Google finally revealed the availability timeline for its Pixel phones in India. As per a tweet by the company, the Pixel phones will go on sale in India starting from October 25. Sadly, the Really Blue color variant will not be available for purchase in India. Previously, the Pixel phones were up for pre-ordering in India for Rs. 57,000.
To recap, there is not much difference between Pixel and Pixel XL, except for the battery and display size. The Google Pixel features a 5-inch full-HD AMOLED display of 1920 x 1080p resolution with Gorilla Glass 4 protection and 2,770 mAh battery with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 providing 7 hours of battery life in just 15 minutes. On the other hand, the Pixel XL comes with a 5.5-inch Quad HD display with a resolution of 2560×1440 pixels and 3,450mAh battery with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0.
Both the Pixel phones (Pixel and Pixel XL) are powered by a 2.15GHz 64-bit quad-core Snapdragon 821 processor and 4GB of RAM. There are two non-expandable storage variants – 32GB and 128GB. Both the devices will be available in Quite Black, Really Blue (limited edition), and Very Silver color options. Sadly, the Really Blue colour variant will not launch in India. Google has used Aluminum and Glass for the design of Pixel phones, the rear panel of the devices is made up of Glass. They both sport 12.3-megapixel rear camera coupled with Sony IMX378 sensor, PDAF, f/2.0 aperture, and 1.55-micron pixels along with an 8-megapixel front camera with a Sony IMX179 sensor, f/2.4 aperture, and 1.4-micron pixels. Google claims that the camera rating website DxOMark has awarded the devices with a score of 89, which is pretty good when compared to other leading flagships like Galaxy S7 and iPhone 7.
For connectivity, the Google Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones support Single-SIM, 4G LTE, Google Cast, GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, dual-band Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC, and USB 3.1 Type-C port. Thankfully, Google decided to keep the good old 3.5 mm headphone jack (In one of the introductory videos of Pixel, Google has smartly mocked Apple on 3.5 mm jack). Another cool feature is that Google will offer a 24-hour remote support to Pixel smartphones. In India, Pixel users will get a toll-free phone support accompanied by 54 walk-in service centers in over 30 cities.
The Pixel phones come deeply integrated with Google Allo and Google Duo apps. One can easily access Google’s personal assistant app – Allo by “OK Google” voice command or by long pressing the Home button. At the Pixel event, Google also launched the Daydream VR headset, Chromecast Ultra with 4K HDR, and Google Wi-Fi. Oh, and the Pixel phones are obviously compatible with the Daydream VR headset.
