Google Pixel 6 and 6 Pro: I held both. Here's what you need to know.

Key Takeaways

so I have held the pixel 6. hi everybody I've also held the pixel 6 Pro I've gotten to look at some demos and hear a lot about the brand new Google design processor that is inside these phones let's talk so first things first you are probably noticing that I'm not holding a pixel 6 or 6 Pro in one of my hands and also that we don't have any original Verge footage that is because Google wouldn't let us take photos or video the point of the meeting that I had with Hardware Chief Rick osterlo was to get a download on some of the details of the new phone and the new processor but the full launch of the pixel 6 is going to come in the fall so I guess today's announcement is an announcement or a tease or something anyway there is actually a lot to talk about including my first impressions of the hardware of the devices this new Google tensor system on a chip it's called tensor that's the soc and there are a few details with how it works with AI Ai and we've got a handful of specs but the key takeaway for most of us is simply this Google is finally going for it they're making a flagship phone and they're trying to take the best of the best head on in the premium space and probably with a premium price I don't know what the price is going to be but I'm going to assume over a thousand bucks after years of mostly just making mid-range phones Google is finally swinging for the fences with better screens better cameras better build quality the works let's just get some of the basic phone stuff out of the way real quick the regular pixel 6 has a 6.4 inch completely flat screen with two cameras on the back there's a wide and an ultra wide the pixel 6 pro has a 6.7 inch screen that's a little bit curved on the edges it has glossy rails on the side instead of bad and it has a 4X optical zoom folding lens like a periscope lens there will be some memory differences between the two phones but they're both going to have Google's new system on a chip High refresh rate screens and in-screen fingerprint sensor and other premium phone things like I said I held them and they feel like what Google would do if it were trying to like make a high-end Huawei phone or something they're glass on the back they feel really solid there's virtually no bezels on the front I actually like the way the colors look in person you know like recent pixel phones have been like nice but kind of basic these new pixel phones are nice but kind of nice now as big a deal as Google finally trying to challenge Samsung and OnePlus and Huawei at the high end might be the bigger deal is that they are using a brand new processor technically an SOC system on a chip that's called tensor tensor is the brand that Google uses for some of its AI Hardware so it's t-e-n-s-o-r not like it's more tense so what Google has done is they've taken the tensor processing units the tpus that they use in their machine learning data centers and they've made a mobile version of that that goes into the pixel 6. now you probably know the basics of what goes into a phone's Core specs there's the CPU the GPU the RAM and then maybe there are some like co-processors on the side to handle specific tasks like image processing or security with tensor Google is saying that it's going to do a flagship level job on all of that core CPU stuff but that the TPU part of it is also going to be essential to the entire pipeline it's going to be part of the main flow of how the phone works sort of like how Apple added the neural engine to its a series chips Google doesn't want AI to just be a little faster on the side it wants to make it as essential as all of those other standard phone parts okay but what does that mean well Google did show me a few Demos in one there was a photo of a kid whose face was super blurry because the kid was moving and flailing around because that's what kids do but the TPU was able to fix it so the kid's face wasn't blurry what Google says happened here is the main camera did the usual thing that Google's you know cameras have always done it took a bunch of photos gathered lots of image data but that the ultra wide sensor on the pixel 6 does something new it is there just to get a super fast shot to minimize blur and so with this new tensor Processing Unit what they can do without making you wait for it is its machine learning sees it there is a face there and that we hate blurry faces so it grab that data from the ultrawide combined it with the regular data that Google's always grabbed combine them and you have a Sharp Photo now I have heard and you have heard lots of camera promises before so we need to see if Google really can take back its lead in smartphone cameras what I can say is that the camera sensors are finally new they're not using the same one that they've been using forever I don't know officially what the megapixel count is yet that'll be official in the fall but there's a rumor it might be 50 megapixels Google did say that it takes in 150 more light than the pixel until 5 did we'll see so it's right to remain skeptical but on the second demo I had a hard time not getting excited because it was video and historically pixel video kind of sucks pixel 