This was my first thought as well; that Google decided the performance was good enough and needed the area savings, being that they are deploying two Cortex X1 cores instead of one like everyone else. It could be that (2 x X1 + 2 x A76) ends up being about the same transistor budget as (1 x X1 + 3 x A78).
Today's information from Google claims that running the two X1's at lower clock is better for sustained power consumption so maybe they really did just optimize for A. But if that were the case, wouldn't A75's be even better? Definitely looking for to AT's in-depth tests in the future.
@ ChronoReverse: maybe it would have been even harder to adopt the A75 design to Samsung's 5-nm process? I can't recall what process node Cortex A75 originally came out on, but I know A76 and A77 were primarily designed by ARM for 7-nm process technologies, with the latest A78 being made with both 7-nm and 5-nm in mind. Definitely a lot of questions to look into for the review!
Seems like Google thought it was more important to have two of the highest performance threads and traded it off with some die area savings on the middle core.
I've never seen that much convincing - does the three layer big.middle.littleest sandwich really give you something appreciable vs two, like Apple has stayed with? Maybe Google didn't find it that important to the real world either
We get to watch Google learn through trial and error what other companies already have learned by now, I suspect is the real answer.
More practically speaking: They must believe this combination will provide the best real-world performance for some reason. It may be that many “big” core tasks go to the A76 cores, since (as someone else observed) the 4 and 5 generations of Pixel phones use A76, so they’ve done a lot of A76 specific optimization already. Anything (particularly OS-related) that can perform to its max potential on an A76 core uses less power than the X1 cores, and also frees up the X1 cores for single-threaded performance.
But whether or not things like that even matter in the long run, enough to justify a three-tier core structure, remains to be seen.
I think they used A76 because they have optimised their software for A76. All of last few year's pixel phones including 4a, 4a 5g, 5, and 5a have A76 cores.
ah the website wouldn't let me get the earbud combo, annoyingly broken website, I'll stick to my XR (or why not get an iPhone 12 for the lower price...)
Same here, it weighs like 40% more than my P5 while also being a little big for me. I was hoping they'd at least have one model that's under 180g and less than 72mm wide and not a low end model.
You're missing the $699 Pixel 6 with mmWave which I'm assuming is for Verizon, and they're charging $100 (I haven't seen outside of US pricing yet) for each storage hop on each model.
This phone is irreparable, the assembly was leaked. It's impossible to take out anything out of this phone. You have to crack the display to do that. Also the graphite pads are stickied all over the internal parts, if you get it serviced by someone and if they do not use the new ones your phone will be junk.
Next up is the lack of Charger in the box, that's a gone case I guess just like 3.5mm jack and SD card slot. Just simply following Apple trying to ape them hard. Even those marketing slides are copy paste of Apple just like iOS inspired uber rounded corner ugly Android 12.
I refuse to buy any damn phone without removable memory card. I just got my phone display shattered and all my content was on SD card - FLAC, 4K30 videos, Voice recordings, Documents, Photos and Apks. Every single thing. How is that 128GB or 1TB of internal storage going to help me ?
Finally the SoC, they shot in balls lol with that SoC design. SD888 is a real dumpster fire of a processor, it ruins the thermals of the devices badly and that X1 is barely even used. Google put 2 of them and then sandbagged it with A76 which is slower than SD865 with A77. Absolute joke of an SoC. Can't wait to see this get shredded.
All that ML AI NPU thing is used for how much of actual useful purposes ? Real time translation, ISP and Camera then probably some of the Google's proprietary AI code running on phone and more tracking. It's useless to a consumer and app developer, I don't even know if there are any applications on App Store utilizing these so overmarketed AI.
The only one aspect of this that is good is pricing of the base version, I think they want to get some userbase because of their pathetic iPixel N.A marketshare being in sewage at less than 3% since 2016. Oh BL unlock will exist but since it's an iPixel they will nuke it badly like how they have been doing since Pixel 2, A/B, Merging Filesystem partitions, Read only ext4.
Forgot to mention that USB port is a part of the Mobo, so a very expensive repair for sure. Just like S10 and other junk anti repair phones. Not even Apple does like this. Apple's iPhones having software blocks for FaceID for unknown reasons (I get only one reason which is tracking) but their phones are serviceable including the latest iPhone 13.
Google pixel team pulling a Microsoft Surface team. Copying all the good parts about Apple, but not bothering to improve on all the worst parts about Apple.
This was my thought too. Having an SD card doesn’t help you at all if your phone is lost, or stolen, or any number of things that can go wrong with it. And whining about a cracked screen making your data unavailable seems off, anyway—you can often use the device enough to plug it into a computer and copy the contents off.
