The other day I saw Android Police’s managing editor tweet about a leak he had that pointed to the final version of Android O being officially available in August. Guess what usually comes with a new version of Android? A new phone from Google. It is no surprise then that we are starting to see leaks and rumours being to surface about the next iteration of the Pixel phones.
Overnight we saw a Google Pixel XL2 appear on GFXBench which gives a few details, most of which are of now surprise. According to the benchmarking website, the Google Pixel XL2 (needs a better name IMO) will sport an octa-core processor at 2.4GHz by Qualcomm and Adreno 540 GPU. This most likely points towards a Snapdragon 835 but could also be an iteration of this and be a Snapdragon 836 which is rumoured to arrive around the same time in the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.
The big piece of information that is music to me ears (eyes?) is the 2560 x 1312, 5.6inch display. This points towards the display being an 18:9 aspect ratio. After using the LG G6 I have to say that I think that this is the aspect ratio of the future, especially with Google adding so much multi/split-screen functionality into Android.
There is also rumoured to be 4GB of RAM inside along with 128GB of onboard storage. It seems that Google have decided that 4GB is all the RAM an Android phone requires with the Pixel XL version 1 having 4GB of RAM. To not have increased that implies that thinking by Google. After using the buttery-smooth UI of the Pixel XL for the past six months I am inclined to agree with them. No other phone can come close to its speed and fluid UI, no matter how much RAM it has.
The cameras on the Pixel XL2 are a 12MP rear camera and 8MP front shooter. This belies other rumours which have pointed at the rear camera being a dual camera setup. We have seen instances before where benchmarks have shown only one of the cameras so the dual rear camera is not ruled out at this stage. If Google have adopted the 18:9 display ratio I suspect they will also adopt the now-standard dual rear camera setup.
The phone is only running Android 7.1.1 at the moment which is no surprise — no point testing beta hardware with beta software. IT is of course expected to launch with the new version of Android 8.0
There doesn’t really seem to be much in the way of surprises with this leak. Do you think it may be faked? What spec are you most hoping for with the Pixels in their second generation? For me I am most hoping for an 18:9 display ratio and a dual camera setup with full Huawei-type functionality.
Can’t wait! Let’s hope it costs at least $2k.
Yeah, uh, let’s hope it doesn’t.