Google Pixel 6 By This Is

- Hello, and welcome to "This Is". Austin, are you ready to speculate wildly about the Pixel 6. - I do nothing but speculate wildly on all the content that I create on various platforms, including "This Is". So, here's the deal. The deal is there is certainly a Pixel this year. Obviously, no surprise.

- But there is. - But the thing is, they've actually taken a little bit of a different strategy recently. And there's a lot of interesting rumors around what this new Pixel will entail. So just to set the stage, right? If you haven't been closely following the Google Pixel news over the last few years. What we've seen recently is a little bit of a shift, right? Pixels used to be high-end flagships.

They used to be fairly expensive phones that were as expensive as a Samsung or an iPhone equivalent, but the problem was they weren't selling. - No, they were not. - At all. - And I mean, part of that was, a one, they used to have two models. They would always have kind of like the high end and the low end.

- The excel and the standard. - Yeah. And then they just kind of went, okay, we know we're going to do the Pixel and then usually like a Pixel A. - Which again that was the main shift. - Yeah.

And I think that was a better move. They've really gone from flagship to mid grade. Flagship has kind of gotten to be a weird term. Because flagship means, the best phone that the company is putting forward. But a lot of people just assume flagship means.

- A $1,000. - You know, like the top phone period. So like technically the Pixel is Google's flagship. But it's a mid range phone. - It's like 700 bucks.

- Yeah. - And so what happened was a couple of years ago, they started to shift. Because the main Pixels were always like they had a problem, the battery sucked, they didn't have ultra wide camera, whatever the case was. But then they brought out the Pixel 3a and they followed up with the Pixel 4a. Which are phones that are in that three, $350 price category and the deliver really solid camera performance.

So that's where kind of Google is at the moment. Right. And while we did a video on the Pixel 5. And I really liked that phone. I did not expect to actually daily drive that for as long as I did.

And there were a lot of things there. It was probably the best overall Pixel they made in quite a while. Even though the performance wasn't really there, specifically on the graphic side. Camera was good. Although we'll talk a lot about that.

But the build was great. The 90 hertz display, battery. Like it was a solid device. Which brings us to the Pixel 6, right now. We're certainly a little ways away from the Pixel 6 Logic.

But there've been some very interesting rumors about it. Mostly related to what's inside the phone. - Yes. So the big rumor is that this year, Google will be using their own proprietary in-house chips for their processors. - Which is super interesting because previously, like we were saying earlier, they were high-end flagships.

They use the same Snapdragon stuff that everyone else did. But with the Pixel 5, they actually went down to a mid-range Snapdragon. Which did hurt performance, again, like we kind of just talked about. But you know when you're spending two or $300 less, than the iPhone 12 of the world, you expect that that's sort of okay. But what Google is doing here is, they're actually developing their own semi-custom SOC.

Now exactly what that is going to enable. We don't exactly know. We don't know if it's going to go high end. We don't know where they're aiming for the performance of this. - The rumor is that they're developing this chip alongside with Samsung.

- Makes sense. - So a lot of the speculation is that this is going to be basically a custom version of the Exynos chip. - Basically. - It's usually in their mid range phones. - They made full, like, flagship level Exynos that go into.

- Yeah. - International versions of the S20 S21 devices. And they're generally, the Samsung chips are roughly equivalent to Snapdragon 865s, and 888s, and stuff. The main differences is that usually they're a little bit behind on like the processes. - Yeah.

- It's like 90, 95% there. There's a lot of interesting stuff there. Now, it might seem weird that Samsung are making chips for the Pixel. But the thing is there are only, really, two different places you can make chips. Samsung and TSMC, right? There's not exactly a lot of companies who actually physically making the chips.

Because you have to remember that there's the design process and there's the actual just manufacturing. And those are decoupled. Now, Samsung does have a lot of interesting things coming up. Including they're going to use the Radeon graphics. - Yep.

- In their Exynos chips, right? So there's interesting stuff here. I'm pretty skeptical of how tightly Samsung is going to be involved in this. I wouldn't be surprised if Google is doing the design and just saying, "Hey, Samsung just make this thing that we've designed. " Which is a very different thing than Samsung and Google actually having a close collaboration. - Yeah, because that, I mean, let's pretend they did have a close collaboration.

- Which is totally possible. It's just seems weird. - Right. So, the one thing that we're going to get with Google doing this, is they're going to have an edge with Android. By they're going to be able to make Android, probably, 12 at this point, be able to utilize their custom chip the same way that Apple has it utilizing their chips.

So having first party, you know, integration like that, is huge. - Well, there's also other elements, where if you think of this from the Google perspective, why can't they take this chip and put it into Chromebooks. - Chromebooks. Stuff like that. - Put it into Android TVs.

