15 years ago. To me, this was, I think this is, I think the broader thought I had watching this keynote. Like, it started off with, like, the message of, like, using your phone less, technology, getting more advanced,

like AI letting you use your phone less, which I think Rick was the one that offered that idea. And that's a lot to unpack, especially and maybe not relevant yet in the context of highlight is not AI in any way. But that ad only introduces highlight in the last like 15 seconds. Like before that, I think as a general ad, I think that's Google being very earnest. And I don't think earnestness ever gets anywhere. on the internet in general. It's just hard to convey like a multi-billion company,

et cetera, et cetera, trying to, they are selling you, they want to sell you something like we were saying about buy this phone. But I think they are earnest in recognizing that people want to use their phone rest. And from somebody who has the opinion that AI can do a lot, and it would actually end up making our lives simpler once it reaches an advanced enough stage,

like giving everybody in the system, I'd say. I think that does capture the possibility of where this can go, and that technology is just a tool that shouldn't be all encompassing with your life, and that reflects cynically or not that people are really tired of their phones in terms of people love their phones, they use them every day, But maybe they don't love them as much as they used to because everything happens through it. I don't disagree with you on the earnestness, to be honest. I think that earnestness is like a little bit undercut by the highlight pitch at the end.

Like I think it feels weird for it to pivot to being like by this piece of hardware that we're telling you is not as good as we've told you or whatever. right? Like, it's an on feeling. What I would say, Abner, is I actually think if they had made this a Gemini ad, it would play a lot better. We are, we're making this ad kind of generally for the

Gemini experience and the way that Open AI advertises chat GBT, right? Like, and it ended with like, hey, like, it was essentially an entire ad for like, we know that our chat bot is not human and it's not going to,

try to be, it's going to try to be your like personal assistant. I think this is just like, they put it in the wrong ad. They made it for the wrong feature, especially because High Lake doesn't do enough to live up to the promise of that earnestness anyway. It's a bit weird as well selling, trying to make an earnest ad or an ad that's like kind of touches people's soul, as it were, for a feature that existed 15 years ago. We had LED notification LED is 15 years ago and you've just basically done that again. But did they swirl? No, and they didn't interact with the AI helper on your phone.

They didn't interact with Google Assistant before it was a thing. But yeah, I get what you're saying. I do think sometimes Google does some fantastic work on their ads and stuff, but it just feels, it feels really weird to have it in the middle of a key. I'm sure it'll get played all over the place and we'll never see it. Yeah, they'll cut it down or whatever. Yeah, because of the algorithms that we have for our ads showing to us. and if you're a YouTube premium Supremo like myself,

you're never going to see these anyway, unless you seek them out. But I feel like, I feel like, it's weird. The messaging around this device is really, really weird from Google, because it's almost like they've, I'm not saying they've funded in.

If they've tried to go down on the earnest route, that's great. But at the same time, it's like, okay, but the prices have gone up. It's more expensive than last year. You've added this one feature that, so it doesn't really do much on launch, and I'd like to see some more functionality from it.

And then you've barely talked about any of the other advancements in any great depth, it's almost like, yeah, this is our last attempt at this particular design. Hopefully we do get the big one that we're expecting next year, because, yeah, it's going to be, I think this one is a tough sell. I think the Pixel 11 in series in general, even if the phones are, obviously, I don't really have any strong opinions of them yet, apart from maybe the Pixel 11 being quite expensive for a base model.

But, yeah, it's just a really weird place. I've never felt this confused after I made by Google before, even last year, which felt like they made. made improvements. It's like, okay, we've got a new TSMC tensor chip. And at least there's some positives to be drawn from that.

