Pixelated - Should We Be Worried About the Pixel 11?

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

Welcome to episode 99 of Pixelated, a podcast by 9to5Google. This week, Abner, Damien, and Will tackle the latest rumors surrounding Google's Pixel 11, which could arrive later this summer with new camera sensors, whatever Pixel Glow is, and a whole lot of downgrades. Then they turn to the long-awaited Fitbit Air and try to predict how the fitness tracker audience will react to a significantly cheaper Whoop competitor. 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 Timecodes 00:00 - Intro and Google's Pixel 11 leaks 36:09 - Fitbit Air announcement 58:35 - Wrap-up Hosts Abner Li Damien Wilde Will Sattelberg Read more Pixel 11 leak reveals new camera hardware, Tensor G6 details, more specs Google Pixel ‘Project Toscana’ reportedly upgrades face unlock hardware, compares to iPhone Face ID Google announces $99 Fitbit Air for screen-less, all-day tracking ‘Google Health’ replaces Fitbit app as new ‘Premium’ plan joins AI Pro  You won’t need to leave your Pixel Watch behind to use Google’s new Fitbit Air Listen to more 9to5 Podcasts The Sideload 9to5Mac Happy Hour Electrek Space Explored Feedback? Drop us a line at [e-mail], leave a comment on the post, or reach out to our producer. And for even more Android discussion, dive into the official 9to5Google forums!

Welcome to Pixelated episode 99. I'm your host, Will Saddleberg. It's a true doubleheader this week as Damien, Abner, and myself dive into the latest rounds of Pixel 11 leaks. How big of a deal is that GPU downgrade? How much should we read into that RAM decrease? And does all of this spell trouble for Google's grander plans for mobile AI? But that's not the only hardware discussion we have this week because Fitbit has finally returned with its long-rumored displayless air wearable. Wearable? Wearable?

Wearable. What's it do? Who's it for? And does it offer better value than its closest competitor in Whoop? All of that and more starts right after this word from our sponsor, Proton. Grab your phone and take a look at your app drawer right now. You've probably found yourself relying on these same old apps and services since the Nexus days. And what suited you best back then might not be the right choice in 2026. Luckily, Proton can help bring you into a privacy-first ecosystem

built for our modern age. Proton offers practically every service you could possibly need under the sun across every platform, including email, calendar, file storage, password management, document editors, and, of course, a trusted VPN. Built with class-leading end-to-end encryption, Proton's entire suite is fast, intuitive, and secure, and export tools mean you don't need to worry about leaving data behind on those other apps. pixelated listeners can save 30% off an annual subscription to Proton Unlimited, 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. Dot me slash 9 to 5 Google or by clicking the link in the show notes. That's Proton.com. Google. Thanks to Proton for sponsoring Pixel Leaded. Gentlemen, we are in the penultimate episode before we reach episode 100. I just wanted to set that out straight away because that's in the back of my mind on this

pod. But we're talking, I mean, that also kind of brings to light some of the things we talk about a lot on the podcast. And we've had a leak this week about Pixel 11. What else? Details about potentially new camera hardware, tensor G6 details, which I'm a little bit kind of, Yeah, you get what I'm saying there. Specifications as well. Do you think we've talked to death about the Pixel 11 yet? I do think we need to get into more. I think we need to get into more.

But just tell me your overriding thoughts straight away, guys. I'm intrigued to hear what you think, given we've had a fair amount of leaks already. Yeah, I mean, this looks generally like what I would have expected based on the fact that they don't seem to be, this seems to be a third iteration on the core pixel 9 design family, right? Like Google is clearly taking their time and rolling out whatever is an extra pixel.

And I think that is true. You can see that in these specs. What is surprising to me more than the consistency is the couple of places where it does, they are getting downgraded. I don't know if we want to start. Yeah, I think downgraded is what I would have said. It might, we may be being strong, I guess we're downgraded. But.

Well, not on the RAM. The RAM is 100%. grade. Yeah. So maybe maybe we start with that because I actually think the memory is is the big conversation here, even more so than the GPU. I think I think the memory means more to Google. But basically the it looks like instead of as we saw with the pixel 10 series where the base model had 12 gigabytes of RAM, the pros had 16. Correct me if I'm wrong in that either of you. I believe I'm right on that. The 11 will go down to having two tiers on each model. So the 11 will have an 8 gigabyte and 12 gigabyte tier, presumably centered around what storage capacity you pick, I would guess.

And then the pros will have 12 or 16. So the base models of each tier of Pixel 11 essentially will get a 4-gibite RAM decrease. That feels like the big... This doesn't feel like the future. No. This does not go like the future. This is very dumb and very stupid. And all of us...

yeah like Google in particular if you're going to center and this is sort of the argument I had about being frustrated over the 128 gigabyte starting tier for for the pixel 10 and 10 pro if you're if you're building an a iPhone then then then things like RAM and storage matter more than ever right storage because you have this massive um I think relatively speaking massive uh local model that takes up seven-ish gigabytes of space on your phone. That's a lot when you're talking about 128 gigabytes because you don't get all 128 gigabytes to begin with. And then on the memory side,

