The much-awaited Pixel 4 series was one of the most talked-about lineups in the year 2019, but the Pixel series that was launched at the October 15 event looks uninterested in doing the justice to the hype.
Here are a few reasons why I think the new members of the Pixel smartphone family might not gain enough traction that Google would’ve liked:
Battery life
The Pixel 4 series features a 90Hz display similar to the OnePlus 7 Pro and 7T series. I, being a OnePlus 7 Pro user, can tell you that the 90Hz display leaves a great impression on the eye, scrolling is just buttery smooth and while these factors are going to differentiate the new Pixels from its rivals, the upgrade in the screen refresh rate, in my opinion, is only going to hurt the sales, particularly of the Pixel 4.
The new Pixel 4 packs an unimpressive 2800mAh battery, which, by the way, is less than last year’s Pixel 3 model. While Google claimed all-day battery life on a single charge, the 2800mAh battery on the Pixel 4 leaves a bad impression on consumers, thereby affecting the sales.
Design
The design aesthetic is another point which, in my opinion, would play its part in limiting the sales of the Pixel 4 series. A relatively bigger forehead and chin are not what people expect on a 2019 smartphone.
Google had to go with the large bezels because of the new Soli radar chip and while it does let you do cool stuff, the “real-time motion tracking of the human hand” practically doesn’t do anything that can’t be done by tapping on the screen. Long story short, it doesn’t solve any problem, at least for now – it’s just cool and nothing more than that, or at least that’s going to be the case for at least three years from now.
I’m not sure as to why Google compromised the design aesthetic for a feature that, in my opinion, will be one of the least used features in new Pixel.
Camera
While most of its competitors are offering a triple camera set up at the back, the square camera bump on the back of the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL houses only two cameras, but that doesn’t make the camera of the new pixel smartphones inferior to what the competitors offer. What makes it inferior to the competitors though, is the absence of a wide-angle lens.
“While wide-angle is fun, we think telephoto is more important,” Google said at the October 15 launch event. When CNN asked why it opted for a telephoto camera instead of the ultra-wide, a Google spokesperson said, “Zooming on a subject would be more important to Pixel owners.”
I’d argue that the absence of an ultra-wide camera is a big trade-off.
Pricing
Pricing is probably the main reason why the aforementioned trade-offs are going to play a big role in discouraging users from purchasing the latest Pixels.
Unfortunately, the base model of the Pixel 4 is priced at $800, more than the price of the iPhone 11 and except for the 90Hz screen refresh rate, and the motion tracking feature, which has a little or no critical use cases at this moment, the iPhone 11 offers more and, therefore, a better choice.
Meanwhile, the new Pixel 4 series will start shipping on October 22.