That is, if you needed to because you weren’t backing up your phone. In which case the real answer still is, back up your phone. An SD card is not backup.
What else would you excuse for ? You call the display shatter as whine and scratch it off ? Because of your kind of people we have this garbage rehashed every year refreshes. Cloud backup how much of data ? I have a 512GB SD card you want me to backup all the 512Gigs ?
Buy the soldered trash and cry when you lose your data, a true coonsoomer.
Your stupid idea of losing a phone literally means how garbage the person is taking care of their phone. And what happens if that robber remove the SIM card ? magically all the cloud will sync I guess. Pathetic defenses from people all over for the excuses the corporations pull off.
Backups on Android are not easy. The sdcard mount point isnt hard to backup but that doesn't include messages and browser data (yes, f#$+ing browsers - ALL cross Android browser backups are too damned unreliable and too limited in what they store) for instance.
Interesting point about repairability, couldn't care less about the rest of your personal grievances. Have seen you write these same things out too many times now.
The assembly/disassembly videos show the display is bonded in the same was as almost any phone (e.g. iPhones, Galaxies, Xperias, etc). It must be debonded to open the phone, and the adhesive replaced when reassembling. This has been the standard for several years now, and competent repair shows will have the necessary equipment to do so (mate/demate jig, UV cure oven, possibly a vacuum chamber for sealed designs and de-bubble if delaminating the display stack itself).
>What was weird about today’s event is that Google had made no mention of Samsung, and presented the chip as purely a Google product
Is this some type of joke? Why would Google give a shout out to Samsung?
Does Apple give a shout out to Qualcomm for their modem at every Apple event? Does Apple give a shout out to Sony for their camera sensors? Does Apple give a shout out to TSMC for fabbing the SoC?
But, yet you somehow feel the need for Google to give a shout out to Samsung. Samsung fabbed the Tensor SoC and Google used their modem. They got paid for their services and modem IP. I see nothing warranting a shout out at an event about their new Pixel 6 phones.
Valid points. I am not sure why Andrei worded it that way. I dont think companies call out every collaboration partner unless it is super significant. Initial Nexus phones were a full collaboration where the entire phone was designed and manufactured by LG or HTC, etc, with Google probably only providing specific inputs. Other than that any product in the industry is a result of numerous ongoing collaborative efforts.
If the IPs on an SoC and their area is all that's relevant in making an SoC, then I want to jump headfirst into an industrial fan.
I'm so sick of this community of sophists spewing conjecture on things they at best minored in at uni and arguing on the assumption they are the smartest person in the room
The CPU cores need to be properly laid out in clusters with necessary caches, memory access, and whatever cluster fabric is around these days. Likewise is true with the GPU, which is even more difficult arguably. Memory subsystems are thus substantial, and a bad memory subsystem can hose an entire SoC quite easily.
Lastly, ensuring that there's not interference (which is absolutely a thing) between these blocks at 5nm/whatever is its own task. Supposedly this is even more difficult than usual for the baseband "block." Experience working with these blocks is essential for placing them properly. It would be much harder for Google to license the block from Samsung and integrate it than vice versa, especially since Google hasn't ever actually built a combined product with the blocks it contributed to the design.
If modems were everything, why didn't Google buy only modems from Samsung and design chips separately? There is no reason to even use the Samsung modem. You only need to purchase a modem from Qualcomm or MediaTek
Why would Google purchase a modem from Qualcomm or MediaTek when they can get a package deal from Samsung on the modem, camera sensors and SoC fabrication?
Package deals are not important. It is not clear whether a package deal exists. Samsung Electronics' division is essentially close to an individual company with more than $1 billion in sales and at least 10,000 employees. Samsung Display is a completely different corporation.
Google has purchased screens and sensors from various parts companies. Assuming that a package deal exists, if only a modem is important, Google can buy a modem, screen, and sensor without using Exynos ip.
Using the Custom Exynos chip, there is an additional cost for the design, and no foundy other than Samsung Foundry can be used (Samsung LSI team has no experience designing AP for TSMC). If only modems are important, there is no reason to bear these additional costs.
The Google Pixel 6 series used many Sony image sensors. It is not clear whether the screen of the normal pixel 6 is Samsung. (According to DSCC, the pro is Samsung's LTPO screen.) Google used screens of LG and Chinese companies in the past. Several smartphone manufacturers, not Google, use Samsung's parts individually. Exynos is also very unpopular with manufacturers that frequently use Samsung's screens and image sensors. Like this, package deals have no substance.
The deal in the UK for the basic 6 isn't to bad actually,at 600 pounds but you get some Bose headphones worth around 300 free so could sell them for 150-200 and then the phone is looking ok value.Actually considering selling my s21 ultra and getting the basic 6 model but I will miss the ten times zoom camera it's brilliant,Google had it right the first time including the zoom lens instead of the ultra wide lens was the best policy in my mind.
