Google has officially confirmed the long-held rumour that it would be launching its own branded smartphones on October 4th.
A new event web page created by the company has been live for a few hours. Even though it doesn’t reveal much in terms of the specifics of the October 4th event, a silhouette of a device just above a field where one can key in their email address in order to be notified when the devices drops hints at what we’ve all known for a while.
Details of the devices, the two Pixel smartphones made by HTC, a 7-inch (Pixel?) tablet reportedly being made by Huawei and the long-awaited Google Daydream reference hardware have been trickling in over the last few weeks. While it is not clear if we’ll get to see the tablet on October 4th, it is pretty much a given that the two smartphones, dubbed Pixel and Pixel XL, will be the main draw on that day alongside the VR headset and anything that El Goog may have up its sleeve (updates to Chromecast?).
October is coming. #madebygoogle https://t.co/UNMr2cJXhk pic.twitter.com/LzyswaEBjh
— Google (@Google) September 20, 2016
The Pixel smartphones are said to ship with the first point update to the newly-released Android Nougat, version 7.1.
According to sources quoted by Android news site Android Police, the smaller 5-inch Pixel smartphone is expected to start at $650 while the larger 5.5-inch Pixel XL will go for much more. The storage configurations are not clear at this moment but the base model is expected to be at least 32GB.
As we’d previously heard, the two Pixel smartphones’ arrival will mark the death of an iconic device brand we’ve come to know (and love) since the early days of Android, Nexus. Unlike the Nexus smartphones where the makers had some presence as far as branding went, the new Pixel smartphones are said to be all about Google. Google’s branding is front and centre of the devices and it is understood that despite having been made by HTC, there won’t be explicit references to the Taiwanese company on the new hardware since Google took charge of their entire design and will be looking to the two devices as its own absolute smartphones. This is not really new. The company already does the same on another Android device, the Pixel C tablet.
Pixel phones photo by Android Police