I think that's fairly obvious. I mean, the whole reason we're in this RAM shortage to begin with is the AI crunch. It's so weird, isn't it? Like, well, it's so, it's so circular. Where you're like, you're like, Google is downgrading the Pixel 11's RAM

like starting RAM quotas because of the AI race that they are a massive part. Like, it just, it is very funny how it loops back. It's a feedback loop. Yeah. And so, but the end result is end users buying a Pixel 11 will have a, you know, especially the base model. If you get a 128 gigabyte, eight gigabyte base model, we'll have a worse experience and probably

possibly have access to fewer features compared to something like the Pixel 10, at least, you know, moving forward, who knows what the future holds. Yeah. How Google is going to handle that is going to be really, I'm really curious how Google ends up handling that in terms of how they tell people that this, despite that having the same name, doesn't have all the features,

as you can see with the A series. But on the flip side, the A series, people seem to be fine without it. Yes, but this is a really good, this was literally what I was about, you're trying to take it out the words up my mouth a little bit there, Abner, is, does this therefore create a bit of an issue now with regards to the A series moving forward? If we have a device that let's, it's not spec for spec, but the core internals of the A series

have been 8 gigabytes of RAM, 128 gig base, pretty much by the buy numbers, everything else, give you the minimum viable product for a pixel phone, right? do we potentially think that this is going to cause some issues now for the pixel 11A? Because if they have this issue where the pixel 11 drops down to 8 gigabytes of RAM as a base, we don't know the storage yet because this leak doesn't provide that. Does this kind of create a bit of a separation between what's going to be capable with regards to those AI models and Gemini moving forward? Or does Gemini therefore get, I don't know, we maybe have like an even lighter model for the Pixel 11 versus the Pixel 11 pro? Like, are we going to see some sort of like insane split between the main.

line series? And then does that mean that the A series even matters anymore? And I mean, I personally think that Google could just roll it all into one and have the A series launch as the base anyway. But I don't know. I don't know. What were you guys thinking? That's such a complicated question, because I think Google is perhaps in the worst, like, space it could be compared to its competitors in the Android hardware space, right? Like, like, Samsung has to worry about, its raw specs on the next device and how that relates to its, it's, you know, essentially its price, right? Like it needs to look at like when it's planning out the Galaxy S-27, what can we put in

this phone to achieve a price that people will be willing to pay? And that might be $200 more expensive than the S-26 series, but that's really the math that they're doing, right? Google, because they are stewards of Android and the Gemini company and Pixel, is the Gemini phone in a way that the S-26 is really not the Galaxy iPhone, no matter what Samsung wants you to think, they have to not only balance out what is the price to performance ratio we can get for customers right now that they're going to be willing to pay, but also, how do these specs relate to what we want this hardware to do this year and for the next six years,

right? Like, it's so complicated. And so when you see them suddenly being like, we have to dial this RAM, back down to to a series levels, you start thinking like, does this halt or slow down some of the things they might have wanted to do locally with,

with Gemini on their future hardware? Like, will be, you know, and two years ago, they might have been mapping this out being like, and in 2026, all of our phones will start with 16 gigabytes of RAM. And now they can't do that. Like, I don't know that for sure, but like, certainly these constructs, are going to also constrain the software side of pixel.

I mean, to play devil's advocate, though, does this potential constrained, and I do think this is what Google has done, probably better than a lot of the manufacturers out there. They've been doing this since what, the Pixel 3A, proving that they can make an exceptional software experience with minimal potential hardware.

Does this, therefore, I mean, with regards to the A series, if the 11A is, it becomes a real thing, we do get an 11A, and I don't think there's any evidence of suggesting, that we're not going to, does this potentially mean

that the A series is now going to get a leg up more than they have for a while? Because if you have the base model of the pixel 10, sorry, Pixel 11, the upcoming Pixel 11, effectively what ends up being

potentially the same as the Pixel 11A, we're just taking what we have with the Pixel 10A, almost spec for spec identical, save the chips set. Surely this means, and you said they're going to have to support

them for six years because of the whole seven-year update cycle. There's going to, There's potentially going to be some benefits there that we maybe don't necessarily think about, but at the same time, that's going to cause problems for Google almost what we... It means everything has to be in the cloud. Yeah, yeah, basically. Basically, so whatever plans...

It's absolutely not an issue, which is absolutely not an issue. But I think Google sees it... Google clearly wants the pixel to have large... A lot of capabilities that can be handled on device. They and everybody else want that, but I honestly don't think it's... there yet on-device AI in terms of the features that Google has demonstrated

to date. It's just not there yet. MagicQ. It's not. What is people's usage of Magic Q? But also, it's very clear that private compute core thing where it's a hybrid model that is, I still

think in terms of genuine functionality and utility, that's where we're going. Look at the task automation, screen automation. Screen, screen automation stuff, that is still handled in the cloud. I generally think we're a good two, three, four generations out before we get any meaningful on-device AI experiences. I'm curious to see what Apple brings with their more powerful chipsets, what they can demonstrate,

but I don't think we're there yet. And to continue the devil's advocate argument, it's probably a non-issue for now for this generation. But at the same time, I do kind of think that distinguishing the lamb based on storage, I feel like they shouldn't do that for their quote unquote flagships. And if anything, this is a stronger case for maybe expanding the 10A line, the A series line with a big and a small and a screen size wise, which is what people care about at the end of the day. That could be smart i the only thing i want to say is not so much i agree with you like the the the on device stuff is not there today and like i i i feel like i'm the resident ai skeptic of the three of us or

least the most definitely i'm i'm willing to like like don't get me wrong like i i don't think i frankly like i i would uninstall jemini uh nano from my pixel if i didn't have this job because it's seven gigabytes of space that i don't think is is used well like i i think you are better off that seven gigabytes to your music app and having seven gigabytes of saved more music. My, my thing is more that like, if we are two, three, four years away, Abner, as you're saying, I think this slows us down even more. I think this pushes us three, four, five, six years away from, from this stuff really mattering. And, and that matters less to Samsung than it does to Google. It matters less to Motorola than it does to Google. Like, Google wants to not just be the Android

device you're picking, but also the company that is, you're, you know, pushing Gemini and AI on Android forward more so than any other company. And so I think this, I have to imagine they are frustrated by this internally. Like there's no way they want to be making this change. And I just think it's interesting. I think it comes at an interesting time. I think it's so tricky for me to relate it back to the A series. Honestly, Davian.

Like I feel like I didn't give you a great specific answer there, but it's because I don't know what happens. Like, do they just raise prices across the board? Google's kind of the one company on the Android side of things. We haven't seen touch prices at all. You know, I assume that's coming, but like, is the next A series device $600? And what does that mean for the rest of the lineup? Does this year's 8 gigabyte 128 gigabyte pixel 11 start at $900?