Looking from the front alone, the 6 Pro looks just like a Galaxy Note (10/10+ and 20 Ultra, that is) I'm not saying that it's a bad design or anything, but it quite shows that design creativity has gone downhill. This is like the third non-Note phone with that boxy look and a centered punch hole.
The Pixel 6 Pro is one of the most interesting Flagship Android phones; I'm looking forward to your test/review. It'll be interesting to learn if Google (with Samsung and whoever else helped) were able to put those dual X1 cores on a diet. Also, if you have a chance, a camera shootout of the 6Pro with the top iPhone would be interesting; both are declared contenders for the crown. Unfortunately (for me) this is yet another phone without microSD card slot and, even more annoying, no 3.5 mm jack (why? why ape Apple here?) and so still undecided if I will order one. But, damn it's close.
I am excited to see what that SoC can do with it's X1 cores.
Disappointing to see google removing the included charger. Also not too happy that the batteries, while larger, still dont measure up to the competition, the pixel 6 is almost identical in size to the moto g power, but features a slightly thinner body and as a result a smaller 4600mah battery as opposed tot he power's 5000 mah cell. Coupled with a high performance SoC I dont believe the battery life will hold a candle to the mid range options.
Hopefully google continues with the larger battery and the 6a or 7a will give us another 4a sized phone with a 5000+ MaH cell.
Nope. Why should anyone move on and get bend over for these companies who are now removing the chargers from the box ? The next would be SIM slot, probably people will be super fine when these companies control their fundamental lives, Amazon already does with Ring and other BS Home Automation crap.
Sony is the last man standing with the 3.5mm jack and SD card slot and no display mutilation across all their phones. ASUS Zenfone threw the towel, top SKU has SD slot but no jack and entry level has jack but no SD slot.
You're comparing this to Amazon Ring? I like Sony phones, but they're barley managing to stay alive aren't they? 4K display on a phone which kills the battery. Back to the headphone jack, sure, as I said it is convenient, but I don't know if it's gonna return unfortunately. Lot of people want SD card, replaceable batteries but they're not happening too. Doesn't leave with too many options if you want to buy one with good after-sale support. Chargers, don't you have enough of them already why do you need one with every phone you buy?
I picked up a sony xperia 1 ii (terrible terrible name) and I believe it has the 4k screen but it gets the best battery life I've ever had. I think part of the reason is it only renders 4k in select programs, which is fine because I don't want 4k for performance reasons. But yeah, no reason to settle for less just because its fashionable. And yeah, I do want the chargers because the world hasnt done a good job on standardizing the fast charge capabilities, so most of the chargers I have will just charge a device slowly.
Sony has pulled out from a lot of markets worldwide, including mine. They don't sell phones here anymore. I mean if you did use your brain a bit, maybe for more than 5 seconds, you would know the state of Sony's phone efforts. Their phones are good but if you can't buy them they're not an option. Same with this Pixel.
You must be replying to someone else's comment. I didn't say I was "expecting" a headphone jack in the sense that I'm surprised at the lack of one. Nor do I agree that doing away with them is "moving on", as you are pleased to assume. Play with words much? My opinion was clear.
Sure, if there are good phones available with headphone jack, but seeing the trend from the last couple of years, unfortunately that’s probably going away is what it looks like. I’m not dissing your opinion, everyone is entitled to one, just stating that most manufacturers are moving away from 3.5 mm jack, among other things.
"Move on" from what, good sound? To what, more overpriced battery-powered crap that is guaranteed to die in two years and end up in a landfill? You people are the reason they can get away with anything.
Disagree firmly on the "move on" aspect. I've had to make my peace with having a device that lacks a headphone jack, but it bugs me on a near-daily basis. Like oh, I want to listen to something quickly, I'll just plug in my heads-... oh, no, I need to go dig out the USB-C ones. Yay.
Looks like a lot of people can’t buy a flagship smartphone because most of them don’t have headphone jacks these days. Yes, it’s not convenient, but most of the phones don’t have it. How hard is it to not see that? You can disagree for sure, that’s your call, but I don’t see any response from anyone. If there is no phone with a headphone jack, you’ll not buy a new phone? People complained about removable batteries and SD card slot too. There’s the environmental friendly and modular Fairphone, that doesn’t have the jack too. Anyway, I’m done trying to explain
Sad to see google unable or willing to release premium products, despite the premium price tag. No charger included sounds bad enough but it distracts from the lack of headphone plug and microsd. People can dismiss the lacking features by comparing the pixel 6 to other overpriced phones with the same issue, but they don't get my money either. Even Samsung's proceeding in this direction so I'm left with giving the kudos to Sony.