There is definitely some positives here. I'm just not sure where they are. And maybe I'm kind of disillusioned with it a little bit because there's so much if it feels the same. I mean, not to make an Apple illusion, but it reminds me of, it feels like this is Google's iPhone

7, right? Which was the third iteration of the 6th design, 66S7. The 7 didn't do almost anything to to update the overall design. And then the year, you know, the next year was the iPhone 8 slash X year. Like, you got the big redesign in the X. And I'm not saying that we're going to get that from Google next year,

that we're going to have like an iPhone. I'm saying X, 10, you know what I mean. I'm very tired. I don't think it's going to be that level of evolution. But like, that's sort of what this feels like, where it's like one last shot at, like, refining an already refined, device. Like I was going to say design, but it's not even, it's the whole thing. Like, they're also just, it's just like a minor refinement on tensor too. Like it's, it's, it's not bad. I don't think anybody like my gut feeling, right? Like a way too early not review. It's literally not a review. My gut feeling is that nobody buying this phone is going to be disappointed unless they're like a really, uh, hardcore gamer. And I'm basing that on the pixel 10. Like that's exactly how it was with the pixel 10. Like, makes pretty good phones now for most people.

And I assume that this will be similar, but I agree it's a hard pitch when it's $100 more, even with good pre-order bonuses and knowing that it's a pixel and it will definitely be on sale on Black Friday for like $300 off. But it's a tough pitch. Yeah, Steph, we definitely feel like we're in that. I mean, they're in their major iPhone era now, right? I don't think they're age.

What do we have from iPhone 12 to like 15, where we didn't really see much? 16 was 16 the last one of that design? I mean, yeah, the 12, the iPhone 12 is when they switched to the flat design and you could argue the iPhone 17 is still kind of using that design. It is not really, you know, the pros, I guess, have a slightly different look now, but even that is not remarkable. And Google made a crack about people copying their camera bar design by the way on stage.

That is funny, though. Because the bloody iPhone still shakes. That still makes me mad. I know. I don't understand. I thought that last year, I was like, why did you take the, like,

overall look, but then not do the, like, reason for taking the look. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah. Hey, if you're enjoying pixelated, don't forget to sign up for 9 to 5 Google Pro to gain access to our weekly bonus show,

Pixelated Pro. This week, we're discussing post-pixel exhaustion, whether or not it's impossible to make an entertaining tech event, if cringe is finally making a comeback in the culture and much more. Sign up today at 9 to 5 google.com slash pro. Yeah, let's talk about the camera then. Let's talk about what the camera does and what it doesn't do.

I think there are some, the thing about it is there are some good, there's some good stuff here as well. Like I think a lot of the problems that maybe were alluded to last year with the base model in particular. I'm glad that they've addressed it and they put the, I want to say premium. I'm using air quotes. They've done the same

in the main one. They've done the same for the fold. This is probably going to be a much better camera experience than the pixel 10 last year for a lot of people. So that's exciting. So on the software front,

camera looks, that did not leak whatsoever. And I feel like this is something that people have wanted will you can take that out of way. I'm people. Yeah, I'm people. No, I have to play,

I obviously have to play around with it and I did not get a hands on with it. Like I think you guys did. But like based on the announcement, based on the press release about it, it's exactly what I've been asking for, more or less on pixel to stop myself from having to edit photos when I'm frequently unhappy with just very basic elements like how contrasty they look. Like, it's all I'm really ever looking for.

It's there only ever two second edits, and they make the photo look five times better, and cements pixel is my favorite camera experience, and now this will hopefully alleviate that process, and we'll just keep it kind of the default. So, yeah, Camera Works offers four HDR options in addition to the original. You can make it, this, what is it,

this vanilla is one of them that makes it. Natural, I think, right? those four presets, you can set it as your default look permanently in the app. And in addition to that, there's something called stylized looks. This is where, like, it's black and white. This is where there's a toned-down thing

that just takes one shot, no HD, one frame, rather, that just takes one frame, which is something that Damien uses with zero cam. So Google is definitely reading into that. aesthetic that people have as of rate. That's a more temporary thing and you can make further customizations to it. The camera app mostly looks the same

with the exception of you can now customize when the one tap controls, you can now set full adjustment sliders basically on the left and right. It builds on the current preset And yeah, that's a nice customization. You can also use it to quickly switch looks.

