Say hello to the Pixel and Pixel XL, the first of a new breed of Google phone
After weeks of teases, rumors and detailed leaks over the weekend, Google officially announced its new flagship Pixel smartphone in San Francisco on Tuesday.
The Pixels are Google's new brand of premium Android smartphones and are available exclusively on Verizon in the U.S. Advance leaks predicted the Pixel has a 5-inch full HD (1,920 x 1,080) display and a larger phone, the Pixel XL, has a 5.5-inch Quad HD (2,560 x 1,440) screen.
The Pixel starts at $649 for the full price or at $27 per month. It'll come in three colors: "Quite Black", "Really Blue", and "Very Silver".
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It'll also be available internationally from the following carriers and retailers:
Pre-orders start immediately in the U.S., Canada, Germany and the UK. Indians will have to wait until Oct. 13 to pre-order.
The Pixel phones are the latest to run Android Nougat (version 7.1), the latest version of Google's mobile operating system.
The Nexus phones started receiving Android 7.0 Nougat in August. LG's V20 was the first Android phone to ship with Nougat.
Screen and battery capacity differences aside (Pixel has a 2,770 mAh battery and the Pixel XL has a 3,450 mAh battery), the two phones are identical.
They're both powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor with 4GB of RAM and come with 32GB or 128GB of internal storage (there's no microSD card slot for expansion).
Both phones have a 12.3-megapixel f/2.0 aperture camera on the back with optical image stabilization and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera on the front. The camera also stabilizes video by default thanks to optical image stabilization.
Google says the cameras have zero shutter lag and scored an 89, the highest DxO camera rating for any smartphone camera.
A new feature called Smartburst captures multiple photos and selects the best one with the phones' powerful AI software:
Fingerprint scanners are located on the backside and a USB Type-C port on the bottom.
Software, of course, is the heart of the the Pixel phones. The Pixels are the first phones to come with Google Assistant. Users can simply speak to their phones to perform various activities like:
Showing upcoming events:
Finding photos:
Creating reservations:
The phones also support quick charging; 15 minutes of charging adds up to 7 hours of battery life.
Additionally, the phones come pre-installed with Allo, the company's smart messaging app, and Google Duo, its video calling app.
Like Nexus phones, the Pixels will be the first Google phones to get software updates. Google's making updating even easier with automatic updates that download and install in the background; when the phones are rebooted, the update is automatically applied.
To make switching from another phone easier, Google's also including a transferring device.
This story is developing...
Raymond Wong is Mashable's Senior Tech Correspondent. He reviews gadgets and tech toys and analyzes the tech industry. Raymond's also a bit of a camera geek, gamer, and fine chocolate lover. Before arriving at Mashable, he was the Deputy Editor of NBC Universal's tech publication DVICE. His writing has appeared on G4TV, BGR, Yahoo and Ubergizmo, to name a few. You can follow Raymond on Twitter @raywongy or Instagram @sourlemons.