The SoC is just a dumped Samsung design with some google tech in it. Samsung didn't do this design because the efficiency was really bad. The bigger battery even on the bade model hints at this. The repairability of the phone is also pretty poor. The pricing, software updates and cameras will make this a seller, not performance and battery life.
I really like that yellow color. Also, does no reviewer talk about how Google caught up in having a under screen finger print reader? Wasn't there a group of consumers who preferred Google's finger printer on the back. I thought it was neat and useful that the back side finger print reader could use gestures, for what? navigation? They certainly got everyone talking about the camera bump, but it if it didn't have it, would the press have much of anything to talk about? Should people risk buying first generation silicon from Google?
My Pixel 6 arrived on Wednesday and as with the past Android phones, you just plug the cable into your old phone to transfer everything over. I opted for the regular version with 256GB storage and this is an upgrade from my Pixel 3 that only had 64GB. It's much faster than the Pixel 3 which is no surprise and right now the battery performance is much better. I've owned Android phones for some years now and have never had to deal with any repairs (fingers crossed).
While it is a bit larger than the Pixel 3, I'm sure I will get used to the new size.
Blimey what a load of whingers. 3.5mm audio jacks are gone. Live with it. One less hole for water to get in. Use USB (you can now make your own cost /DAC quality tradeoff) or wireless. There is nothing as liberating as your head not being physically tethered to your phone. And if you live somewhere where it sometimes rains you can now put your phone in a zippy bag in your pocket. No risk of it getting wet. Good old radio waves. As for SD cards, they're loads slower and less reliable than UFS 3 do why would you want to use them as primary storage? Yes my bacon has been saved by taking the working SD card out of the broken phone. But you have USB OTG. Back up to a flash drive. And the lack of charger? Great - ultimately less ewaste on the tip. Get a multiport accelerated charger and don't buy stuff that comes with a charger. The fish will thank you.
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jeremyshaw - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
Maybe the A76 has better PPA? It does seem like and odd choice.Andrei Frumusanu - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
It would have better A, but certainly not PP.NextGen_Gamer - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
This was my first thought as well; that Google decided the performance was good enough and needed the area savings, being that they are deploying two Cortex X1 cores instead of one like everyone else. It could be that (2 x X1 + 2 x A76) ends up being about the same transistor budget as (1 x X1 + 3 x A78).ChronoReverse - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
Today's information from Google claims that running the two X1's at lower clock is better for sustained power consumption so maybe they really did just optimize for A. But if that were the case, wouldn't A75's be even better? Definitely looking for to AT's in-depth tests in the future.NextGen_Gamer - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
@ ChronoReverse: maybe it would have been even harder to adopt the A75 design to Samsung's 5-nm process? I can't recall what process node Cortex A75 originally came out on, but I know A76 and A77 were primarily designed by ARM for 7-nm process technologies, with the latest A78 being made with both 7-nm and 5-nm in mind. Definitely a lot of questions to look into for the review!tipoo - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
Seems like Google thought it was more important to have two of the highest performance threads and traded it off with some die area savings on the middle core.I've never seen that much convincing - does the three layer big.middle.littleest sandwich really give you something appreciable vs two, like Apple has stayed with? Maybe Google didn't find it that important to the real world either
shelbystripes - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
We get to watch Google learn through trial and error what other companies already have learned by now, I suspect is the real answer.More practically speaking: They must believe this combination will provide the best real-world performance for some reason. It may be that many “big” core tasks go to the A76 cores, since (as someone else observed) the 4 and 5 generations of Pixel phones use A76, so they’ve done a lot of A76 specific optimization already. Anything (particularly OS-related) that can perform to its max potential on an A76 core uses less power than the X1 cores, and also frees up the X1 cores for single-threaded performance.
But whether or not things like that even matter in the long run, enough to justify a three-tier core structure, remains to be seen.
isthisavailable - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
I think they used A76 because they have optimised their software for A76. All of last few year's pixel phones including 4a, 4a 5g, 5, and 5a have A76 cores.niva - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
This is the simplest and most likely best answer to the question.Lavkesh - Wednesday, October 27, 2021 - link
Thats a ridiculous reason. Its the same instruction set! The faster cpu will, well run the software faster!Alistair - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
Looks like a fantastic price for US buyers. I might pick one up in Canada with the free earbuds included.Alistair - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
the smaller one is a bit heavy for me.. i prefer light phones, but we'll seeAlistair - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
ah the website wouldn't let me get the earbud combo, annoyingly broken website, I'll stick to my XR (or why not get an iPhone 12 for the lower price...)Xvi - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
Same here, it weighs like 40% more than my P5 while also being a little big for me. I was hoping they'd at least have one model that's under 180g and less than 72mm wide and not a low end model.thestryker - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
You're missing the $699 Pixel 6 with mmWave which I'm assuming is for Verizon, and they're charging $100 (I haven't seen outside of US pricing yet) for each storage hop on each model.Silver5urfer - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
This phone is irreparable, the assembly was leaked. It's impossible to take out anything out of this phone. You have to crack the display to do that. Also the graphite pads are stickied all over the internal parts, if you get it serviced by someone and if they do not use the new ones your phone will be junk.Next up is the lack of Charger in the box, that's a gone case I guess just like 3.5mm jack and SD card slot. Just simply following Apple trying to ape them hard. Even those marketing slides are copy paste of Apple just like iOS inspired uber rounded corner ugly Android 12.