I don't know. Like, it's such a, I mean, I wrote a piece this week that was basically just like, nobody's doing phone upgrades anymore and you're paying more for the hardware that is essentially what you could have bought last year. Like, go buy 2025 hardware at this point. Like, I think that more than ever. I think, I think one of the saving graces could potentially be if, um, if there isn't huge uptick in pricing, maybe Google can do some software shenanigans with regards to using onboard memory to kind of overcome the shortcut with a lack of RAM. And it isn't a lack of RAM, isn't it? It's just the fact that they've gone from 12 gigabytes on the base,

potentially to eight, eight now to the base. You lose four gigabytes of RAM. It does potentially not give you as much performance overhead as you'd expect. They could potentially be like genuine day-to-day performance degradation. Granted, I do think the Pixel 10A and the 9A specifically haven't been quite as, they don't feel exponentially slower than the other devices, even though they have a slightly lesser chip and less RAM. It does mean that there's certain functionalities like pixel screenshots

and some of the ones that Google has given, I'm going to call it excuses, to be quite honest with you, excuses for them not existing on their devices. There is nowhere to hide next time when they make it on the A series. So it's kind of like they're making a rod for their own back a little bit where it's a case of we're having to make these changes. Either it's a cost-saving measure, sorry, it is a cost-saving measure,

or lack of availability of the stuff that they can get en masse, like maybe Samsung can potentially kind of shoulder it a bit more because they have more devices are going to sell. Google isn't going to sell in the same volume and they can't make the same, cut the same deals potentially with the companies that they need to acquire this memory and storage from.

There's going to leave a really bad taste in the mouth of the people who potentially want to upgrade to this device. Like you said, there is definitely a lot of people are holding on to their devices longer and there's going to be potentially a group of people using the Pixelite Pro, which oddly recently is our most popular device

by readers and listeners of this podcast. is a Pixel 8 Pro. If you were looking to upgrade after three years to the Pixel 11, you might be looking at it and thinking, I'm not getting enough of a big swing in internals and whatever else happens to be to justify the upgrade this time around. So there was more than just looking at the specifications.

There is a lot of things that come to play, especially for the kind of enthusiastic people who have used pixels in the past and have been part of this kind of growing train of and movement of people switching to Google devices. I'm, in the back of my mind, I'm worried, but I do, I do, I don't doubt Google will do their utmost to optimize for this experience. It's just, yeah, that they have to, they have to nail this. They have to nail this out of the gate again. And they have since the

nine series, I think, for the most part. But this, yeah, this is, this feels like the, a bit of a line in the sand a little bit in some respects. Let's just get into some of the GPU stuff as well, because there is another change potentially here. We may have some good news for the CPU performance. Maybe some things that don't make sense right now with regards to the GPU. I guess to the enthusiasts out there, you're not looking at this device anyway, but the enthusiasts out there is a kind of person who's going to scrutinize this? What do we think so far in terms of like, because we've looked at this in detail, haven't will of the last 24, 48 hours that this news has been available? Yeah, yeah. Look, I'm like, I'm like the wrong person to talk about.

the the tensor GPU controversy because like I have not thrown anything at my pixel 10 that has struggled to perform by which I mean polatra runs fine um vampire survivors runs fine the thing I would say is that it clearly people are frustrated by this like there is a core audience that wants the pixel series to be a proper flagship um I don't it's it's it's difficult for me to like, this is clearly not like what Google wants it to be. Now, that is complicated by the fact that the, the ramp decreases, not to bring that back, but also like sort of eat into the vision of Google's like, this is, this is for AI, like pitch. You know what I mean? Like, like if, if the pitch is, yeah, okay, it's not as good as gaming as the one plus 15 or the

Galaxy S26 Ultra, but it's AI performance and its AI skills are out of this world. like where does that tie it back into the RAM thing where you're like well now I'm getting downgraded across the board and who knows when we're going to end up paying for this certainly not less right like they're not doing all this and then being like and the pixel 11 is back to $700 that's not going to happen um so it's it's tricky for me to see it now that said this seems like a really it i can't tell you if it's a downgrade outside of like i guess the model is is technically like one generation older than what they're using now.

What that means for raw performance. What that means, I don't even understand like why. I guess, I guess it's tricky for me to see what this means for performance because I don't even understand why they're making this jump. So I have to imagine there is some reason for this. Is it cost cutting? Is it that they, because it does seem like they have upgraded this to a 2026 variant that includes Vulcan 1.4 support.

So, so does it, you know, is it fine in this upgraded version? did they get a, is it cheaper, but providing the same performance as last generation? Like, I don't know. But I think my conclusion of this, I think where I am at right now with what we know is basically like, I expect the GPU in the pixel 11 to perform very similarly to the one in the pixel 10. And if you were frustrated by that, then I would skip this generation. But that's clearly not what Google has its priority set on.

Yeah, it definitely feels as though it definitely feels, I mean, on page, obviously leaks are, it is just sometimes just a list of things and a lot of speculation in between, which obviously we're doing in this podcast. But it definitely feels like the things that people want to hear coming out of these leaks are never, never seem to align, if that makes sense. So if this is actually going to be based on a 2021 GPU design updated for 2026, I don't think that looks good on face value. I am sure that there is some element of internally at Google saying we want the best GPU performance. And what's also really weird is the fact that AI is so GPU intensive in those

data. Yeah, on devices, it doesn't, I guess it doesn't matter as much. That's just an aside note. But I don't necessarily think people are coming and expecting, well, if you were expecting like exponential performance gains from GPU and gaming performance, that's not a good sign because it has the, the TENC5 has struggled a little bit this year. and everyone's kind of waiting for a GPU firmer update. It does leave a bit of a sour taste in the mouth in a lot of respects.

