Month: October 2019

Enlarge / Google's first official picture of the Pixel 4. (credit: Google)

NEW YORK— There really aren't many surprises left, but Google went through the motions today and unveiled the Pixel 4. The P4 is possibly the most-leaked smartphone of our lifetimes, with the previous record holder being the Pixel 3.

Anyway, everything you've heard is true. The Pixel 4 is Google's first smartphone with a dual rear-camera setup, and the front has a 90Hz display and a lopsided design with a big top bezel. That top bezel is packed with sensors housing both an iPhone-style 3D sensing face unlock system and Google's Project Soli technology for radar-based air gestures. The main thing we wanted to confirm at this event was the price, which hasn't changed. The Pixel 4 starts at $799, and the Pixel 4 XL starts at $899. Pre-orders are now live, and the phone ships on all major American networks starting on October 24.

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  Pixel 4 array. Coming in three colors: Just Black, Clearly White, and Oh So Orange. [credit: Google ]

The Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL both come with a Snapdragon 855, 6GB of RAM, and options for 64GB or 128GB of storage. (Pay $100 more for either phone's larger capacity.) The smaller Pixel 4 comes with a 5.7-inch OLED display and a positively tiny 2800mAh battery. The bigger Pixel 4 XL has a 6.3-inch OLED display and a 3700mAh battery. Both displays are 90Hz, which means the UI should run smoother and faster at 90fps than the 60Hz phones that currently dominate the market. The displays also feature "Ambient EQ," a Google version of Apple's "True Tone" display, which updates the screen color temperature to match your surroundings—and promises to automatically intelligently reduce the 90Hz refresh to preserve battery life as well.

Enlarge / Google Nest Wi-Fi debuts at Made by Google 2019 event. (credit: Jim Salter)

Google debuted their Nest Wi-Fi—replacement for the original Google Wi-Fi—today at Made by Google 2019. Details given were sparse, but the device appears to effectively be the original Google Wi-Fi hardware in an updated chassis—which Google hopes you'll find attractive enough not to hide away in a cabinet—with the addition of an onboard smart speaker. Google did claim that Nest Wi-Fi delivers "up to two times the speed" and "25% more coverage" but with no technical detail, it's difficult to expect much concrete out of that.

There was no mention of Wi-Fi 6 support or anything else notable on the actual Wi-Fi front, but the addition of Google Assistant and a smart speaker in both the Nest Wi-Fi Router and Nest-Wi-Fi Point (satellite nodes) means fewer devices necessary for those who want to audibly command Wi-Fi setups, eg "Hey Google, pause the Wi-Fi." Frustrated parents can also give commands like “Hey Google, pause the Wi-Fi for $childname” without impacting the rest of the network.

Google says that a two piece Nest Wi-Fi kit—one Nest Router and one Nest Point—should cover up to 3,800 square feet, and 85% of homes. This claim, like most arbitrary claims of Wi-Fi coverage with no real detail, should be taken with several grains of salt.

Enlarge (credit: Google)

NEW YORK—Google's big hardware extravaganza is kicking off, and in addition to new phones and laptops, we're getting an update to the Google Home Mini.

In line with Google's decision to demote Nest from a standalone Alphabet company to Google's smart home sub-brand, the Google Home Mini sequel is called the "Google Nest Mini." Pre-orders are live today, and the device launches October 22.

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  Announcement.

So what's new? Well, on the surface, the new Nest Mini looks identical to the old Home Mini. It's still a cute little blob of fabric with four lights on the top. The new model brings increased volume ("2x stronger bass"), a better-sounding speaker, a third microphone for audio pickup, and a simple keyhole-style wall mount on the back. It's still $50.

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  The hardware you get with the $129.99 Stadia "Founder's Edition."

At its Made With Google event this morning, Google announced that the Stadia streaming gaming service will roll out to preorder customers on November 19.

That specific date further clarifies a vaguer "November" launch window that was announced back in June. In a blog post accompanying the on-stage announcement, Google further clarified that the service would go live at 9am PST (12pm EST, 5pm BST) on that day.

How it works

As previously discussed, the only players that will be able to access Stadia on that launch day are those who spend $129 to pre-purchase the Stadia Founder's Edition package (or the substantially similar Premiere Edition that was announced later). Those packages comes with a Wi-Fi Stadia Controller, a Chromecast Ultra for TV streaming, three months of Stadia Pro, and a streamable copy of Destiny 2.

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  The Google Pixelbook Go. [credit: Google ]

NEW YORK—Google is finally making premium Chrome OS laptops again. The company's flagship Pixelbook launched in 2017 and didn't really get a follow-up last year. Instead, the company launched the Pixel Slate, a surface-style tablet-plus-keyboard combo that flopped so hard that Google decided to stop making tablets.

Meet the new laptop, the Pixelbook Go. Google nailed a unique and interesting laptop design with the original Pixelbook, but this new update more or less looks like a MacBook. The inner deck of the magnesium notebook features a normal keyboard layout, a large trackpad at the bottom, and a strip of speaker grills flanking either side of the keyboard. The details all look like a carefully traced MacBook layout, with a similar hinge setup for the screen and a groove cut out of the front edge to allow users to lift the lid.

One big design difference comes in the large, ribbed pad on the bottom, which covers the bottom in a grippy surface in lieu of feet.

Enlarge / Google's new Pixel Buds true wireless earphones. (credit: Google)

Google on Tuesday announced the latest generation of its Pixel Buds wireless headphones. The new pair comes in the "true wireless" form factor popularized by Apple's AirPods, with two small earbuds that connect to a source device without any cables running between them.

The new earbuds are a successor to the Pixel Buds Google released in 2017, which had a more traditional wireless headphone design and received generally middling feedback at launch. These new earbuds keep the same name and sport a similarly rounded shape but have a slightly redesigned "arc" that keeps them in place and eartips that will hopefully create a tighter seal. There's a vent on the bottom of each earbud designed to let in external noise and avoid blocking out the outside world completely, though.

Google says the new Pixel Buds will get five hours of battery life on a charge, with up to 24 hours added through its charging case. That's about in line with the AirPods, but a good way behind class leaders like Beats' Powerbeats Pro earphones, which get closer to 9-10 hours on their own. The company also touts "long-range Bluetooth connectivity" that grants the earbuds enough range to work "three rooms away indoors or a football field-distance away outdoors," though Google didn't go into any specifics regarding how it has achieved that. (We'd guess it's using Class 1 Bluetooth.) Google says the new Pixel Buds are sweat- and water-resistant as well, though it didn't provide a specific IPX rating.