I refuse to buy any damn phone without removable memory card. I just got my phone display shattered and all my content was on SD card - FLAC, 4K30 videos, Voice recordings, Documents, Photos and Apks. Every single thing. How is that 128GB or 1TB of internal storage going to help me ?
Finally the SoC, they shot in balls lol with that SoC design. SD888 is a real dumpster fire of a processor, it ruins the thermals of the devices badly and that X1 is barely even used. Google put 2 of them and then sandbagged it with A76 which is slower than SD865 with A77. Absolute joke of an SoC. Can't wait to see this get shredded.
All that ML AI NPU thing is used for how much of actual useful purposes ? Real time translation, ISP and Camera then probably some of the Google's proprietary AI code running on phone and more tracking. It's useless to a consumer and app developer, I don't even know if there are any applications on App Store utilizing these so overmarketed AI.
The only one aspect of this that is good is pricing of the base version, I think they want to get some userbase because of their pathetic iPixel N.A marketshare being in sewage at less than 3% since 2016. Oh BL unlock will exist but since it's an iPixel they will nuke it badly like how they have been doing since Pixel 2, A/B, Merging Filesystem partitions, Read only ext4.
Silver5urfer - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
Forgot to mention that USB port is a part of the Mobo, so a very expensive repair for sure. Just like S10 and other junk anti repair phones. Not even Apple does like this. Apple's iPhones having software blocks for FaceID for unknown reasons (I get only one reason which is tracking) but their phones are serviceable including the latest iPhone 13.meacupla - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
:(Google pixel team pulling a Microsoft Surface team.
Copying all the good parts about Apple, but not bothering to improve on all the worst parts about Apple.
raptormissle - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
Speaking of tracking, has Apple resumed their daily scanning of the contents of your iPhone?MooseNSquirrel - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
Here's a little cheese and some cloud backup for that whine. And take better care of your stuff.shelbystripes - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
This was my thought too. Having an SD card doesn’t help you at all if your phone is lost, or stolen, or any number of things that can go wrong with it. And whining about a cracked screen making your data unavailable seems off, anyway—you can often use the device enough to plug it into a computer and copy the contents off.That is, if you needed to because you weren’t backing up your phone. In which case the real answer still is, back up your phone. An SD card is not backup.
Silver5urfer - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
What else would you excuse for ? You call the display shatter as whine and scratch it off ? Because of your kind of people we have this garbage rehashed every year refreshes. Cloud backup how much of data ? I have a 512GB SD card you want me to backup all the 512Gigs ?Buy the soldered trash and cry when you lose your data, a true coonsoomer.
Silver5urfer - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
Your stupid idea of losing a phone literally means how garbage the person is taking care of their phone. And what happens if that robber remove the SIM card ? magically all the cloud will sync I guess. Pathetic defenses from people all over for the excuses the corporations pull off.tuxRoller - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
Backups on Android are not easy. The sdcard mount point isnt hard to backup but that doesn't include messages and browser data (yes, f#$+ing browsers - ALL cross Android browser backups are too damned unreliable and too limited in what they store) for instance.tuxRoller - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
Sounds like you'd be happy with the FairPhone.Wereweeb - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
If it wasn't a heavy f***ing brick I 100% would. Will have to go with some repairable Xiaomi instead.maxijazz - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
Was that a sarcasm?Xiaomi? The only Chinese company that actually was caught spying/sending data to China 3x in last 10 years?