So that gives you fast everything. So yeah, the camera, they're really addressing visual and, I guess, feature complaints with the camera. Do you think sometimes, because I'm very, very excited about the camera looks feature as someone, you even said it there, I use zero cam a lot. I do wonder if this is going to change Mike's, change how I use the base pixel camera now

because I'm probably going to be delving into looks a lot more. I wonder if Google could have put more intense controls in there, like full, I don't want to use the Apple camera as an example of this because I think the UI's, I'm at odds with Abner with this, I think the UI is quite bad now. I do wonder if we could have had,

what are they called on photographic styles? I wonder if we could have had like the slider and stuff and have like real fine tuning there. You can make changes to camera looks. but I do wonder if sometimes it's oversimplified maybe we could have it even more have more controls can you do it with

so on pro controls right now when you tap the bottom right settings here you have a range of options all those are available in styles oh okay well I didn't see that on my hands on I only played around with the base ones and make yeah it's more than the filter it's more than just the looks you

you can set each of the works customize each of the looks further Well, I mean, that's alleviate. I retract my complaint. I think this is one of those things at Google. Clearly Google's been listening then, and I haven't been listening or haven't been seeing it. Again, when you get two hours with your devices, and however many of them there is, it's difficult to see every single intricacy.

So forgive me. I'm not always an idiot like that. I think this is one of those things that, like, I wonder if Google is going to lean into this more now, if they're not going to change a hardware and go for a one-inch sensor on the camera. we're going to see more like personalisation tools and I do wonder if we could maybe get to a point where and then we didn't,

I didn't see much of Gemini intelligence. I saw some new UI components are leaning that way. But I wonder if we could maybe get Gemini to cook up some looks and stuff and have that integrated that way. I think that would be kind of cool, like true film emulation and stuff and maybe have,

I mean my dream is to just have Snapsid in the camera somehow somewhere, but this feels like the right step. They do have film emulation. They do have film. emulation. Yeah, but it's limited, isn't it? It's limited right now. It's not going to be completely extensive to the same level of Snapsid, is it? I don't know about that. I think it's like, I think it's like a certain amount of presets to begin with and you can kind of bake them in,

but I don't think it's kind of quite the same level. Maybe people can play around with it and prove me completely wrong. But I'm pretty sure when I saw it, it was like, oh, there's a few preset selections and you can kind of go in a direction. You can't like fully do it. But please, if you get your device next week and you listen to this podcast, send me a DM. I want to know how you've done it. Again, we don't have enough time to truly get into this stuff, but I'm pretty sure it's quite limited compared to, say, going into Snapsid and applying like an old Nikon or Kodak, sorry, film emulation

to the same level. But I think Google should go for it. Just go all in. Don't hold back on this. I think a lot of people want and still like making these changes. and it would be really cool to get stuff like true polaroid level emulation and then keep the original

and then have them both. I think that would be awesome. I don't know why they don't do that because that could be a way to sell the camera over other alternatives, especially because there's lots of apps that do this. Why don't have it native? Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know. I think anything they can do to lead into especially like the retro stuff is so in these days. Like I not so much in like like a 2012 Instagram way, but in a 2002 disposable camera kind of way. Like I think it would be fun to lead into that built into the app and Google's whole pitch is that this is a more fun. It would even, oh my God, you could like basically have it be like, we, this is a mode that not only applies like a specific like film camera look, but also doesn't have, doesn't do a lot of the AI processing we're doing behind the scenes and gives you this like true like. early 2000 digital camera look or something, right?

Like you could lean into it and be like, see, we're the empathetic. We get it. Like your phone is not your life company. But like, I don't know, it's another space where like I feel like that they don't fully live up to that adds potential. But like it's there. You could see how they could do this. And Google would be the one company to do it.

It does feel weird though, doesn't it? I feel like in general, the AI, it doesn't feel like they were really ramming their this is the AI phone down everyone's throats. Except for when they were. It was like, it was weird. It was like it was like a trudging horse. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know. What do we think of then about the camera improvements of the pro series? Because I feel like we get in this 120 times zoom. I don't know if it is the same. Is it technically the same sensor? Or is it an improved five-time sensor on that device?

