Google made some interesting announcements at their “Made by Google” event in New York City on Tuesday this week. The event unveiled Pixel 4 and 4 XL phones, Pixel Buds 2 earphones, Google Nest and Pixelbook Go Chromebook laptop.
The event comes a month after Apple’s launch of the iPhone 11, 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max phones. Samsung also recently released the Galaxy Note 10 and 10 Plus phones and Galaxy Fold. Google is in tight competition with Apple and Samsung, and there were notable products demonstrated at the event.
Pixel 4 phone
The Pixel 4 and 4 XL stand out from their Apple and Android rivals with comparable cameras and display, but double the amount of RAM at a lower price.
As with the iPhone 11 and Galaxy S10 lines, Google’s Pixel 4 incorporates a lot of computational technology, however it has been shown that the Pixel 4’s camera is favourable over the iPhone. Google’s Pixel 4 uses hybrid digital and optical zoom with both its lenses. It offers dual-exposure controls, which allow the adjustment of brightness and shadows. The camera has been improved to work with different backgrounds, such as snow or the night’s sky. It uses smart data from the second lens, which improves the quality of the appearance and pictures zoomed. However, we haven’t heard of any improvements to video recording.
Google announced added radar sensors, resulting in the fastest secure facial unlock. Due to the sensors the device detects the user when it is reached for, switching to alert and detect instructions. The radar sensors allow for commands such as swiping to skip a song or silence a call. Recently Google has been maximize the battery’s efficiency. The Pixel 4 has microphones with increased voice sensitivity which give the ability to transcribe ‘voice to notes’ during or after recording audio.
Google has certainly provided a product worthy of being a rival to the iPhone 11s and Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10. The Pixel 4 starts from £669 and come with 3 months free Google One.
Pixel Buds 2 earphones
The Pixel Buds 2 were shown at the event as a potential market leader. With the Pixel Buds 2, with access to Google Assistant users can ask Google to do things on their behalf without handing their phone, including send messages, play songs, call others etc. An outstanding feature of Pixel Buds 2 is that they enable use of Google Translate – providing the ability to communicate with others regardless of language through realtime translation.
They have an extremely good Bluetooth range, stretching for three rooms in-house or for a football pitch length outside. Pixel Buds 2 give five hours of continuous listening and up to 24 hours when charged wirelessly. The speakers have been improved to increase the background sound with a “spacial vent”, increasing the sound quality but reducing the feeling of blocked ears. They also respond to surroundings so users don’t have to constantly change volume if, for example, walking through a busy station onto a quiet street. The microphone uses speech detection to better hear voices in busy backgrounds. Pixel Buds 2 start from around £140 and are available to preorder.
Nest Mini speaker
The new Nest Mini is designed to fit easier in homes, for example by sticking on the wall. The Nest Mini is made from recycled plastic bottles and has improved features such as sound quality. The Nest Mini has a package that features one primary speaker and an additional point – to extend throughout your home. There is also an extra microphone to better pick up voice and a machine learning chip to help better understand commands. Home communications have been upgraded so users can talk to each other in different rooms, eg it gives alerts such as someone being at the door and can act as a phone so you can make calls.
Pixelbook Go laptop
Google also announced the new Pixelbook Go laptop, which uses their Chrome OS operating system. This is a thin and light 13.3-inch laptop. It has a grooved design to help with grip and “Hush Keys” designed to be comfortable and quieter. The Pixelbook Go has a battery of 12 hours. The Chrome OS has been upgraded to add to efficiency and syncing across the device. The improvements seem good but not outstanding. It is also worth noting that the Pixelbook Go doesn’t rotate 360-degrees into a tablet mode but instead is a traditional laptop format but with a touchscreen.
Summary
This month, Google showed noteworthy hardware products integrated with their services, such as the Pixel 4 smartphone and new Pixel Buds 2. Google also confirmed that their streaming video game service, Stadia, will launch on November 19, providing gaming across devices such as TVs, laptops and Pixel phones.