Put it into whatever they want, right? - There's a lot of implication of that. But where it gets a little interesting, if they do end up working very closely with Samsung. Well now Samsung, they have an advantage over all the other Android manufacturers as well. - Potentially. - If they're making the chip that is optimized for the software.

- Yeah. - They're the only company that does that. Besides Google. - There's is a huge grain of salt to all of this in that. - Yeah.

Which we don't know. - It does seem pretty likely that, there will be a custom Google chip inside the Pixel this year. If we take a step back from this, right? The Pixel 5 might have a performance advantage. But what I don't think the Pixel 5 will have this year, is an inflated price tag. Now we actually, before shooting this video, we had a real argument about this.

- Yes. - We had different opinions on where they're going. My opinion, which is of course the correct one, unlike Mr. Matt over here. - I'm just going to say I have the better track record of things coming true.

- That actually is true. I think the Pixel 6 will still stay in that roughly same price category. Right? I think it makes sense for them to sell the high-end Pixel 6. Which is, you know, the higher refresh rate display, the nicer build, extra camera, whatever the case is. But that's going to be like the premium option.

Which will, I think still stay in that six to $700 price category. - I'm going to correct something I said when I was arguing with you. And I said it was, like, I got my pricing tiers confused. - Oh. Oh.

So, I was right. Got it. Thank you for that. - But by over. No.

No. No, no, no, no. - (laughing) - Overall, well, my thought is the same. The Google line just needs to lower their price, a 100, a $150. - Across the board - Across the board.

- Are you trying to tell me that they need to sell 250 to $300 Pixels? - Yes. Because right now, like you say, they're just kind of there. Like, no one, like pixels are very popular and they're good phones. But they're not a major market share. - Yes.

- And right now the Chinese phones' have gotten so good. - It's hard to compete. - Like, go get a Pocophone. It's just, it's doing just as good. This is Google.

They like, they can afford to eat some of that cost. Because, again, they have the Android system, that is generating the money. - Well, what's the point of the Pixel? What's the point of the Nexus line? But to show the rest of the world, what a Google phone can do, right? - Yes. - Like this is the best of Android. - Yes.

- This is like what Google's vision of a perfect Android phone. Or at least the optimal Android experience is. - In order for Google to actually try and break back into the market. The Pixel 6 has to be like 500 bucks. - It's possible.

- Cause it gets even more complicated with Samsung. Samsung's bringing a bunch of their mid range phones. - They're budget phones. - They're budget phones, to the U. S.

Which again, you guys always say, like, why, you know, "Oh, in my country, this. My country, this. " Well, we 're a U. S. based channel, that's why we talk about the U.

S. most of the time. But that's also the biggest market. So, having Samsung bring in like the A32, which is a $300 5G phone. How, like, how does Google expect to compete with that? Because what I argue is, in the, if you're like a mid tier, like if you're in the market for a mid tier phone.

You're not looking at specs - But it's always about what those specs enable. And there's two ways that Google can approach this, right? Google could either go, "Hey, we're going to go up market. We're going to charge more because we're having the best performance, blah, blah, blah. " Right? - Wrong. - Or they can talk about it from the perspective of, we're not paying all this extra money to Qualcomm.

We're building our own chips. It's going to be cheaper. Even though it's probably not going to be cheaper. But they can kind of say like, you know, because we're building this in house all of the money we're spending on the phone is going to you, the consumer. Right? That's the brand friendly approach to it.

But the real answer is somewhere in the middle there. Because there obviously are economies of scale, if they make 30 million of these chips a year and they put in all their products. That's certainly going to save them money. But there's another element to this that I think is really important for the Pixel, which is the camera. - Yeah.

- The pixel was synonymous with an amazing camera at, pretty much since day one. Especially with Pixel 2. Pixel 1 had a very good camera. Pixel 2 was like, "Oh my God! This is an amazing camera. " It really blew everything else out.

- And the problem is it's been pretty much the same camera since then. - Pixel 3 was, well no. Pixel 3 was a little bit of an improvement. But I think that Pixel 3 camera has basically have been frozen in carbonate since 2000 and what 17 or whatever. - Yeah.

- They keep bringing it up. Now, to be fair, that same camera is on budget phones. It's on all the Pixels, right? And they have finally brought out things like the ultra wide, and whatnot, which is fine. But the thing is they've frozen that exact same sensor, and pretty much the same everything that camera system. Short of updating the app and improving it here and there.

But generally speaking the performance of the Pixel 2 or Pixel 3, in the camera side, isn't really that different than what you get out of a Pixel 5 that you bought a couple of months ago. - I don't think they need to be up to quite the level of an S21 or an iPhone. - No, they do. They do. The pixel was the best camera on a phone for several years there.