I can't remember off the top of my head. I believe it's an improved telephoto. Okay. I wrote that article. And it is, it is a step up. It is definitely a step up, like over the 100 times.

zoom of the pixel 10 Proxel. Like the, it is noticeably different. And even that is without the pro res zoom taking over and doing some processing. So I think it's going to benefit people who go to like 30, 40 times zoom the most, I think, which is always good. I know they like to show off, yeah, we can go to 120 times, but how often you're really doing that? Like, not that often.

I think it's in those mid-ranges where it really does make a big difference. So I'm glad to see that there's some, at least some change. is there. Like, are we going to pull one out for the temperature sensor? Are we not bothered about that? I feel like... No. I've never seen a single person complain online. Like, who's interesting? I forgot. I totally forgot. It was gone. 100%. Yeah. Look, it lasted exactly one generation longer than I thought it would. Truly, I believe I made

a prediction when it first arrived on the pixel 8 Pro that it would be gone on the Pixel 10 pro. So I missed it by a year. But yeah, you know, I'm sure I'm sure somebody found a good use for you. I didn't, but somebody did. I'm never going to be able to check the temperature of my falafel or my cup of tea ever again on my phone. So that's it. So I'm going to have to carry a USBC for MoMAO everywhere now. So that's going to be great. So thanks Google for that. No, I don't think, I don't think any people are going to be losing sleep or the loss of the temperature center. There may be a few, but it definitely felt like one of those things that was like neglected to the point. of we don't even know where to go.

It never really did much with it. That's the thing. It is a shame because obviously I understand at the time, they were like, oh, this is going to be a health thing. Well, maybe it could have been integrated to Google Health a little bit better, but I just don't see that. I mean, I think it's much easier to wear a Fitbit air. And I would highly recommend people do that.

It does skin temperature anyway. So, yeah, I think in terms of the camera stack, it feels like it is probably more sizable than last year, actually, in terms of the updates. Last year was more AI integration. This is like just genuine, genuine hardware changes. I don't know why they didn't lean into it a little bit more.

We have genuinely tried to revamp the camera this time. Yeah, that's always a complaint. The G6 is a pretty big. It unlocks some camera upgrades, the 120x Pro Zoom, the instant night site, which I am so excited to use and try

in terms of, yeah, It's slow. It's like that. It's a feature is a few years old. It's like the only time I ever wait for my camera at this point. Yeah, so that's unlocked by G6 and its new camera image signal processor. Let's see what else is cameraize. Magic Capture. That is the flagship feature leaked ahead of time.

So the idea is basically not not having to trusting the AI to capture the image for you. So it's recording a video, but the images it takes is a bit higher quality. It's more than just a screen grab. My use case that I want to try is like putting, not looking at the screen, putting the phone on my chest,

and just like being able to watch the moment. That being said, I think that's better than with glasses, especially if it's in a prop, I don't know, surprise party or whatever, or like going to a concert and just like being able to see it while the phones of your chest. Like all other AI features, there's a high trust barrier, of course. You want to make sure you're actually getting if you're taking an image and I'm more than the image person and a video person,

you want to make sure it's the highest resolution possible. So I'm sure there's a learning curve with that. I do wonder if I do I'm going to say something that this is not meant to be disrespectful but this feels like an old person feature so like an old person who isn't confident they'll hit the shutter button at the wrong time

just use Gemini camera he does the little short clip doesn't it and then picks them out I think to be honest that might save a lot of red faces and the blushes of people who are terrible with photos like oh grandma you didn't get the photo or like oh dad what were you doing you didn't get the right photo

at the right time and let Gem and I do the bits in between. I think that probably might be actually okay. That's interesting. I had more of the read of the like, oh, stay in the moment, like, again, like your phone is not you kind of deal. Like, just, hey, just don't worry about it. Hit the thing and like, and then you can just look at the sunset and your phone will capture it while you're holding it down here.

You don't have to worry about framing or anything. People about that framing photos. Yeah, that's the only issue, isn't it? That's the biggest problem is if you give you, I don't know if you've done this before, and my first thinking was when I saw this during my hands-on session was the amount of times you give your phone to a family member and they take the worst photo you've ever seen and you're like, what were you doing?

