Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Pixel 9 leaks: Stealing from the iPhone again?”.
We still have over 8 months to go before we expect to see the pixel 9 series, but we already have leaks for the phones. These leaks tell a brand new story for the pixel line, and I want to break down that story right here before we get too deep into things. I want to make sure that you guys see the renders for yourselves. So for the record, these renders come from Steve hammerer who’s, better known as on leaks. Steve is a reliable source for renders such as these. So we’re inclined to believe that these are legit, or at least close to what Google is planning. The first thing, you’ll notice, with the pixel 9 Pro leak, is that there are flat sides. This is something borrowed from the iPhone I’m going to touch more on that in a bit elsewhere. You’Ll also notice that the camera bar has been updated. It’S a very different design than we’ve seen on previous pixels, the curved corners of the camera bar kind of remind me of material design, language that you see throughout the Android operating system itself. This is no doubt deliberate as Google controls, both the hardware side and Android. So it’s trying to make those things look more cohesive. Next up, we have leaked, renders for the pixel 9.
Now these were very surprising, because this phone looks pretty much exactly like the pixel 9 Pro leak. The only big difference is that this phone is about the same size as the pixel 8, so this is a compact Flagship with what seems to be the same triple lens camera that we saw on the pixel 9 Pro leaks. This is very, very interesting, as this would be the first time ever that a prle, pixel and the non-pro counterpart have been this similar. I want to focus in on two aspects of these: renders that to me start to tell a new story for the pixel line in general.
The first thing is these new flat sides. Now, when these renders first came out, people were very quick to point out that flat sides are an iPhone thing in 2020, Apple released the iPhone 12 series and that brought back flat sides to smartphones and since then, we’ve seen a lot of companies follow suit. The Galaxy s24 series, for example, every phone has flat sides: the Asus Zen phone 10 had flat sides and every phone that nothing has launched the nothing phone 1 and the nothing phone 2 all have flat sides as well. So this is something that Apple started in 2020 and now Android phones are starting to catch up to it would be very easy to say that Google is just copying apple and that Samsung and Asus and nothing all we copying apple as well.
However, I want to talk a little bit about Carl pay, so Carl Pay used to work at OnePlus and then left the company to start nothing when nothing launched the first phone in its roster, the nothing phone one people criticized it because it looked too much like An iPhone and one of the reasons that they criticized it was because of its flat sides. Carl pay defended this decision, though, by arguing that flat sides are the most efficient way to design a smartphone and if you’re talking about the kind of rectangular boxy shape. It’S the most space efficient way to build a phone. So no, no second phones coming up, no circular phones.
What does he mean by this? So imagine a box. If you have a box, it can fit a certain amount of things inside that box. But if you curve the sides of the Box all around now you can fit less stuff inside the box. So smartphones are the same thing. If you start adding curves all around the sides of the phone you’re going to be able to fit less stuff inside it and flat edges solve this problem by allowing you to cram more and more stuff inside without increasing the overall dimensions of the phone. Of course, the trade-off here is that the phone is a little less ergonomic. In your hand, your hand has all sorts of Curves all around it and you kind of want to feel those curves when you’re holding your phone and the flat edges kind of detract from that. But this is a worthwhile tradeoff, because you’re going to be able to fit bigger batteries, more processing, more Cooling and all sorts of other things that you want to put in your smartphones nowadays in the end, you’re going to need to decide what you think.
Google is actually doing here. Is Google designed ing these pixel9 phones with efficiency in mind, as Carl pay would suggest, or is Google just copying Apple, because that’s what Apple’s doing I’m of the opinion that it’s a little bit of column A and A little bit of column B? I think that Google is looking to Apple and saying hey, that design really works and also saying hey with this design. We can fit more components into the phone than with our previous designs, so it’s a win-win. You can decide yourself if you like that or not by either buying the phone or not buying the phone, but I don’t think this is quite as simple as Google is just copying Apple.
