There is one silver lining in the otherwise bland Tensor G4 AP being used on the Pixel 9 series.
When the Pixel 6 Pro was my daily driver, there were times when the phone would suddenly get cut off from my cellular network making me wonder what might happen if I needed to make a call in an emergency situation. Eventually, the problems with the modem, the optical under-display fingerprint scanner, and the short-lasting battery had me reaching for my older iPhone 11 Pro Max. Eventually, I bought an iPhone 15 Pro Max which is my current everyday phone.
Why did Google switch from using a Qualcomm modem on the Pixel 5 to the Samsung SHANNON A5123 5G Modem for the Pixel 6 series? One guess would be that Qualcomm’s 5G modem was much more expensive than the Samsung modem. What Google did was cut corners where it thought it could get away with it. And sure, we get it. No one likes to deal with Qualcomm and its mantra “No license, no chips” which I suspect is chanted every morning in the executive suite in San Diego.
The Pixel 6 Pro used the Samsung SHANNON A5123 5G Modem.