Well, there's that, but I think if you just say, hold this where it is or put it on it, I mean, who's carrying a tripod apart from you're an influencer in the gym and you get caught in the background? That's another argument for another day, but I think you give the phone to someone and you just say, point it there, film this, Just film this.

And I think filming people tend to be a little bit better at than they do taking a photo. I think there's more pressure. Like I couldn't be a wedding photographer. This feels like a wedding photographer function. Like, it's going to do it. It's going to get an usable image and cropping after the fact. Like, I don't know. Maybe I've thought about it too much that some people are incompetent with their photography

and that this is the solution. I think it could be. I think it will be for a certain subsection of people. I'm thinking of my mum and dad and they are terrible at taking photo. They're blurry. They never look decent. Probably down to their phones. But yeah.

The name's terrible. Everything's magic. I don't know how many more magic things you have. I'm getting tired of that. Yeah. Well, they did kill Magic Q this year for something called proactive assistance, which there is in no universe that has a better name. And to add to that, it is called proactive suggestions on Pixel Watch.

so there's two proactives where it depends on the form factor. What do you think Apple would call that feature? Because I feel like maybe Google's tried to think of it like that. Yeah, I feel like Google's tried to outthink Apple on the naming of these AI functionalities and maybe that's why there's so much like crossover and they feel really at odds.

I mean, they could have just kept it under the magic banner or Gemini something. Just Gemini Q or something. Oh, no. It is a fishery. Gemini Intelligence Proactive Assistance Which Well, I'm never ever going to say

Yeah, that's never going to be said Including right now, I won't say it is Yeah, that's weird Yeah, I got my Gemini Intelligence Proactive Assistant pop-up You're not going to say that, right? I've already forgotten the right combination of ways Assistance, not Assistant

which is Oh, assistance. Oh, my gosh. Jeez Louise. Magic use. Did they hire like a consulting firm to make it as hard as possible? This is definitely too many cooks, too many cooks. So what are we thinking overall in the camera?

Do we think it's enough of an upgrade for people to maybe look at it from maybe the nine series? I think maybe from the nine series. I think the nine series is tough. Nine still feels too early. I mean like I think if you see a really good trade in deal on the nine, like you could go for it. But I think otherwise we're looking at, yeah, I think eight or earlier. Yeah. And even then the 8, the Pixel 8 was a good phone. Yeah, like the 8 Pro was a good, I really loved the 8 Pro. I would not, you know, besmirch anybody holding onto that phone for another year because I am, I haven't used one in a while, but I'm sure it's probably holding up pretty decently. Yeah. Oh my God. How long and Torari from like a vintage trend where people try to find phones without on-device AI? I think we might be there in terms of the cameras.

There's a lot of people that are using iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 cameras I've seen and they're talking about how good it is and I'm like, no, no, that's insane. 3GS? Yeah, yeah. We're using 3GS. That's insane.

Yeah, yeah. But I mean, I don't know. It feels like we're in a strange position. This phone kind of straddles that a little bit. It felt like we haven't had Google in this era of like maybe not doing much in terms of the phones, like, for a long time. Last year was the first time,

and this year is it once again. My biggest concern is how people react to it. Like, are people going to be, is this going to be a tough, it feels like a tough sell, like from where we're sat right now? Maybe the trading deals make it a decent sell. But how many people are going to be looking to upgrade in this, the way the market is currently? I think it's going to be very, very tough on a lot of brands.

And we've just seen the full date. Samsung's done something with the full. all day and they're selling very, very well from what we can tell. Okay. How's this going to land? I want to dive into your comment about upgrades. Who is upgrading? Who is upgrading in that scenario?

