Google has officially announced its Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro handsets that are all set to go on sale in the US from October 12 onwards at increased prices compared to last year’s models. Equipped with plenty of new AI tricks, these models are available for pre-order right now.
What’s great is that both handsets will receive seven years of OS and security updates from Google. During this time, the phones will also be getting new features through Google’s Pixel Drops.
Pixel 8
The Google Pixel 8 is the smaller device of the two and brings an upgrade in the display department. Its 6.2-inch OLED panel now has a 120Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 2000 nits.
The phone still carries only two cameras on the back, with the main one being a 50MP sensor with an f/1.7 aperture and the ultra-wide camera being a 12MP sensor. A 10.5MP selfie camera has also been thrown into the mix, which now supports face unlock even for payment apps.
A number of AI features have made their way into the Google Photos app to further enhance the photography and videography experience of these new devices.
Among them is Best Take, which combines a series of images to ensure that everyone is looking at the camera and smiling at the same time.
Another is Magic Editor, which has been described as an “experimental editing experience” that uses generative AI to help you easily make complex edits to your photographs. These can include resizing or repositioning your subjects, improving lighting, changing the color of the sky, and more.
Audio Magic Eraser is another AI-based feature that’s part of the Google Pixel 8 experience. Meant for videos, it’s aimed at eliminating background noise from your clips so your voice is the only thing being heard.
There’s even a new Summarize feature that uses AI to come up with quick summaries of long articles. Moreover, Google has incorporated its Bard AI tool with Assistant to greatly enhance its offerings.
The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro carry the new Tensor G3 chipset that’s powered by a nine-core CPU clocked at 3.0GHz. This 4nm SoC is built with AI in mind and can run machine learning models that are 150 times more complex than the most complex ones that the Tensor G2 could run.
8GB of RAM is standard on the Pixel 8, with the storage being a choice between 128GB and 256GB. A 4575mAh battery with 27W fast charging makes its way into the device. And like the Pixel 7 range, these new phones also feature IP68 dust and water resistance.
Pixel 8 Pro
The Pixel 8 Pro has a 6.7-inch OLED display on its front and boasts an industry-leading peak brightness of 2400 nits. It’s also of the LTPO kind, which means its 120Hz refresh rate can drop to 1Hz when not needed, thus saving precious battery life.
It’s got the same 50MP f/1.7 main camera as that of the Pixel 8 but the other two cameras of this Pro model (telephoto and ultra-wide) are 48MP in resolution. The same 10.5MP camera can be found on its front.
AI features exclusive to the Pro model include Zoom Enhance, which lets you zoom and crop images after they’ve been clicked without losing much detail.
And there’s even a Video Boost feature, which uses cloud processing to work on each frame of a 4K video to adjust its color, lighting, stabilization, and graininess. Moreover, it also allows Google’s famed Night Sight algorithms to work in videos.
The Pixel 8 Pro is distinguished by its adoption of a temperature sensor that can be used to gauge the temperature of things around you. Right now, cooking seems to be the only practical use of this feature but Google has applied to FDA to allow body temperature checks.
On this device, 12GB of RAM is standard, while there’s even an extra 1TB storage model to consider. The battery is a 5050mAh unit with 30W fast charging.
Price and availability
As we said, the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro are available for pre-order right now and will be released on October 12. While the former starts at $699.99, the latter can be yours starting at $999.