The rumours of a mid-range Pixel have been around for a while now, but there’s a little more steam behind the rumour with thoughts that it could be powered by the newly announced Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 SoC.
The tidbit comes courtesy of Roland Quandt of WinFuture.de who tweeted as he was about to board a plane for Computex:
Off to Taiwan for @computex_taipei today, but here's a tidbit for ya: Google is working on a "mobile" device based on the Snapdragon 710 currently scheduled for launch in the 1st half of 2019. Sounds like this might be the (or one of them) upcoming mid-range Pixel phone.
— Roland Quandt (@rquandt) June 2, 2018
Qualcomm first announced their 700-series Snapdragon range at Mobile World Congress earlier this year, then followed it up this week by announcing the Snapdragon 710. The Snapdragon 710 is basically a lite version of the Snapdragon 845 in the big.LITTLE configuration including dual high-performance cores, with six efficiency cores. The SD710 also includes an Adreno 600 series GPU, a 685 Hexagon DSP, Spectra 200 ISP, an X15 LTE modem and support for 10-bit HDR.
Running on the 10nm manufacturing process, the SD710 could dramatically increase battery life for mid-range devices, with the SD710 aimed at running on devices that sell in the $400USD-$500USD category.
Google was rumoured to be launching a mid-range Pixel for the Indian market in the middle of this year, so whether this is a gen 2 mid-range Pixel, or the initial release pushed back is really unclear at this stage.
The Pixel range is excellent, but the high price has kept away many users so a mid-range Pixel could offer those customers some of the features of the Pixel range – including timely updates, unlimited online photo storage and a great camera – without the higher prices of the full Pixel phones.
We’re keen to see how this one pans out, but the question is: How many corners would Google cut to bring the price of the Pixel down to ‘mid-range’.
Maybe, just maybe Google realise there is a demand for a Pixel that is not top specced. I am in the same boat as David above. All I need is a 1080 6″ screen (if in 18:9, otherwise 5.5″ in the wider format) a good camera, a high end mid range SOC, pure Android and timely updates. Wait ….. that sounds like the Nokia 7+ I recently purchased. The last Google phone I bought was the Nexus 6, then I realised I didn’t need top end everything and stopped wasting my money and started buying high end mid range phones.… Read more »
They should compromise on processor speed and screen quality. But definitely not on the camera. I don’t need 4k screen and I don’t play the latest and greatest games but everyone uses their phone for photos.
Note it calls it a “mobile” device, not a phone. And it would seem strange to not have it launch with the other pixels if it were to be more sanely priced. Maybe the ChromeOS its-not-a-tablet-really device, in time for I/O?
Hopefully it lands here for under $700, with no less than 4GB/64GB.