Because, okay, the thing that Apple has going for them is there are definitely people that buy every new iPhone that comes out every year, even and these people aren't the tech savvy ones. Yeah. They just, they're up. I think Apple has. most people like that in the in the in the ice that exists with galaxy people maybe it's tough yeah i think it's tough it's absolutely small much a degree and then when you go down to pixel and even

fraction i'd say i'd say as a ratio it's higher on pixel i know a lot of people who will switch pixel every year and usually to do with trading it's like one of my friends he has upgraded his because the trading deal was so good, he's effectively managed to get the Pixel 111 Pro with going from 128 gigabyte pixel 10 Pro to the base being 256 and therefore UFS 4.0 storage. He has paid, I think about $135 total. So I think that might be,

in my personal opinion, for the sake of $10 a month, it's less in pounds, it's about £9 a month or $8 a month. that's 100% worth it to me because you are genuinely getting those upgrades because he's getting the storage increase but then there's obviously the issue with RAM and I mean I'm see I don't know if you guys have watched any

post-release content but the only person I've seen saying this is Dave 2D saying that 6 gigabytes of RAM is wired for something to do with Gemini Nano and I don't remember anyone talking about that pre-off post-release and he seems to be the only person saying it

so if it's 4 gigabytes which is what we're we believe it is, I don't know where this six gigabyte figure came from. So, I don't know, maybe you will get, I can't imagine with these tens of upgrades, you'll get worse performance. But I could see why tech nerd would be like, oh my God, I'm giving up four gigabytes to ramp. So I don't know. Does it matter to what we're doing in terms of like the Gemini stuff?

Most of it's going to be in the long term cloud based anyway. So I don't know. I mean, I don't know if this is the right decision. Just like I don't know if honestly if continuing the tensor project is the right decision. But I think I probably said this last year too because I've thought of her a few years now. Google is making the phone they want to make for better or worse. Like they are clearly prioritizing specific things over others. And like the big thing they're prioritizing is like general AI performance.

You know, like over like literally everything else, including like, like all other performance metrics. And again, I don't know. It's a bet they're making. It's they want to make, they are trying to transform the pixel into the AI device that everybody is like trying to imagine these other companies are going to make, right?

Like the evolution of the smartphone. That's what Google is trying to make pixel. That's what this feels like. And I don't know if it comes together here. I don't know how many years we are away from it, potentially coming together. But that's what this feels like a step towards and what TensorG6 feels like a step towards

and the way they've designed this phone. Like down to highlight. Like all of it feels like it's kind of feeding into, if you're getting this, this is not for tech nerds anymore. It's for Gemini. It was never, Pixel was never for tech nerds, but now it is really like, it is for like, do you want the Gemini phone?

This is the Gemini phone. But then it's weird that we still have this hangover from the Nexus series. 11 phones on. Like, it's crazy to think that this is the phone. And I don't know if... It was such a relationship between Google and like 200,000 nerds on the internet. Like, really, that's all like, and it's tough for that to die and to let that go. But like, that's never what pixel was. Like, from the jump pixel was different. And that's only like grown more distant over time. Yeah, obviously we're what 11 series in and 10 years down the line from the first one launching.

It is a strange place. I'm kind of, I'm now intrigued to see how I get on with the phones. I'm sure I won't have it'll just be the same experience. And it's felt like that for a while anyway with regards to Android. Google's kind of nailed Android so much to the point where every time I upgrade to a new device, I'm like, oh, this feels practically identical in terms of like the day-to-day experience. And then there's those little features that's creep in. I'm surprised there was no mention of certain functionalities

is that I've wanted to see change maybe some improvements to pixel screenshots and that kind of stuff but yeah they did I gotta be honest when I was setting up my review unit I said no to screenshots oh what you're at that man I don't need this

I don't use it on the 10 screenshots you do because it powers proactive assistance oh come on man don't make me turn it on well don't like it yeah I'll just add about the app you're talking journal screenshots they did not get any they're minor updates like yeah i have so far seen like one weather tweak in one tweak in the weather app screenshots looks i i haven't noticed any changes during the hands-on um that said there are new app icons for the weather app

recorder, camera, got a new icon, calculator, and there's one other, that's clock, the clock apps, new icons. Otherwise, this was not a big year for pixel apps getting updates, which that's always disappointing to us. So it's clearly focused most of the time on the system level, proactive assistance, which is too long a name, and I'm sure they're not the PA.