But at the same time, I think when you've been around Google and Google products for a long time, you kind of understand that it isn't always necessarily the final sum of its parts in the same way that it would be with Samsung. You need every single thing running at 100% on Samsung to get the best experience. I don't think Google needs to rely on that much because the software and the optimizations do so much

heavy lifting. And I'm kind of hopeful that that is the case this time around. But I don't think they can hide behind potentially using a five-year-old GPU design if that is essentially what they're doing. Again, I'll save judgment until we finally get to see these devices and get to test them out for ourselves and people put them through those kind of stress tests. But I'm content with pixel 10 performance, even pixel 10A performance, because like you will, the vast majority of my gaming is Balatro, which can run on a friggin smartwatch. At this point in time. So there isn't much you can do it.

There isn't much you can't run that on. Let's, the only other final talking point I think we have from this league specifications is potentially some changes to the, well, how the ISP is going to work. And that is related to potentially get a new main sensors on, all of the pixel 11s,

I believe. So we don't know exactly what this sensor is going to be. Could be a return to a 50 megapixel on the base model. I like that. I think that's a really good. choice, potentially a better telephoto on the Pixel 11 Pro, and then maybe some changes to the Pixel 11 Pro 4, but again, that one doesn't seem as clear. I don't know, do we think Google is due, well, overdue, a big camera upgrade? Because it's almost like we've been working with

this 50 megapixel set up across the board. And I personally have to say in the last few years, it almost feels like Google hasn't really led from the front on the camera side of things as much as I probably should. Yeah, it's so frustrating that it's like, Google has always been slow to provide sensor upgrades to its cameras, right? That's been pixels thing since the jump. I believe the pixel two had a different sensor, but then that sensor was used for like three generations, I think,

something like that, give or take a gen. I have to be honest with you, though. So I think the thing is, in a pre-tensor era, right, the Mark Levoy era of pixel, like, yes, the sensors would be repeated for several generations at a time, but the processing would improve generation over generation. The things that were happening behind the scenes in terms of what was happening with computational photography whenever you hit that shutter button got better from the two, pixel two to the pixel three to the pixel four and so on. And in the tensor era,

in a post Mark LaVoy era, it's, they have, they have repeated the process of keeping sensors the same for over generations, but they have not provided, in my opinion,

improvements or advancements to their processing. They certainly, you know, ultra-HDR, etc., etc., but lots of those things are actually sort of the bane of my existence when it comes to modern mobile photography.

So I, I find it difficult to get excited over the promise of new sensors, particularly from any, North American smartphone brand because I know it's just going to kind of like they'll read it'll have new hardware but it's not going to be the leap that I want it to be to get up to the performance we're seeing on models from Chinese brands like opo and vivo like I that's what I think the pixel should be doing with their camera or they should be on par with those companies like there's no reason

Google should not be on par with an opo and yet like I just know that like these phones will have new hardware and I will snap a photo and I will go, maybe it's a little better than last years. But I, I just like, it's so much software and the hardware changes that companies like Google and Samsung make, when they do upgrade their sensors are so slim that I just, I find it, with no specs here, I find it very difficult to get excited. I'm, I mean, I don't know, I don't know how you feel about this, Aftna, because obviously when I, I have this situation where we're going to IO in a couple of weeks time and I want I have the best camera in my pocket as possible,

if that makes sense. I want to be able to capture the best I potentially can, even though I'm going to carry my actual dedicated camera with me, and I know that that will slap a mobile phone camera to pieces. I think now I'm less inclined, and this is ridiculous to say, even though the consistency is so darn good on a pixel, and I think the clue is in the name of the device,

you kind of have to live and die by the camera. If you have pixel in the name, and it's related to pixel, megapixel, whatever it happens to be, there has to come a point in which Google looks at themselves and say, we need to start making some more gains in this camera side of things. Consistency is only part of the equation. And I don't find myself wanting to take my pixel to these kind of things like I used to.

And that, I don't know, it just feels weird to do that. It feels weird that I'm going to go in with a pixel temporal fold and think, it could be better. I could have a better camera in my pocket. I could have a, I don't know, I could take one of the Vivo devices. for the first time this year. Yeah. And it's insane.

I don't know. I know you're an A-series-enjoy. Yeah, just speaking personally, I've kind of chilled out, I guess. That one is the hassle of switching because RCS and that whole transfer thing, neither here or there. But I've kind of chilled out in terms of being perfectly fine with the A-series camera and how it looks. again my other camera is the iPhone air

and that's just one sensor the telphoto is a pain especially on your travelling you do notice that you're losing it that you're losing the Zoom capabilities but I mean how did you cope with that when we went to Barcelona because we did like this is just behind the scenes for the listener

we went when we were at MWC we did a lot of touristy stuff and I was using the 10A at the time and then in tandem with that I was using the S26 Ultra I knew that if I was wanted to get those kind of close-up shots, it's going to have to be the S-26 Ultra, even though I do prefer the images and the image, like, the kind of quality experience with the 10-A? I don't know. How did you cover that? Because I don't think I asked you at the time.

I made my piece for the 10-A camera and the iPhone air camera. It's just what I was convenient, which is, which is, no, I do agree that pixel, like, given the name, they do have to bring it up. I wonder if this requires a massive redesign if we want to start pushing those best possible senses if the camera bar is not big enough or whatever I do wonder if that's the goal but I do feel like in the context of to bring it back to the AI discussion

it does kind of feel like dual's priorities are heavy on AI right now that being said there's absolutely a case to boost up the camera stuff again Yeah, I guess we'll have to wait and see but the telephoto changes look like one of the most interesting to me because that's an area in which the 10 series

with that, is it pro-res zoom? I always forget the name of it. The results can be fantastic. For whatever reason, from pro-res zoom, they change it to pro-zoom mid-cycle even on the marketing, it's and the camera app. I don't know what that was about.

I don't know if I knew that. Can I, if I can speak anecdotally for a second, let me just make one big picture Okay, of course you can. Of the camera. I, it's just that I remember those early generations, like people, like regular people, like iPhone users in my life, like knew of Pixel as the phone brand with really good cameras. Yeah, the best camera.