Spunjji - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
Repairable phone or slim-and-light phone, those are the options.tuxRoller - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
👆Wereweeb - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
I think there will be many applications for AI, but I will never trust proprietary software that tries using it.Spunjji - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
Interesting point about repairability, couldn't care less about the rest of your personal grievances. Have seen you write these same things out too many times now.edzieba - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
The assembly/disassembly videos show the display is bonded in the same was as almost any phone (e.g. iPhones, Galaxies, Xperias, etc). It must be debonded to open the phone, and the adhesive replaced when reassembling. This has been the standard for several years now, and competent repair shows will have the necessary equipment to do so (mate/demate jig, UV cure oven, possibly a vacuum chamber for sealed designs and de-bubble if delaminating the display stack itself).lmcd - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
Dunno about this exact model but past models used thinner display stacks that were apt to shatter compared to competing phones.raptormissle - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
>What was weird about today’s event is that Google had made no mention of Samsung, and presented the chip as purely a Google productIs this some type of joke? Why would Google give a shout out to Samsung?
Does Apple give a shout out to Qualcomm for their modem at every Apple event?
Does Apple give a shout out to Sony for their camera sensors?
Does Apple give a shout out to TSMC for fabbing the SoC?
But, yet you somehow feel the need for Google to give a shout out to Samsung. Samsung fabbed the Tensor SoC and Google used their modem. They got paid for their services and modem IP. I see nothing warranting a shout out at an event about their new Pixel 6 phones.
spctm - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
Valid points. I am not sure why Andrei worded it that way. I dont think companies call out every collaboration partner unless it is super significant. Initial Nexus phones were a full collaboration where the entire phone was designed and manufactured by LG or HTC, etc, with Google probably only providing specific inputs. Other than that any product in the industry is a result of numerous ongoing collaborative efforts.Andrei Frumusanu - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
Because it's essentially an Exynos SoC with some Google IP blocks.raptormissle - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
ARM CPU, ARM GPU, Google NPU, Google ISP. Yup, looks like a Google designed SoC to me.The only thing "Exynos" about it is the modem.
Andrei Frumusanu - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
That's maybe 10% of what makes an SoC. Why do I even argue.raptormissle - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
If the die size of the CPU, GPU, NPU and ISP only take up 10% of the SoC area using your math, then yes you shouldn't argue.Unashamed_unoriginal_username_x86 - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
If the IPs on an SoC and their area is all that's relevant in making an SoC, then I want to jump headfirst into an industrial fan.I'm so sick of this community of sophists spewing conjecture on things they at best minored in at uni and arguing on the assumption they are the smartest person in the room
raptormissle - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
ARM will license whatever you need to make an ARM SoC. No need to deal with a middle man.Spunjji - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
Dude, 10% of components is not equal to 10% of area.lmcd - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
Shockingly stupid and shockingly aggressive both.The CPU cores need to be properly laid out in clusters with necessary caches, memory access, and whatever cluster fabric is around these days. Likewise is true with the GPU, which is even more difficult arguably. Memory subsystems are thus substantial, and a bad memory subsystem can hose an entire SoC quite easily.
Lastly, ensuring that there's not interference (which is absolutely a thing) between these blocks at 5nm/whatever is its own task. Supposedly this is even more difficult than usual for the baseband "block." Experience working with these blocks is essential for placing them properly. It would be much harder for Google to license the block from Samsung and integrate it than vice versa, especially since Google hasn't ever actually built a combined product with the blocks it contributed to the design.
In sum, it's not like SoCs are legos.
yamheychoco - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
If modems were everything, why didn't Google buy only modems from Samsung and design chips separately? There is no reason to even use the Samsung modem. You only need to purchase a modem from Qualcomm or MediaTekraptormissle - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
Why would Google purchase a modem from Qualcomm or MediaTek when they can get a package deal from Samsung on the modem, camera sensors and SoC fabrication?yamheychoco - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
Package deals are not important. It is not clear whether a package deal exists. Samsung Electronics' division is essentially close to an individual company with more than $1 billion in sales and at least 10,000 employees. Samsung Display is a completely different corporation.Google has purchased screens and sensors from various parts companies. Assuming that a package deal exists, if only a modem is important, Google can buy a modem, screen, and sensor without using Exynos ip.
Using the Custom Exynos chip, there is an additional cost for the design, and no foundy other than Samsung Foundry can be used (Samsung LSI team has no experience designing AP for TSMC). If only modems are important, there is no reason to bear these additional costs.
yamheychoco - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
The Google Pixel 6 series used many Sony image sensors. It is not clear whether the screen of the normal pixel 6 is Samsung. (According to DSCC, the pro is Samsung's LTPO screen.) Google used screens of LG and Chinese companies in the past. Several smartphone manufacturers, not Google, use Samsung's parts individually. Exynos is also very unpopular with manufacturers that frequently use Samsung's screens and image sensors. Like this, package deals have no substance.tranceazure1814 - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
The deal in the UK for the basic 6 isn't to bad actually,at 600 pounds but you get some Bose headphones worth around 300 free so could sell them for 150-200 and then the phone is looking ok value.Actually considering selling my s21 ultra and getting the basic 6 model but I will miss the ten times zoom camera it's brilliant,Google had it right the first time including the zoom lens instead of the ultra wide lens was the best policy in my mind.dontlistentome - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
I'm the othe way round. I use the ultra wide a lot, but that's just me. Maybe they should include both?Spunjji - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
As someone who prefers having a long zoom to a wide, I also wish phone makers would stop pulling the telephoto off the lower-cost models.logoffon - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
Looking from the front alone, the 6 Pro looks just like a Galaxy Note (10/10+ and 20 Ultra, that is)I'm not saying that it's a bad design or anything, but it quite shows that design creativity has gone downhill. This is like the third non-Note phone with that boxy look and a centered punch hole.
