A first look at Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, plus let's talk Tensor!
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Okay, so uh i've held the pixel six. Let's talk about it alright. So today we get a bunch of officially confirmed real details on uh, the new pixel 6 and pixel 6 pro coming up this year from google. I got some very brief off-camera hands on time.

Okay, so i didn't get to shoot any of that, but i have a lot of details and i have some official images that i can share with you. So, let's get into all of it so, like i said, there's a pixel 6 and a pixel 6 pro they're, both pretty huge phones, but the pixel 6 pro is a little bigger around 6.7 inches. It has glossy metal rails instead of matte black rails, and it is slightly curved on the sides of the screen. It's 120 hertz screen, instead of a flat 90 hertz on the smaller one, there's also new camera hardware across both of them, with a shared primary and ultra wide, but there's also a new 4x telephoto camera on the pro, and they have this horizontal camera bar across The whole back of the phone side to side that honestly, it looks better in person than it does, with the renders it kind of reminds me of a nexus 6p, which also had a camera bar go all the way across the back, and you can actually notice.

Uh, the metal rails on top and bottom of the camera bar are again glossy on the pro and matte black on the non-pro. Both up front will have a hole, punch, selfie, camera in the middle and a nearly bezel-less display and, of course, both run android 12. With all the new aesthetics and material, u and all those features, so that's nice and that's exciting and there's a bunch more details to discuss closer to launch things like the exact battery size, the screen resolution and, of course, prices. But the one thing i want to talk about that's across both of these phones is the new custom designed silicon that will be in both of them called google tensor.

So this was rumored for a little bit. You know. Pixel phones for years have been using a variety of snapdragon chips from qualcomm, whatever is available just like every other high-end android phone, but it was rumored that brewing in the background. Was this white chapel project of google designing their own silicon to eventually go into the pixel phone? This turned out to be true, so there's a couple different benefits to this, and it's not even a new idea completely.

You know obviously apple designs, all the chips and their iphones, but also huawei, makes the kiran chips and samsung makes exynos chips. This is the thing that's been happening and there's even been little bits of custom silicon inside pixel phones. Before already they had a custom image signal, processor called the pixel, pixel visual core and then pixel neural core and also the the titan m security chip, but this entire chip, this whole phone being powered by just a tensor chip. Well, that's a big deal.

I i think it's particularly important for the pixel line, specifically because of how much google does with software and and that optimization process, and i think i think we're going to see a lot of big changes here. So, let's start with the biggest, i think, most obvious place, which is in their cameras. So we all know by now that pixels have had really good photo quality specifically for a couple years now and that's because of their awesome software and computational photography. But the video quality has always just been meh, like not nothing special, pretty average from the pixel, and so what google showed me on.
Pixel 6 was a comparison with the pixel 6 and the iphone 12 and the pixel 5.. And, of course, this is a very you know, handcrafted tailored comparison to show the best thing they could do, but they're, basically taking all those computational photography, chops and applying them to video, because tensor enables that now and it was really impressive. What i was able to see we'll see much more hands-on demos, of course, i'm sure very soon, but that's exciting. That's the hdr! That's the noise reduction, the stabilization all of that smarts in video.

Now too also, you know, pixel cameras have always been great, but since pixel 2 they've basically been using the same kind of small at this point sensor, because they've got it so dialed with their algorithms. They can, of course, improve the glass and, of course, the iris opening every year. But generally it's been the same sensor and i suspect they were reluctant to change it, because why move to some huge new 50 megapixel sensor, if you don't have the computational photography chops to back it up so they've just been sticking with the same sensor, but this Year with pixel 6, it is all new sensors, big new sensors and i'm really curious to see what kind of results we're going to get with tensor and the image processing on these big new sensors now another benefit and the other sort of main pillar. One that google was talking to me about was speech, recognition and basically being able to do as much of this as possible on device as efficiently and quickly as possible.

We on the google assistant is very important to them and i use assistant all the time. So i'm happy to hear this, but yeah just being as dedicated as possible by literally giving parts of the tensor chip that sole purpose of decoding speech into text and making things like assistant way faster and speaking of power. I think battery life is another thing to keep an eye on with the tensor chip in pixel six, so i don't have official battery size numbers if i get them from them. I'll put them on the screen here.