- (heavy sigh) - Right? Like, it wasn't like, sure the iPhone had better video, but like the Google, like their computational photography, pushed the whole smartphone space up by a factor of three or four years, right? - Yeah. - They were so ahead of the game. - Like I feel. - They haven't improved since then. And the problem is, because they haven't improved since then, everyone has finally caught up.

Surprise, surprise. That's the way that works. Now, the way to fix this, isn't complicated, right? Stop using the same older, smaller, sensor. Right? Everyone else, even the iPhone, are now using the larger, much more modern sensors. That not only have support for 8K video, blah, blah, blah.

I don't care about that. - 8K's dumb. Don't, don't do it. - But there are features on these sensors, that not only have the larger size. But there are features on these sensors, that the better HDR support, the higher bit rozs.

There's a lot of different things, that a modern sensor can provide and they already have the backing. - (heavy sigh) - The tough part of this, right? The tough part of making a great sort of smartphone camera. Is the software and the processing, which Google has. They just need better hardware on the devices to enable those photos to be better. It's not that hard.

- And I'm not saying that they don't need to improve their camera. They do need to improve their camera. But again what I'm thinking. If they're saying we're going to be in the mid range, which is where they've been going, and where they feel clearly the most comfortable. Again, do you think that the average consumer cares about HDR, about 8K? I don't think they do.

- No. - I think the people who want to buy that, have a phone like that, want the phone that's going to give them the best Instagram photo of their food for when they go to dinner. Is going to give them the best photo of their kid, when they take a photo of that. Something like that. - Okay.

Well, let us let you know. Let us know in the comments below. - Yeah. - If you've ever purchased the Pixel. Why did you buy it? Was it the stock Android, was the camera.

I'm sure that a lot of like legitimate reasons. But I bet for a lot of people, especially people who are not as incredibly handsome and technically savvy as you are. Fine, dear viewer, who's, Ringling the ding-a-ling bell. Please, please subscribe. You probably made that decision for slightly different reasons than an average person who just like you said, wants to just take a better photo.

And there's nothing wrong with that. If I can say that, "That I bought a Pixel. " "Oh, what? That Google phone. " "Yeah, you know the phone that has the best camera ever. " "I want one of those too.

" - What I'm afraid will happen. Is they're in this budget range. - Yeah. - And then they go and get, like the budget 108 megapixel sensors that some of the Chinese phone uses. Where people look and say, "Oh! 108 megapixels.

That's a great camera. " - You think they're going to go for the marketing aspect. Not the quality. - That's what I'm afraid that they would do. - Possible.

- Because not all sensors are, like, I will gladly take a 12 megapixel sensor, that is well-made. Versus 108 megapixel, that is just whatever. Which is often the case with some of the budget Chinese phones. - Well it's kind of like trying to compare two cars that, like maybe have a similar engine, but are different otherwise. Like there are a lot of other things that are there.

I will agree though, megapixels don't mean anything. I'm sorry, MKBHD for your 8K videos. But like the amount of megapixels in that camera, is not what makes that video good. It's not what makes that quality good. Look, there are other things that are important, right? So yes, I agree.

We don't need 108 megapixels. But I do think that those are a couple of the key areas the Pixel 6 should improve on. One, which is the chip, which I think is pretty much a dead sort of gimme. It seems like very clear that they're working on that. Obviously, it's a huge wildcard.

That chip could be terrible. Right? We might be talking to all of this is a downgrade. They made their first chip and sucks. We don't know, but at least that's going to be a differentiating factor. And the camera is the other one they need to deliver on.

- At least just keeping up with everyone else. Like, I don't know why, I feel like I'm a crazy person here. Ranting Pixel make better cameras but I feel passionate about that. Because that was one of the big reasons why I could say, with a completely straight face to almost anyone who's interested in Android phone, "Yeah. That pixel is great.

The camera is killer. Yeah, it might have a bad battery or there's a couple of, like, random things here. But the overall experience is good because of some excellent features. If you're not standing out in the smartphone space, right now, you're going to get swallowed up just like LG has. And I think Google, they can put as much money as they want behind it.

They can make pixels forever. It can be a losing proposition forever. That's fine. But if you want to actually have market share. If you want to have a successful product in the year 2021 and beyond.

You need to have some standout features. You can't just make a generic town 5,000 phone and have it be successful. And I'm not saying that Google is there. And I'm certainly not saying that is where they're going. But I think every manufacturer, and Google probably most specifically, needs to keep that in the back of their head.

Because if you're not innovating. If you're not keeping up this amazing feature of the camera, whatever the case is, you're going to get swallowed by everyone. You're going to fall into generic town and you're going to go out of business. That was aggressive and probably a little bit of a hyperbole, but let us know what you think about the Pixel 6 in the comments below. Let us know, of course, if you've actually ever bought a Pixel, why you did that? I'm super curious, because I feel like people have very different answers to that question.

- Yes, they probably do.

Source : This Is