We all remember Blackberry. At least some of us do. In fact, it may be that many people reading this will not, even though it wasn’t so long ago.
Time flies fast these days, and we are paying more attention to technology than ever before. Some advances get us astonished, some disappoint us. We have high expectations at each announcement by the major companies.
So when Google announced they’d be actually making their own smartphone, curiosity was not enough of a word to describe our feelings.
Google has been much more than just a major contributor to most new advances in gadgets in the past decade. It has developed Android and Android, despite becoming the main operating system for smartphones, is far from being flawless. As a matter of fact, complaints mount from every manufacturer and customer of android phones.
So this is why it becomes even more intriguing when the Android developer decides to make it’s own smartphone from scratch.
Experts say Google’s Pixel is actually the antidote to most Android’s problems, making it incredibly easy to use. It took Google putting their hands on the hardware to fix their most problematic software. That’s what Apple has been doing since pretty much forever.
However, Google is better than Apple at software and even better at services. That becomes very obvious once we start using Google Assistant, Pixel’s digital helper. It provides much more accurate and detailed results than Apple’s SIRI. Google’s AI algorithm makes Pixel “talk” to you much more naturally through its intelligent assistant.
In fact, we get to taste a lot more of AI in the Pixel phone than ever before. That’s a huge Google advantage. They are much more well positioned in terms of AI than any other company, and the fact that they can bring that to smartphones is just great.
In practical terms, you can, for example, simply ask the phone when your next flight is and it will answer precisely without you ever mentioning it, based on confirmation emails sent by the airline company.
That’s something very cool and that should be expected to happen first on a phone made by Google. It makes total sense, doesn’t it? I mean, now with the Píxel phone and its improved built in assistant you can ask pretty much anything that is on Google. And it gets pretty close to a real conversation, humor notes included.
As the phone gets to know you better it starts sending you alerts, giving you valuable tips and so on. At a certain point the phone starts actually working for you all the time, without you even noticing, and providing you with all sorts of information before you even ask.
If AI is what makes Pixel so unique, the same doesn’t apply to its looks. The hardware is pretty standard and nothing really stands out. Google is okay with that, since it proves that these days, Intelligence is more important than looks, at least when it comes to smartphones. In the Pixel ad, Google made a point stressing that it comes with a standard headphone jack.
Despite being average, all the hardware is pretty good, and just like the iPhone, Pixel is all metal.Two features that some people might miss is wireless charging and waterproof capability.
As far as the camera - it does stand out. Perhaps not the best camera in the world, like they claim, but there’s even some AI built in there, too.
With Samsung at least for now out of the race, we stand with Google Pixel and the iPhone. With the best Android version ever and a lot of AI, Pixel is making a great start and it’s set to beat the competition.
There’s no doubt the Google’s smartphone stands out for being really smart. Smarter than the phones that preceded it. And that’s an enormous advantage to start with. At this point and time we are all eager for AI in our daily lives, and that’s about what Pixel is delivering. From now on we can actually talk to our smartphones.