But the point is: do you remember when the max switched from intel design chips to apple designed m1 chips and literally doubled in battery life? That's because of optimization and efficiency. I'm not saying we're going to get that insane level of games here. They're still both arm based, you know tensor and qualcomm chips already arm based so same architecture, but we are now approaching the same level of vertical integration that apple has had with those macs, so maybe it'll be a little better. I think the the streamlining of power and efficiency with tensor chips should make for a better battery experience, but on top of all that now we got to think about.
You know android in general, google makes android they can optimize for everything, but also now they can offer much longer software updates much longer than other android phones. As of right. Now, technically, you know, android phones can offer software updates as long as qualcomm also officially supports those updates. So typically, you'll get something like three years, which is nice, but now that they control the entire stack.

They can optimize android for as many years as possible and they want to. They want to optimize android for as long as possible to continue giving you updates, because they want to keep you on that phone. I feel, like we've seen this kind of from the other side from the iphone apple has made a lot of money from selling iphones for a really long time, but that slowed down a bit and now people are keeping their iphones longer than ever so apple realizes. They they want to make as much money from the person with that iphone during the life cycle of that phone is possible, so you've seen them move into services, apple tv, apple news, all these services you can buy and pay monthly and then that iphone that you Have for a long time will make apple a lot of money so with the pixel.

Google already makes a majority of their money from ad services from things like gmail and google search and google assistant, and so now tensor just enables them the ability to guarantee way longer software updates to keep you using that device way longer like the iphone. Now, if you really want to go uh into the weeds, i think this could also have an effect on pricing at least internally. I don't want to get too crazy with it, but google has had to to bargain with qualcomm to you know, get a certain price for a certain order, size for a certain number of chips, but then samsung might come along and place like a way bigger order Which could affect like the supply of certain ships and the whole supply chain, is out of their control so with tensor. It's it's better for google to have more control over this, but obviously uh - maybe not obviously, but qualcomm has to bargain with their foundry and get certain prices and eventually upsell to oems, like google, so cutting out that middleman of qualcomm can actually save them money and Make the price overall lower, especially at scale - and i don't know you know this - might not get passed down to the user at any point.

Maybe they use those savings for something else, but it's just one more advantage to this, but you know what actually one more thing i just came to mind. This could be the beginning of uh, an ecosystem, wide silicon thing for google. You know the same way. I'll keep going back to apple's example, but the same way that m1 chip we've talked so much about is basically it's a scaled up version of the a14 i feel like there could be a scaled up or scaled down version of tensor in google's future.
Maybe a scaled down version for a pixel watch someday or a scaled up version for a chromebook or really any other device or a smart speaker or something like that or a smart display. That would just make sense to happen down the line so yeah, and that also makes sense for future parody, because now you know the same reason: the m1 max have better webcam quality than any other mac ever it's because they're using the same image processing as the Iphone so for all of this, i guess what i'm trying to say here is the first generation of tensor chip we're about to see in the pixel. It's going to be really interesting to see what it unlocks to see how it performs. Obviously, in regular day to day, people are going to benchmark it and all that fun stuff, but to see what type of stuff it really unlocks for the pixel now and then in future generations too.

So something to keep an eye on. If you want to see uh my full video on android 12 and all the features that are already coming to the pixel, when this phone comes out later this year, i'll link that below the like button. If you want to check it out, but that's been it for me, just some quick thoughts on pixel 6, which is coming up coming up along with a bunch of other stuff. If you want to be subscribed to see that, of course, you should thanks for watching catch you in the next one peace.


By MKBHD

16 thoughts on “Pixel 6’s tensor chip: let’s talk!”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Derek Grimes says:

    thanks, subscribed.. ! I got the pro and am well chuffed with it so far, it's not too big as I had been afraid of coming from iPhone se 2020, and it's lovely and light too. I just made the mistake of not researching beforehand how to export WhatsApp chats from iPhone, so I missed my window of opportunity to do so immediately out of the box. I tried factory resetting but phone said "no" 😀

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars ShamelesCampR559 says:

    Battery : Minimum 4524 mAh

    Typical 4614 mAh5

    Fast charging6 – up to 50% charge in about 30 minutes6 – with Google 30W USB-C® Charger with USB-PD 3.0 (PPS) sold separately

    Qi-certified

    Fast wireless charging7

    Battery Share: Charge other devices wirelessly8

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars King David Jimala says:

