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Some business decisions are obviously brilliant out of the box, while others take time to develop before final judgments can be made. The jury is still out on Google’s Pixel smartphone experiment, which began as a way to create hero hardware for Android software, but has apparently not generated the sales or impact that Google expected, in part due to the long run. Shadow cast by Apple’s flagship and almost flagship iPhones. This week, Google changed tack, at least for now, by reorienting pixels as mid-range 5G devices, seemingly in pursuit of greater overall success.
I’m still not sure if Google’s choice will ultimately turn out to be smart or reckless, but the company deserves some credit for having a strategy and seeing where it goes. As horrible as 2020 has been, this seems year to focus on affordable phones and offer great value for money. That’s exactly what Google is trying to do with the new Pixel 4a 5G and Pixel 5, phones that directly target Apple’s historical pain points. If Apple thought it could launch the iPhone 12 family without a potentially significant rival on its heels, Google is here to offer people 5G Android devices for hundreds of dollars less. The math will be simple for businesses planning multi-device purchases: Google’s 5G pixels will sell for $ 150- $ 300 below Apple’s expected price for entry-level 5G iPhones, a savings that will only multiply by enterprise-scale device purchase volumes.
Pixel 4a 5G is a $ 499 5G phone with a 6.2-inch OLED screen and 6GB of RAM, housed in a non-water-resistant plastic body. The base model includes 5G sub-6GHz support, compatible with most of the world’s current 5G networks; a Verizon-specific version with 5G millimeter wave support will cost $ 599. The Pixel 5 is a $ 699 5G phone with a 6-inch OLED screen, 8GB of RAM, and a water-resistant aluminum body. There is no charge for this model if you want Verizon to support 5G millimeter wave; All US versions of the Pixel 5 have millimeter wave and 5G below 6 GHz, while non-US models only support networks below 6 GHz.
So Google’s pitch is simple: You can choose between $ 499, $ 599, and $ 699 Pixel phones with 5G, and nothing is more expensive. All new phones ship with 128GB of storage, and the $ 699 Pixel 5 is top of the line, period. Meanwhile, Apple is just weeks away from unveiling its first 5G iPhones, which are expected to have base prices of $ 649, $ 749, $ 999, and $ 1,099 before adding possibly necessary memory upgrades. The most affordable new iPhone will likely be called the iPhone 12 mini, have a 5.4-inch screen, and include just 64GB of storage. You’ll need to spend at least $ 749 on a new iPhone to get a screen the size of the Pixel 4a, and at that price, you might not even get Pixel-equivalent storage space.
If the above details were the only thing that mattered, this wouldn’t seem like a fair fight. Google is offering 5G phones at prices that Apple will not match at a time when every dollar matters to millions of potential customers. If you believe Google, and me, given the known importance of aggressive pricing in marketing consumer electronics, the $ 349 Pixel 4a 4G is already outselling the company’s previous and more expensive Pixel 4 flagship. despite the low-end components. The value is selling, and if that trend continues, the new Pixels could have a great holiday season.
But like most strategies, Google’s choice to focus on the middle without a true “hero” model at the top carries several serious risks. First, many companies are making mid-range 5G Android phones; The non-premium smartphone market is clearly a red ocean with no shortage of options, regardless of what specs you’re looking for. Second, going from “hero” phones to “everyone” puts Google in the difficult position of having fewer prominent hardware features to promote. Unlike last year’s Pixel 4, the new models lack the Soli radar, the Pixel Neural Core AI processor, and the telephoto camera, to name a few features.
The third risk could be the greatest of all. Instead of using Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 series flagship processor, as it did last year, Google’s full lineup of Pixel 2020 is based on mid-range 7 series processors, with the Pixel 4a 5G and Pixel 5. using Snapdragon 765G. While it’s true that this is an upper-mid-range part by Qualcomm standards, moving from Series 8 to Series 7 is not the kind of chip choice that will inspire Pixel 4 owners to upgrade to Pixel 5.
In essence, the Pixel family moves sideways as processor technology advances. Google is not going to win any AI performance awards with the 765G, which promises 5.5 billion operations per second (TOPS) compared to the 11 TOPS promised by Apple’s A14 Bionic chip with the iPhone 12. Keeping everything Otherwise it would be 50% less performance, a huge AI deficit. And while full benchmarks for the A14 Bionic have yet to be released, it will almost certainly crush Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 865 in CPU and GPU performance, leaving the previous 765G in the dust.
Unlike Google, Apple will likely include its latest processor instead of a one-year mid-range option in the iPhone 12. The result, like the iPhone SE comparison to the Pixel 4a, will be a more expensive iPhone 12 mini. and with a smaller screen than the Pixel 4a 5G, but significantly faster to run demanding applications and games. Future proof counts for something, particularly since people are now holding onto phones for three years on average, and there’s little doubt that Apple will continue to back the iPhone with new iOS releases for at least as long as Google.
Only time will tell if Google was right to aim its new Pixel phones at Apple’s midsection rather than the head or arms, but regardless of the outcome, this will be an interesting fight to watch over the next year. Android’s biggest advantage over iOS has been the sheer number of devices that companies have made available at different prices, including those that offer better hardware than the iPhone while undermining Apple’s notoriously large profit margins, even if they don’t achieve iPhone-level sales volumes. . This year’s Pixel phones certainly won’t be the only Android devices with mid-range performance, but they can help make 5G accessible to people that Apple isn’t ready to tackle in 2020, and that alone might be a good justification for his existence.