eastcoast_pete - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
The Pixel 6 Pro is one of the most interesting Flagship Android phones; I'm looking forward to your test/review. It'll be interesting to learn if Google (with Samsung and whoever else helped) were able to put those dual X1 cores on a diet. Also, if you have a chance, a camera shootout of the 6Pro with the top iPhone would be interesting; both are declared contenders for the crown.Unfortunately (for me) this is yet another phone without microSD card slot and, even more annoying, no 3.5 mm jack (why? why ape Apple here?) and so still undecided if I will order one. But, damn it's close.
RomanPixel - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
Try LG V60 ThinQ?TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
I am excited to see what that SoC can do with it's X1 cores.Disappointing to see google removing the included charger. Also not too happy that the batteries, while larger, still dont measure up to the competition, the pixel 6 is almost identical in size to the moto g power, but features a slightly thinner body and as a result a smaller 4600mah battery as opposed tot he power's 5000 mah cell. Coupled with a high performance SoC I dont believe the battery life will hold a candle to the mid range options.
Hopefully google continues with the larger battery and the 6a or 7a will give us another 4a sized phone with a 5000+ MaH cell.
Arbie - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
No headphone jack, no sale. F*** the multi-hundred dollar battery-laden wireless pod things. Never ever.Next innovation: the phone will have no screen; ultra-cool... though you do need $1000 goggles to use it.
Teckk - Tuesday, October 19, 2021 - link
You’re expecting flagships with headphone jack?Are they convenient - of course.
Should we move on - yes.
Silver5urfer - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
Nope. Why should anyone move on and get bend over for these companies who are now removing the chargers from the box ? The next would be SIM slot, probably people will be super fine when these companies control their fundamental lives, Amazon already does with Ring and other BS Home Automation crap.Sony is the last man standing with the 3.5mm jack and SD card slot and no display mutilation across all their phones. ASUS Zenfone threw the towel, top SKU has SD slot but no jack and entry level has jack but no SD slot.
Teckk - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
You're comparing this to Amazon Ring?I like Sony phones, but they're barley managing to stay alive aren't they? 4K display on a phone which kills the battery.
Back to the headphone jack, sure, as I said it is convenient, but I don't know if it's gonna return unfortunately.
Lot of people want SD card, replaceable batteries but they're not happening too. Doesn't leave with too many options if you want to buy one with good after-sale support.
Chargers, don't you have enough of them already why do you need one with every phone you buy?
redchar - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
I picked up a sony xperia 1 ii (terrible terrible name) and I believe it has the 4k screen but it gets the best battery life I've ever had. I think part of the reason is it only renders 4k in select programs, which is fine because I don't want 4k for performance reasons.But yeah, no reason to settle for less just because its fashionable. And yeah, I do want the chargers because the world hasnt done a good job on standardizing the fast charge capabilities, so most of the chargers I have will just charge a device slowly.
Teckk - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
Fair enough for fast charging. Sony does make devices that look really good too.arashi - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
Sony says hi!vladx - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
Mate 40 says hi!TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
There is nothing to move on to, Bluetooth has both lower quality and issues with interference , and requires expensive headphones.Just because there is a new shiner does not mean it is better. Stop consooming and use your brain for 5 seconds.
Teckk - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
Sony has pulled out from a lot of markets worldwide, including mine. They don't sell phones here anymore. I mean if you did use your brain a bit, maybe for more than 5 seconds, you would know the state of Sony's phone efforts.Their phones are good but if you can't buy them they're not an option. Same with this Pixel.
Arbie - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
You must be replying to someone else's comment. I didn't say I was "expecting" a headphone jack in the sense that I'm surprised at the lack of one. Nor do I agree that doing away with them is "moving on", as you are pleased to assume. Play with words much? My opinion was clear.Teckk - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
Sure, if there are good phones available with headphone jack, but seeing the trend from the last couple of years, unfortunately that’s probably going away is what it looks like.I’m not dissing your opinion, everyone is entitled to one, just stating that most manufacturers are moving away from 3.5 mm jack, among other things.