    How I wish to have any of the 6 series of the Pixel phones, it broke my heart when I heard the price here in our country (Philippines) 🙁 If ever I am gonna get one that would be the best Christmas gift I have ever received in my entire life. I am huge fan of Google Products but sadly aside that I can't afford any of their products is we do have physical store here in Asia 🙁 I am hoping Marques Brownlee notice me though 🙁

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Arturo Paz says:

    Was a Nexus user till it's end, now with the Pixel line it's great, love the Vanilla Android experience, was using the PlusOne as it was the closest thing to Vanilla besides the Pixel, thought OnePlus was just a little better than the Pixel phones overall, with the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, and the Price going up on the OnePlus I think I'm ready to get back on Google's bandwagon. Maybe like Apple with the M1 chip, the Tensor chip can power Chromebooks and maybe in the near future can upgrade ChromeOS to the point of being able to challange Windows, maybe something lilke Apple and their Mac's and OS.

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Hal9000 says:

    I’ve had hands on the pixel 6 pro for about 20 minutes in a controlled environment. Ie no photos etc. but I could whizz through the os, load apps watch YouTube etc. I can say that it’s the most smooth os experience I’ve ever had on any phone ever! From the spec I know it’ll not be the most powerful phone on paper or benchmarks. But it’s more than enough that I know. iPhone is a prime example of raw power that is utterly unnecessary! Absolutely not needed. I’d say 60 percent plus of iPhones raw power is not harnessed or even needed. Software just doesn’t need that sort of brute force to work well! So what tensor is bringing is a way more sensible and grown up approach to how we use our phones. It’ll get smarter as it’s used. If you want to game it has a 20 core Gpu which will be more than adequate. But things like machine learning and AI are much more useful. Well done Google, you are bringing us what we want! And what is useful and sensible and useable!

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars twijayamail says:

    pixel: we have tensor chip
    phone user: longer phone usage? can browse faster? can store more data? better call quality?
    pixel: no, it has better and smarter spy inside your phone

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Anselwithmac says:

    I always love all your videos but there’s a lot of strange speculation in this one. I see the potential of tensor, but there’s a great chance it’s just to break away from Qualcom, who’s moving at a snails pace and has a grip on so many technologies

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars AetherHorizon says:

    I'm glad they are done with the shitdragon chips. These greedy fucks don't release the schematics for the companies to provide more than 2 years of android support. And they've been doing this since the sd801 era. I hope they burn

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Hove 201 says:

    It’s wild so many people still care about smart phones. I haven’t really felt like I’ve gotten any real advancement from my iPhone 7Plus. I did upgrade last year to the 12. I do miss android OS.

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars DJ DanceAlone says:

    My biggest problem with the pixel I had last year was sending videos though text message. The video would always be degraded after being sent……. has pixel done anything about that?

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Hegel Huang says:

    The Pixel 6 listing price tag of Target, the second largest chain store in the United States, has been exposed. Pixel 6 128GB is priced at US$599 and Pixel 6 Pro 128GB is priced at US$898.

  12. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Samuel James says:

    MKBHD, if you had a 2 year old Note 10+ and you wanted the best sub $1k phone on the market within the next month or so, what would you pick? I'm upgrading soon and I've been out of the "know everything about phones" game for a hot minute. Thanks dude great content as always!

  13. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Felicify says:

    The more I realise I don't care as much about my phone, I begin to hate the curved screens more and more. Still probably not gonna stop me from getting the pro versions though. Haha

  14. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Michalis Chiras says:

    One question remains, suspiciously, under the radar from Google and the press alike: Google invests on in house SoC, that means better Android optimization for the Pixel (the Apple way). What does this mean though for the rest of Android manufacturers?? Will they somehow be forced to use Tensor chip too? What about performance and optimization on Qualcomm chips? And what about future support on these chips?

  15. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Tiagraj I says:

    Google phones are disappointing as they don't follow on what they introduce. Eg soli. On the topic of updates, Apple wants you to buy the next phone. Don't forget how the updates pushed the old phones to run out of battery

  16. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Mandy says:

    It all comes down to them keeping the headphone jack for me lol! Been using nothing but Galaxy series phones for decades & I haven't upgraded past the 10 because they got rid of them.. Hopefully they kept it so I can buy it!

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