When the original Pixel was unveiled by Google some years back, many questioned why the search engine company was entering the business of designing, building, and selling phones. Five years on, that sentiment still lingers and critics of Google’s strategy are correct to say it looks contradictory. The company has invested time and treasure into building devices, but it hasn’t accompanied them with the necessary distribution and marketing to truly challenge for a big slice of the market. But it seems that will finally change with the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro.
According to Max Winebach, Google claims to be serious about its hardware business this time, and they are actually taking on Samsung and want to steal some of the market share from them.
Max says that Google has kept the same marketing budget for the Pixel 6 as Samsung keeps for their Galaxy S series of phones. This is huge because like I've mentioned over and over, the key to success in the smartphone industry is to make a good phone and market it properly.
In the tech world, people tend to think competition is all about the product but that's not entirely true. Samsung did not change the game with just technology or product instead, they did it by focusing on distribution and advertising! So Google keeping a big marketing budget for the Pixel phones is an indication that they are finally confident on their phones that it can go head to head with the best out there in every aspect and not just photography.
But then again you may ask, Google sells only a few million Pixel phones per year, how could they have a budget like Samsung. Well, Google as a whole company makes billions in profits each quarter and their market capitalization is actually more than Samsung.
If Google wants, they can double the marketing budget of the Pixel 6 than what Samsung has kept for the Galaxy S21 because Google has other extremely profitable ventures that makes a ridiculous amount of money for them. So it's about time, Google is finally upping their marketing game.
With that said, Max also revealed some of the specifications of the Pixel 6 lineup on a podcast he did recently. He says Pixel 6 Pro will have a 5000mAh battery to power the 120Hz QHD+ display. The regular Pixel 6 will also have a 120Hz refresh rate but the resolution will be FHD+ and the battery capacity is 4500mAh. He said the reason Google opted for this Robocop camera design is that it's a future-proof design thanks to all the room it gives to allow new camera tech and it helps Google to keep a consistent camera design in the future Pixel phones as well.
Speaking about Google's own custom silicon, he says the reason Google chose to design their own chipset is because of Artificial intelligence. We all know AI is the future, Google already makes AI chipsets. Things work better if a company controls the whole stack than solving the puzzle by putting the pieces together and that's what Google is doing. This will help them better optimize the whole chipset.
Max says you shouldn't be too much optimistic about the performance, the Whitechapel will perform in between the Snapdragon 865 and 888, close to the Exynos 2100. Since it's Google's first try at making a custom chipset for phones, I think it's unreasonable anyway to expect them to outperform Qualcomm on their first try.
But it will be interesting to see, how well they optimize the chipset. He also mentions that the Pixel watch will have a 5nm Samsung processor and will launch alongside the Pixel 6 in October.
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