Wereweeb - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
"Move on" from what, good sound? To what, more overpriced battery-powered crap that is guaranteed to die in two years and end up in a landfill? You people are the reason they can get away with anything.Teckk - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
Read other comments above about Sony and then come back.Spunjji - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
Disagree firmly on the "move on" aspect. I've had to make my peace with having a device that lacks a headphone jack, but it bugs me on a near-daily basis. Like oh, I want to listen to something quickly, I'll just plug in my heads-... oh, no, I need to go dig out the USB-C ones. Yay.Teckk - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
Looks like a lot of people can’t buy a flagship smartphone because most of them don’t have headphone jacks these days. Yes, it’s not convenient, but most of the phones don’t have it. How hard is it to not see that?You can disagree for sure, that’s your call, but I don’t see any response from anyone. If there is no phone with a headphone jack, you’ll not buy a new phone?
People complained about removable batteries and SD card slot too.
There’s the environmental friendly and modular Fairphone, that doesn’t have the jack too.
Anyway, I’m done trying to explain
yetanotherhuman - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
No, 100% disagree. Never Settle.Teckk - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
Nice, One Plus will be happy. But they have removed 3.5 mm from their flagships too. Never Settle, except when you have to.vladx - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
My Mate 40 has both a 3.5mm jack and an IR blaster, suck on that Google&Apple fanboys.iphonebestgamephone - Thursday, October 28, 2021 - link
Keep on sucking that locked bootloader.Teckk - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
Google wants to go head to head with Samsung and Apple in phones. So it launches the new phone worldwide…. in 8 countries. Unbelievable.ads295 - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
Literally skipped over the entire article after reading the screen sizes. No thanks.Mikad - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
The availability is rather silly: 9 countries.Australia
Canada
France
Germany
Japan
Taiwan
United Kingdom
United States
Republic of Ireland
Xvi - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
Too big and heavy for me, very disappointing they don't want to cater to what made their last phone so unique in a world of giant, unergonomic bricks.shabby - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
Too big, 75mm wide 👎redchar - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
Sad to see google unable or willing to release premium products, despite the premium price tag.No charger included sounds bad enough but it distracts from the lack of headphone plug and microsd. People can dismiss the lacking features by comparing the pixel 6 to other overpriced phones with the same issue, but they don't get my money either. Even Samsung's proceeding in this direction so I'm left with giving the kudos to Sony.
tkSteveFOX - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
The SoC is just a dumped Samsung design with some google tech in it.Samsung didn't do this design because the efficiency was really bad.
The bigger battery even on the bade model hints at this.
The repairability of the phone is also pretty poor.
The pricing, software updates and cameras will make this a seller, not performance and battery life.
geewhizbang57 - Sunday, October 24, 2021 - link
It's very disappointing how huge both of the Pixel models are. The non-pro model is too big and the Pro model is even worse.RomanPixel - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
I really like that yellow color. Also, does no reviewer talk about how Google caught up in having a under screen finger print reader? Wasn't there a group of consumers who preferred Google's finger printer on the back. I thought it was neat and useful that the back side finger print reader could use gestures, for what? navigation? They certainly got everyone talking about the camera bump, but it if it didn't have it, would the press have much of anything to talk about? Should people risk buying first generation silicon from Google?Orange14 - Friday, October 29, 2021 - link
My Pixel 6 arrived on Wednesday and as with the past Android phones, you just plug the cable into your old phone to transfer everything over. I opted for the regular version with 256GB storage and this is an upgrade from my Pixel 3 that only had 64GB. It's much faster than the Pixel 3 which is no surprise and right now the battery performance is much better. I've owned Android phones for some years now and have never had to deal with any repairs (fingers crossed).While it is a bit larger than the Pixel 3, I'm sure I will get used to the new size.
0x1874DE4C - Saturday, October 30, 2021 - link
Blimey what a load of whingers. 3.5mm audio jacks are gone. Live with it. One less hole for water to get in. Use USB (you can now make your own cost /DAC quality tradeoff) or wireless. There is nothing as liberating as your head not being physically tethered to your phone. And if you live somewhere where it sometimes rains you can now put your phone in a zippy bag in your pocket. No risk of it getting wet. Good old radio waves. As for SD cards, they're loads slower and less reliable than UFS 3 do why would you want to use them as primary storage? Yes my bacon has been saved by taking the working SD card out of the broken phone. But you have USB OTG. Back up to a flash drive. And the lack of charger? Great - ultimately less ewaste on the tip. Get a multiport accelerated charger and don't buy stuff that comes with a charger. The fish will thank you.sweetca - Saturday, October 30, 2021 - link
I prefer my spying domestic, thanks.Ryanbinsky - Wednesday, November 3, 2021 - link
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