That did not, that obviously did not get them to jump ship from my message. But they clearly did, like, people in my life who do not pay attention to this stuff knew that the pixel camera was like very good. and, like, to the point where, like, people would ask me to be, to take the group photos. Yeah, I totally agree. I think we've lost that in the last few years. That's, it's, it's, oh, I don't remember the last time somebody told me that. I don't remember the last time I pulled out a pixel.

You don't think it's because the ceiling is just so high or it's. I think everything in North America is basically the same. I think, I think it's basic, but, but I mean that in a derogatory sense. Like, I know. I get that, but it's, and they like, it's, it's everything is like, like, kind of gray and we've removed shadows, like contrast. Oh yeah, don't tell us about that. Dead. Nobody likes con.

Any of these companies like contrasts. Let's just have everything be evenly lit and both softened and then sharpened. And, you know, if you're, if you're on an iPhone, you can kind of tweak it with their, like, the most finicky, like, awful experience I've seen of like, what is it, what's it called?

What's their color thing called? People like that. I like it too. It just sucks. setting it up, but I wish, I wish something like that was on pixel. I mean, even stuff like that where it's like, it's like, I feel that has to be at this point. Let, let's some, let's some, I don't know, like make the, if you can't improve the processing anymore, if computational photography has reached its end point apparently based on the last few generations of pixel

upgrades and we're not putting more impressive sensors in here to get performance out of the hardware, then at least let me like, make, like, make it easier for me to tweak the, final output and make it more personalized to me the way Apple does. It is, it's so weird to me that the, the iPhone allows you to essentially make more personalized images out of the gate than than, then, then most Android phones, but certainly the pixel. Yeah. I don't know, I, I'm just very, I, I am very, all of this comes from a place of love, by the way. Like, all of this frustration that I've had throughout this last 32 minutes, probably cut two minutes of this podcast is me being like, I love this lineup of phones and I want them to do better

and I want them to be obviously the best in the market. And right now it's like they're totally fine phones. Like I'm happy to recommend them to people, but I'm also like I struggle to get excited over any of this. Yeah. I think that might be a symptom though of this. We're in this kind of, we're having a bit of a refresh cycle,

which I think was everything Google needed to do for a long time. Try not to throw the baby out with the bath water every year. Just basically, I don't know if you guys would have this, but this is a very football soccer phrase. World-class fundamentals, do the basics to a world-class level, and then everything else will fall into place.

I can see that. Yeah. So they need to do, they need to continue to do that. I'm just ready for them to move forward. You've seen the Pixel 9 enough times now that we kind of want to see the Pixel 12. But yeah, one more thing before we kind of wrap up

all this pixel 11 stuff before. No doubt we'll hear more about it in the coming months, but it does look like we are not going to get the face unlock hardware with this Pixel 11 that was kind of rumored a few months ago, maybe six, seven months ago, I think it was. I think is it Project Tuscana? It doesn't look like that's going to happen this time around. We're probably going to be sticking with maybe some improvements to the software-based face unlock.

I think that, again, it's a little bit of a disappointment. I mean, show of hands, who you here uses Face Unlock. I am not a Face Unlock enjoy than being completely honest with you. No, I'm on the pixel, it's fingerprint. And actually, I prefer that over the iPhone. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll be the listener out there, you didn't expect me to be the pro face-enlock person,

but I love face-in-lock and the pixel. I think it's really good. I have basically used it reliably since. When did it get really good? Was it the nine? Eight series, I think was very good for me. Eight series. Yeah, and then I, yeah.

So basically, whenever they added, whatever generation they added the ability to unlock like bank apps with it, was when I felt like it got like pretty solid. I essentially, my pixel is always, unless it's like pretty dark. Like even even like evening levels of light are totally are typically fine. It's just in the complete dark or very dim that I have to rely on fingerprint. But yeah,

I actually really like current gen face unlock on the pixel. I would love for it to be better. But I do think what they have now is the best on Android. Like I certainly think it's better than Samsung. The one thing I've always found Q is. that when they made that, when they updated the algorithms and using

the tensor chip to do that flat face unlock they never went into the technicals of it. They just said it was out there. They just said more apps supported, but they have never got into the details and the specs. And I always found

that curious why they never... Usually, if you make that technological breakthrough, whatever, they would, Google usually talks up a great deal about it, but they just haven't with this and had always struck me as odd. Yeah, it's very weird. It is, it is very reliable and very fast. I think it definitely reminds me of early One Plus Face Unlock, which was the most insecure.

I was going to say POS, but I think that's the political way to describe it. It was literally the most insecure. You could use like a photo for it. I think Google's approach has been very, very, very odd given their kind of the solely and the way they handled it with the Pixel 4, which was fantastic. It was still the best face unlock I've experienced, even better than the iPhone. I'm a big fingerprint scanner in joy, although I'm not a big fingerprint scanner in joy of the pixel 10

pro fold for positive reasons. It's too fast. It's too accurate. It's too quick. The amount of times I grabbed the phone out of my pocket and it unlocks, that's by the buy, that's capacity. We'll park that to the side. I feel that. I absolutely feel that.

I think that I would love to see Google do some more with Face Unlock and it's just disappointing that it's not going to be this year. If they're going to give, they could have just given with one hand and, yeah, taken away a little bit the RAM stuff and improved it with software, hidden it with software optimizations. And I would have been fine with it, I think. I think this definitely is a little bit more of like a knife in the back in terms of what the Pixel 11 is coming.