6 video though I think it has a legit shot of being good because it has that tensor Processing Unit doing stuff really fast in the pipeline that means that they can run these same algorithms on video that they usually can only afford to run on photos so the demo that I saw was 4K at 30 frames per second now of course Google is going to show something that puts this camera in a good light but the comparison that I saw between the pixel 6 the pixel 5 and the iPhone 12 Pro Max I kind of think the pixel 6 looked the best it was a heavy HDR shot shooting right into the sun and it managed to not over lighten shadows in that situation it also didn't do that pixel thing of over sharpening everything like the grass actually looked real and it had better white balance than the iPhone now again this was just one video sample shot by Google so I am not vouching here but it's a good sign those are the camera demos but you know there are a couple other demos so you may know that the pixel can do on-device captioning it can play any video and caption it in real time and now on the pixel 6 that is going to be faster and more accurate and because they have their AI processor right in the pipeline they can translate audio in real time without an internet connection I also saw a voice typing demo running through the TPU it seemed a little bit more accurate you can also talk to you know the phone to type but also edit with the keyboard at the same time both kind of input methods are active and that was kind of neat but the thing about AI on phones is that it's kind of hard to turn it into a selling point with the pixel 6 the challenge is going to be whether or not this AI stuff makes a noticeable difference in the way that you usually use your phone every day will you even notice for example that things can be a little bit faster because the CPU and the GPU have both been freed up because the AI AI chip is handling a bunch of the AI load maybe you will maybe you won't by the way there's also a separate little computer system for handling low-level things like the always on screen and that should help with battery life but Google is still only promising like all day battery life they're not promising multi-day battery life here we can't know if we can believe Google about the importance of the tensor SOC until we've had the chance to use the phone the only thing I do know is that the phone looks good and it feels better than any pixel has in recent memory I am not completely sold on the big camera bar on the back but I do like that it doesn't wobble when you set the phone on a table and it does have a tiny little metal Ridge to protect the glass over the lenses and like I said I really like the colors the only bummer is that Coral orange color that you've seen in the leaks that's only going to be available on the regular pixel 6 not on the pixel 6 Pro which has slightly more boring colors so that's the big stuff that I could glean from you know half hour 45 minutes of playing around with these phones and getting some demos from Google but there is one more thing to talk about and it's another sign that they're just going for it that they're actually trying to sell phones now Rick osterlo told me that quote this product really now is the Google Phone unquote so they're going to invest in marketing and Google also wants to grab market share finally Heck on Google's last earnings call their CFO had to warn investors that Google would be spending a lot of money on marketing over the holiday season in addition we expect sales and marketing expenses to be more heavily weighted to the back half of the year in part to support product launches in the holiday season now of course I asked Google you know what's the CPU clock speed you know what's the benchmarks compared to a Snapdragon or an exynos or you know is Samsung making it heck who's making the modem no comments down the line but Google is saying that it is trying to make a phone that is competitive with the best phones out there with the pixel 5 and you know even the pixel 4 and you know earlier pixels they weren't saying that this was the best of the best Ultra Premium but that's what they're going for now but I do like what I see so far and if Google is right that it's competitive on the you know core spec stuff then it doesn't matter if this AI stuff turns out to be life-changing or you know just kind of a nice thing on the side either way it should be a very nice phone obviously we have to withhold judgment until the thing is actually announced or launched what even is a phone launch anymore anyway the official launch is gonna happen this fall and that's usually in October so look I am not saying that you should get hyped for the pixel 6. not gonna say that not yet but I do think it's very interesting that Google thinks you should get hyped hey everybody thanks so much for watching I know this is a weird one because we don't have all the details yet but that's how Google wants to announce this phone so there you go actually it's also how Samsung has announced that it's launching a bunch of folding phones in just a week or two so it's a weird Trend what do you think of that Trend let's talk about that downstairs in the comments my phone just fell