The second thing that I want to focus in on here is the very concept of having two smartphones with one being smaller and one being bigger, but then both being prole phones. This is something that iPhones have done for many years now. You have the iPhone 15 Pro, for example, which is just a smaller version of the iPhone 15 Pro Max now.
The pro Max does have some extra features to it and, of course, since it’s it’s bigger, it has a bigger display and a bigger battery. But for all intensive purposes, these are the same two phones. Now Apple has been doing this for a while now, but Android hasn’t really followed suit. Let’S look at the Galaxy s24 series, for example. The Galaxy s24 itself is definitely not a pro level phone, at least not on the level of like an iPhone Pro, and the Galaxy s24 plus is just a bigger version of that phone. You have to go all the way to the Galaxy s24 Ultra to get all the features that you would expect from what we would consider a PR level phone, including all those camera sensors, that giant display, etc, etc. So really the Galaxy S 24 series doesn’t have a smaller version of the pro level phone.
It has two phones that are more in the premium segment and then one phone that is Ultra Premium same thing goes with the pixel line. The pixel 8 is not exactly a super premium phone, but the pixel 8 Pro is so you really have to decide. Do I want a prole phone, that’s huge, or do I want a not so Pro level phone? That’S small iPhone users haven’t had to make this decision. They can get with the iPhone 15 Pro and get almost all the features of the pro Max. So if Google does do this, where it releases a smaller version of the pr LEL phone, this is going to be pretty much brand new for the Android ecosystem. These two major possible changes for the pixel 9 series start to paint a new idea of what the pixel series really is like.
But another thing that I want to touch on real quick is price if the pixel 9, the smaller of the two phones. If that phone has the same triple lens camera as the pixel 9 Pro and a lot of the pro features that we expect the pixel 9 Pro to have, that phone is not going to be a $ 700 Flagship. Just like we saw with the pixel 8 series a phone like the pixel 9 that we’ve seen in these leaks is going to be significantly more expensive, possibly even just as expensive as the pixel 8 Pro is today, which is around $ 1,000. That would mean that the pixel 9 would be close to $ 1,000, and the pixel 9 Pro would be more expensive than that.
That leaves a huge gap in Google’s portfolio. What I mean here is is that the pixel 7A or the pixel 8A, which we expect to come out this year, costs $ 500 and then, if the pixel 9 starts at $ 1,000, that’s a huge gap in the middle there, where no phone currently exists in The pixel line it is possible that Google is just going to leave the pixel 8 series active and those phones will get a little cheaper and they’ll exist in that Gap there. However, I do want to point out that in December 2022 we posted a huge leak of Google’s pixel road map for the next few years. In that leak, we learned from a trusted source that Google plans to release three phones in the pixel Series in 2024, and that would include the smaller pixel Pro, which we’ve already discussed and seen a leak for, as well as the actual pixel 9, which is a Smaller phone with two lenses on the back more similar to what we saw from the pixel 8, the pixel 7 and the pixel 6.
If our source was accurate, we should expect another phone to leak in the pixel 9 series, which would fill that Gap that I just discussed. Of course we haven’t seen it yet so it’s possible that it doesn’t exist. It’S possible that Google changed its mind. It’S possible.
Our source was mistaken, there’s all sorts of possibilities here, since it’s so early on in the game. However, we are waiting for another pixel 9 leak and if one lands we’ll be super excited about it, because that’ll mean our source was right and if our source was right about this they’re, probably right about everything else coming up in the pixel road map, Bleak, we’ll Leave a link down in the description, so you can see what’s going on for yourself, I’m really excited to hear what you guys think about this. Are you liking the pixel 9 series so far? Do you think that there might be a third pixel9 launch on the way to fill in that Gap I was talking about. Are you excited about that? Do you think that you want a smaller pixel 9 Pro, or would you just end up getting the bigger phone anyway be sure to put all your thoughts down in the comments I’ll be checking them soon and until then I’ll see you in the next one that .