But again, we'll save judgment. It's just we wanted to round that one out last Pixel 11 bit. tidbit for the week, quite a lot to dive into, and we'll have more to dive into, I'm sure, as the months progress, because it's definitely rapidly approaching pixel 11 launch period, and you can tell from this deluge of information coming out there. But we have another piece of hardware, which is currently just, as we're talking, has been dropped, it's been released, it's available for pre-order, the brand new Fitbit Air, I quite like the name, quite like that, I don't know if you guys like that, I quite like it, a wearable, no screen, in the,

their old school, I guess in the whoop style design, I guess, maybe not in the same thing. We've also there then had Google Health, which is a brand new massive launch. It's going to replace a fit of application. This is huge for a Thursday, for a Thursday in May. It is. Pre-I.O., pre-Android show, Google has a new health strategy. It is, they are retiring the Fitbit brand for anything but hardware. The software is now Google Health, bring it into its fold, into its usual branding fold, some close to AI connections. But let's start the hardware. It is, we haven't worn it yet, but it is very small. Google Fitbit's lightest tracker, even lighter than the Inspire tree, especially since it doesn't have a screen. It is just a pebble underneath. It is a pebble that you

saw eyeed into a ban. The band removal mechanism from what we've seen is pretty easy. $100. The hardware is just equivalent to, it doesn't have everything that the pixel watch has. It's missing some things, but it's pretty close. For example, there's no step,

there's no floor tracking, there's no altimeter from what I can tell. And yeah, it's the only interaction that you can have is it vibrates. to wake up in the morning and you can set any other alarm you want in the Google Health app. So that's pretty straightforward. But yeah, it is hardware-wise. It is, there's not much to it. The emphasis in Google's design process was something that you can wear all day 24-7

that you don't have to think about taking off seven days of battery life. The lack of GPS, standard GPS, absolutely makes sense. but that's it is what it is. Yeah, it's the hardware. It's $100 undercuts, the ROOP, which I'm of the opinion that it's Google is taking a slight down market. They're going after a bit of a more down market audience where RUP is going out for the full athletes.

As seen from the Pixel Watch when they did their big health focus, I really don't think that Google wants that, the highest of the high-end market in terms of athletics. This to me feels very much like a return to the start point of Fitbit. People who want to get active, they don't need all of the data points. They just want a little bit of information. And originally the Fitbit was step counts, right? Step count and heart rate.

I think the design of the band is, I like the simplicity and the elegance of it. I think elevate it above some of the other potential devices from the likes of of Xiaomi, on even Huawei, if you were able to pick them up in your region, there's a lot of these fitness bands out there that feel like tech. And I think this is one thing that Google seems to do better and kind of maybe understands more so than a lot of the brands out there is we want something,

you want something that is going to fit into your day-to-day life without standing out too drastically. Maybe they've looked at this from a situation where the pixel watch, series has become a timepiece. I think it's another elegant piece of technology. I think if I'm being completely honest, Google's best product in terms of its hardware design and some of the other elements of it.

This feels very much in that mold. Take what we've learned from the Pixel Watch. What has it been three or four years since the Versa had an update? Like, they look like technology. So, Abner, you and I have disagreed a couple times on how much of this is a whoop competitor. But I actually, we are fully in,

agreement, I think, and maybe we just haven't said this clear enough that, like, I do think, I do think they are aiming down market from whoop. I think they have taken inspiration for whoop seen. So, so what I think this is, right? And I think, I think this is a smart play by Google is they have looked at the, at the demographic of people who want something like whoop and been like, okay, there is clearly a market here. But whoop is like intense, man. Like, it's, it's, it's if you talk to like a diehard whoop user, it's, it sounds like a cult almost, right?

Like it, people who love whoop, like love. And, and they're never going to switch. If they were going to switch, it would have been last year when they had their pricing controversy.

So that's out of, that window's closed. So you're probably not going to get a lot of those people. So instead, what you can do is take the pitch of whoop, which is this device that does not get in the way of, of your, you know,

as you guys have said, like it is a, it doesn't look like a gadget necessarily. It can better blend into your, your typical outfits. And Woop does this a little bit better because you can take it off the band entirely and put it into various like other pieces of clothing or whatever. But, but even still as a band, like this makes a lot of sense, Google has taken that idea and then been like, we're like two thirds cheaper than Woop or something. Like it's like the buy-in is so much cheaper. the software support is so many. And actually, Abner, do you need the premium, the health premium plan to use this? Or is it just, it's the better experience? It will act as a, there's no data,

no sense of data is locked behind a premium subscription. Okay. So even, so that like completely undercuts whoop, which is built through this subscription-based model that gives you the hardware. it's a really smart play because clearly whoop has found an audience and Google being able to come in and take that idea attach it to the Fitbit brand

and be like it's $100, pay for the subscription or don't and it blends in okay I think because everybody is framing it as a Roop competitor and that's the information we had

when it first reached out but and this is the whole stuff carry of it but to me Rup is that subscription that crazy you're very into it you're very into your data and the other way

to see what Roop is which is what other people see it as is that it's a screenless tracker thing that has so it's good for Google to split to differentiate that to, they are targeting the latter rather than the former.

So yeah, this is, this hard wish is the bread and butter. It's, they know what to do with it. They've been doing it for years. They just base it to be, if you cannot be rest generous about it, they just took off the screen. That's all they did, really.

But it's so smart though, because, because I think, like I said, Woop has proven that smart it exists. So for Google to look at it and go, okay, well, we'll keep what, about our stuff and we'll take what works about your stuff and pair the two together. Does anyone remember the Amazon Halo Band? The name rings a bell.

I do now. I do now that you've said it. Yeah, that name is about. Wow. It was their like low cost entry level like FitBits competitor. Well it was it was also did it there was one with the screen right? No, they had that weird thing where like you use your front facing camera it like measures body fat or something. Like it was very, there's a, that had a lot of ideas.

Wow. I forgot how much of this was just whoop. Wow. A halo view. That's what I was thinking of. I think I reviewed or did a hands-on or something with the halo view, which had a display. So that's what I was thinking of. I forgot that the halo started as a like, I mean, honestly, it looks exactly like both

the whoop and the Fitbit air. Like, it's the same, like, fabric band covering a little, like, wearable gadget, no display with, like a thing you pull the strap through. Like it's the exact same design. I think the last thing to talk about in the actual hardware is that there's no screen. And I, okay, it's not trying to be a smart band, but I do, okay, to me, the fact that it doesn't have like a basic e-ink or like cheap digital watch display to show just a time kills me.

