7 years of software support, much improved chipset, upgrades to the display, cameras and battery – what’s not to love about the new Pixels?
The Pixel phones were supposed to be Android’s answer to the iPhone, the definitive hardware and software combo from the platform. However, unimpressive software support and troubled hardware meant they never achieved that goal.
Or perhaps just not until now. With the Pixel 8 series it finally feels that Google is serious about making phones. It’s a big commitment – 7 years of software support (both OS updates and security patches), longer than even Apple offers, which was so far the leader in the market (and nearly as long as Fairphone, which is a bit player). The phones themselves are more capable too, let’s take a look.
The Google Pixel 8 Pro brings predictable upgrades. Perhaps the biggest change is the Tensor G3, the new 4nm chipset. It jumps two generations ahead with Cortex-X3, A715 and A510 cores (compared to X1, A78 and A55 or the G2) and a switch to the top of the shelf Immortalis-G715s MC10 GPU (up from Mali-G710 MP7). We’re yet to see reliable benchmarks, so we can’t judge the performance uplift just yet.