Yeah, I think that's, kind of covers phones. I think there's one extra surprise. And we'll have a lot to more, we'll have a lot more to say in the coming weeks about the phones. I think it does sound like, I feel like it does sound we're being dower and we're being a bit down on them. But once we get to you, I feel like with any pixel phone, it's almost a case of like the spec sheet and the initial impressions. Either then again, I have been blown away by some of them in the past. I think because it's so similar to last year, it's harder to pick out these little nuances when you don't have enough time to do so. And those highlight features, we don't know

how they work in the real world until we get hands of them. So we will have some more thoughts on them soon. I know that Will has a really good opportunity to test his pixel camera very, very soon. I won't spoil it. He will talk about it probably at length in the next podcast. I hope, I hope if it goes well, because I think it might be one of the best tests of one of the features on the Pixel 11 series, probably going. But yeah, the one surprise, and I think genuinely this is the one thing I'm most excited

about and it's the furthest away was the pixel tag which why did it take so long for Google to do this we will never know but I think this is about time it's about time we did this it's coming in November what did you think I've know when you first saw this for the first time it is surprisingly unexpectedly thin because of how it's a pill it's on a circle it's a pill shaped thing it's the face is metal the underside is polycarbonate It uses a coin sale battery.

It has UWB. $29 is perfectly in line the rest of the industry. Full for 99. No real color except that one, which it's not really not that important. I guess my, again, we haven't used, we've only touched, we haven't used it, we haven't tested performance in any way.

But I guess I would, not having a built-in loop, I guess, is a bit of a bummer. I wonder if it's like a case of, and I say this as someone who has a lot of air tags, because sadly they're the best in terms of global coverage. A lot of people have iPhones, you're going to find your luggage. That's kind of why I did it. It's not through any sort of like love for air tags.

I do wonder if like an air tag, I just throw them in a bag. I don't even have them on a loop. They just go in the bag. Do you know what I mean? Like they just go in the bag. I don't throw them on a keychain and that's it. Most people. I think most people have.

do there. Key chain usage. Right. So when I'm putting in luggage, you're just going. Just throw it in there. It doesn't matter. It's a little diode.

Like I have a side bag and I have one in there. And actually, weirdly I have a, this is a bit overkill, but I have a smart tag and the air tag. And then recently,

until I sent one to, to Jordan as part of an ill-fay test where I managed to docks myself multiple times, I had a pebbleby. So yeah, that was,

there was my, trio in my side bag, so that might be overkill. But I think I'll probably get a four-pack and throw them in because I can definitely see them being a big component and drive for adoption of Findhub maybe, more so than any other time. What do you think took so long? I continue to believe that they had this hardware done for years,

but it's just the privacy aspect of not wanting to be associated with the whole Airtag article, about stalking. Trevor Noah, he made a joke, a comment about how Android Finery has an air tag competitor. He didn't say air tag,

but that felt implied. And he's not long. Finery, it's a one-to-one thing. Yeah, because it does, in terms of, like, the hardware, it's almost, it's arguably better, it's better than the first generation

air tag, isn't it, in terms of the hardware? But I think it gets very close, if not like neck and neck with the second gen. Am I right in thinking that? I think it's something to do with the UWB range or Bluetooth range of it is like almost identical,

which I think is a good thing. I'm glad that they, if they've had this made for years, it's a good thing. Sorry, I've completely derailed you there. I don't know what we're saying about. No, Trevor Noah and his comments.

I'm fading out. This is what made by Google does to a man. that feels like a good time for us to fade out too maybe yeah let's fade out over to the let's fade out over to our priority here we'll go a bit more in depth about some some things maybe some kind of other topics that we've spotted this week that isn't made by google related but um go check us out over there we'd love to have you um links in the description if you want to learn how to get involved with our ninth of our nine five google pro we've had some good responses of people chatting on the discord everyone's getting involved i'd love to get you involved um we've been involved this last week. Do not worry about it. We're all tired. There's lots to get over. There's lots to get into in the coming weeks. Thanks for joining me, guys. I know it's obviously very, very difficult with time zones and tiredness, but it's always good fun chatting to you. Hopefully we're not being too down this episode. Maybe we'll have some positives towards the end. But yeah, cheers for watching and we'll speak to you soon. Bye. Bye.

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