That is like my line in the sand, but something extremely weird. level, but I do think people want notifications. That's at a basic level. I think people just want notifications too. I don't know. I agree with you to an extent, but I've kind of, as of the last six or seven months, I think like everybody out there in the entire world

is trying to almost digital detox. And having a device like this that is sold as, I'm just going to track your health stats. I'm going to put it in an application. If you want to check it, you check it. You get vibrations when certain things go on. I think whether they thought about it or not, and obviously there's other brands out there that make them,

like you said, whoop, which I think is a terrible name. There are so many smart devices out there that you can go out and buy. I think having one that just blends into the background goes on your wrist, doesn't notify you every 25 seconds that something goes on. I think that might genuinely be a moment. a master stroke and the Fitbit line I think in a lot of ways and dare I say this is stronger I think people people people downgrading from an app if okay if the Apple watch is the target is the competitor yeah or let's say Galaxy watch or pixel watch I think people going that down

potentially deciding to go from that to the Fitbit air I think they will miss notifications Maybe, but I can, I mean, Damien like nailed his six to seven month window for me. Like I am that person who has finally turned. And maybe it's because we've talked about this maybe, but like I've turned the corner and been like, oh my God, half of my life has been spent or like, you know, almost half of my life has been spent with my wrist constantly buzzing every every, every, you know, several times an hour. I have been, I have started taking my, my smart watch by whatever smart watch I'm wearing off. by like 8 p.m. because I'm like, I don't. I'm shaking my head because all of you are doing this wrong. Okay.

One is specifically in this tech racket that we have. One, do not have Gmail notifications on your watch. Turn those off. That's the first thing. I'm already there. Yeah. Social media, turn that off to. No, I've done all this.

I passed this. You should leave on your wrist on messaging apps, your personal message. Even those bother me at this point. It's true. That has been so, Abner, I've done all of that.

The problem is that the messaging apps are now driving me nuts. Like, it has gotten to the point where it passed 730 or 8, I don't want to be talked to anymore. Not your group chats. Not all your group chats, which you are in many.

Just like the ones that you use to communicate with your partner. I think that's, like, that's what people want at the end of day. Like, that is, at the end of the day, messaging notifications is the thing that I will think people miss one-to-one messaging, not social media,

just one-to-one convoes. That's what they'll miss if they go down great to this form factor from a smart watch. I don't think you go back to us from a smart watch. I mean, I can see it from both sides. I can definitely see it from both sides because...

So can Google? That's why it works with the Pixel Watch finally. Because I think Google wants people like me who are being like, I'm so tired of my watch buzzing at night. Like, I don't even want to, but it's also, it's like, I don't really want to be undue, not disturb, because I don't want to be that disconnected from the world, but, and I don't want to really build like 14 focus modes or whatever.

Like, I just want, like, I, it is, it is so much easier for me to be like, you know what, never mind and like, throw the watch back on its charger and be like, see you tomorrow. And that is what, that is what. Continued. Turn on the airplane mode. Yeah, I, I, I, I, to me, it's just, I, I guess I have reached the point where I am tired of playing in the company's playground. It's built for me to be like, like, don't worry.

Like, we've, we, oh, are you feeling overwhelmed by your Instagram notifications? Just spend five to 20 minutes in the settings app. And you can, you can make it all go. You can, you can finally figure out what you want. And like, I think I'm not alone in this. You know, maybe in the enthusiast space, but certainly not in the real world space. I don't think I'm alone in being like, I'm just, man, you know what? I'll just take the watch off.

And this is great because it does split. you have a pixel watch, it does split the difference. It does allow you to be like, I can continue, if I go for an evening walk at 8.30, now that, you know, we're approaching summer, it's like, I can slap this thing on, keep my fitness tracking going, and be completely disconnected without having to ever open the settings app to mess with what notifications are coming to my watch. I think, yeah, I can see it from both sides. I think the bigger cell. Yeah, I don't think Abner's wrong to be clear. I think it's just definitely correct. I think I was very much of the same. I think I'm trying to disconnect a lot more from things.

I deleted all my social media for a year. I'm going to see how I get on with that. And it has helped. It means I'm not, I mean, don't get me wrong. I've just, it means I've migrated to Instagram reels and I'll scroll them three or four hours a day. Reddit's been the trap for me. I've had to get myself off Reddit because it's so easy to replace like Twitter with

Reddit. But this is, you got, you can't do it. This is why this beautiful new Google Health redesign is perfect because we're going to spend all of our evenings looking at our Google Health stats. So, I mean, I have to say, this has been available in public. for a while now, Abner, hasn't it?

Yes, yes, since October. And I genuinely think the new look at, the new look is something that this should have been the case a long time ago. I'm glad they finally decided to make these changes because visually it looks so much better than it possibly could have done. The fit application was kind of a halfway house, and Google Fit was being completely, I mean, just eradicated and abandoned.

So it's kind of nice to see that Google has decided to amalgamate it all into Google Health. But, I mean, is this a kind of data, we're going to get this kind of in-depth data from the Fitbit band? Is it going to be accurate enough for someone to be really get a picture of the health? I'm unsure, but at the same time, I quite like that they've gone and maybe learned from the mistakes others have made and they've made in their own applications and said, let's just start from scratch. Yeah, this is, this is absolutely the most straightforward take on this. It's not trying to squish all the health data into one tab. They evenly split the cost four. So let's talk about the Fitbit app, Sands,

health coach because it's pretty straightforward. It's a good redesign. I'd say they have a solid fundamental idea behind it. The premise is solid. This four tab layout. They made some good redesigns

that lets you customize it a great deal with the data you want to see all the time. So that's solid. Have any of you been using the health coach? No. I'm not. No. I'm going to because I'm reviewing the Fitbit Air.

I see it. I don't know. The health coach. Okay, this is a funny anecdote. But if you use the Fitbit, when you were used the public preview, if you used it without the health coach, without a premium subscription, it was kind of like so simplistic in a nice way. Like there's no ask coach button. There's no, it's so much less information at you. kind of nice so much so that I can't as a premium subscriber I kind of want the option to remove the

coach but that's in here another again but yeah the coach I use Gemini for health stuff I talk to it about health stuff to find information but I just can't replicate that behavior with the fit with the fit with the coach interestingly it definitely feels like one of those things where It doesn't matter how they sugarcoat these functionalities. They're never going to be quite what everybody wants. It can be a bit too broad. And I know that you can use AI and you can set these set goals. I think to me personally, I find when I go to the gym most,

I don't do, I'm not like a runner or anything like that. Maybe we would play a bit of football here and there. I'm kind of approaching the age where I'm going to have to retire, which is quite sad to say how that. You can kick it. You can kick, you can bend it. But this, yeah, this is the thing. I think very much that.

Bend it like Damien. The thing, I mean, I'm looking at the application now and I'm like, how would I benefit from this? It's like, I think for the kind of people who just go do cardio, maybe there is elements of this that can be applied to your workouts. I think if you do like kind of a more of a split hit, hit workouts is a bit more tough to kind of get a true, kind of, yeah, you can't really ascertain what you, what you, what what your goals should be

because it's like, I want to do progressive overload, I maybe want to increase my VR2 max, that kind of stuff. It's like an application is not really going to help you with that purely on its own.

You're going to have to use other services and maybe have a personal trainer in person to reach certain levels. So yeah, I'm kind of, I'm not sold on these. I'm not necessarily sold on these tools. That's the thing.

Like to go big brain AI for a second, it is the promise of AI in the context of fitness is giving everybody their own coach. their own trainer. That is something that couldn't be done at an advanced level pre-large

language model. So the premise here is that AI can give everybody a personal trainer and I think that on paper is not a bad idea. It helps people

stick to their goals a bit more. It customizes the workout as best as it can. So on paper that's a good idea. But I I don't know. I feel like how do most people exercise

if like they watch one of those workout videos they stick to those they find the program. So the question is how seamlessly can you integrate somebody else telling you real time feedback on your progress?

Will people because I don't like I kind when I've been using fitness apps for years and when I see those prompts about like feedback when I work on I just kind of ignore them. So maybe, because I know there's an AI behind it, maybe I listen to that a bit more,

but I just do what I want to do exercise-wise. Yeah, I think for the sake of $10 a month as well, you kind of invested to listen to it a little bit more. Maybe I don't know. I don't know. There's maybe a little bit of element of how the heck do you debalance that. I know that you can get this part of it. Is it the AI pro plan? Is that the middle one?

It's about $100 a year or something like that, I think. I'm trying to convert it from my pound sterling brain into freedom bucks. So I think... You've had it for free, you're lucky. I know, we get it for free anyway. So I think if that was part of it, I don't know why they don't do that in the US, to be quite honest with you. I think that would make...

Now they are. Well, it makes it a more sellable asset, I think, is part of a Google ecosystem play. I think this is probably the most sensible way to do it. Again, I do wonder how many people are going to utilize the personal coach. aspect of it. I think, yeah, I'm not sold yet. I haven't seen anything in terms of how AI is going to be utilised to help you improve your workout plans more so than anything else. Maybe you do need something like a whoop or like a really high-end wearable to really get

this to be useful to you. But I guess in the next few weeks we'll find out how that pans out with the Fitbit air and I'm sure Will will have some thoughts when he's treading the pavement, what lack thereof in the US. Yeah. God, we keep oscillating between like beautiful like 72 degree sunny days and like 41 degree rainy and windy days.

So keep your fingers crossed for me that I get more of the former than the ladder for what I'm testing. Just put the wind breaker on and just go for it. Just go for it. Just me running in like 25, 30 mile per hour winds being like, this is great. I'm having a great time.

Yeah. I reviewed the charts, the fit with charts. six with a cough. It took like cough medication before doing the final exercise one. That's awful. Well, I'm excited to see how this pans out. I think this is one of those products that it's probably going to be a sleeper product. I think this is a kind of thing, and I'm seeing it from the UK side of things, is that you would go into our big box retailers is curries. I think they might be the biggest still. There isn't many brick and mortar stores you can

go into. And I can imagine seeing this on display with all of the fitness wearables. People, going in, oh, it's under £100. I think it's £85 here in the UK, $99 in the US. And I think it's at that perfect price point where people are, do you know what, around that Christmas period, holiday period, birthdays. Yeah, it'll be 79. I mean, if you're a bad partner, anniversaries, you might get someone one of these. I think that is going to be a big beneficial aspect of this Fitbit piece of hardware. And it doesn't help that Steph Curry's wearing it. I know you basketball enjoyers out there. Probably will buy it off the back of Steph Curry's approval.

But yeah, I'm sure we'll have more to talk about this in future. We haven't touched on the Android show yet. It has been announced that is happening on Tuesday. Is that the 12th of May, I believe? We will have more to say once that's been and gone. I am excited to see just what Google has in store for Android ahead of I.O. Wait, is our episode 100 covering the Android show? It will be, yes.

Oh, wow. That works. I'm going to spoil it. Yes. So it's a very special episode. tell your friends, tell everybody you know to tune in next week. It's going to be a bumper episode, 100 episodes of Pixelated, and I couldn't have two better people with me to talk about Android. So thanks guys for joining me, as always.

Oh, wait, one thing, one thing quick. If you or somebody you know is an Amazon music listener, if you prefer listening to your podcast on Amazon music, this show, pixelated and the sideload are both on Amazon music podcast. Now that came from actual requests for both shows that I got. in my email. So if you were one of the people reaching out to me, congratulations. You got what you wanted. And you can pick up your Amazon Halo at the same time. Thanks guys to join us. And we will speak to you very, very soon. I'm excited. I'm genuinely vibrating with excitement for this

episode next week. Android is our bread and butter. And we are being teased by Google. It's going to be one of the biggest years for Android. So I'm excited. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. And I'll speak to you soon. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to Pixelated, a 9-to-5 Google podcast. If you enjoyed the show, we ask that you rate and review it on the podcast platform of your choice and help spread the word by sharing the show with friends or on social media.