Everything That Really Matters From Today’s Google Event
Happy Google Day! The search giant has announced several new devices, including the all-new Pixel Buds, the powerful Pixel 4 smartphone, and the revamped Nest Mini.
Although I was unable to fly to New York for the event, I tuned in via a Google live stream. Here are all the important announcements you missed if you weren’t able to watch.
Rick Osterloch, Google’s senior vice president of devices and services, opened the event and he talked a little about how it would be / great to have all sorts of devices mixed in your home that will help you throughout the day. … This includes Stadia, Google’s cloud gaming platform, which will officially launch on November 19. Announcement number one!
Pixel buds
Google has announced new headphones that it plans to release in spring 2020 for $ 179. Specifications include five hours of battery life and 24 hours of battery life when used with the optional wireless charging case. They fit close to the ear and use a hybrid design that covers the ear (for better bass) and a downward facing spatial opening for external sound.
The volume of your Pixel Buds will be automatically adjusted depending on the volume of your appearance, and microphones with beam forming allow people to better hear you when you talk.
Pixelbook Go
This $ 649 13mm thick Chrome OS laptop offers 12 hours of battery life and weighs just two pounds. It comes with “ultra-quiet mute buttons” that are said to be quieter than anything you’ve ever seen on a Google laptop, and the specs aren’t too bad for a Chrome OS laptop:
A “black only” version of the laptop is available for pre-order today , and a “non-pink” iteration is coming soon.
Nest mini
Available from October 22nd for $ 49 , the Nest Mini arrives with an all-new Sky color option and a new wall mount design for everyone. According to Google, the Nest Mini has twice the bass as the Home Mini, “cleaner, more natural sound” and comes with a third microphone to hear you better.
The Nest Mini also has a dedicated machine learning chip with 1 teraops computing power. This means that processing can be done locally on your device and not in Google’s datacenter.
Nest Aware
No matter how many devices you have, you can now pay a flat monthly fee for the Google Nest Aware service . Google also splits the service into two different pricing options:
Wi-Fi socket
Say hello to Nest Wifi. You get a router that connects to your cable modem and a “Wi-Fi hotspot” to expand your coverage with a new Wi-Fi bubble around your home. Google claims 25 percent better coverage and twice the speed of Google Wifi – I believe that means processing speed, not wireless speed, whatever the cost. (The router itself is a 4×4 MU-MIMO device, probably redundant for most people’s needs, and the secondary access point is a 2X2 MU-MIMO AC1200 device.)
The Nest Wifi also comes with a built-in Google Assistant speaker, so you can just buy one instead of buying a Wi-Fi router and smart speaker. Not bad. You can pre-order today , get one starting November 4th, and two packages start at $ 269. (A pack of three costs $ 349.)
Pixel 4
This is what you have been waiting for. Google has finally unveiled its latest smartphone, and here’s a quick overview of some of the cool stuff that’s packed inside. First, however, the raw parts: it will release on October 24th for $ 799 ($ 899 for the XL), and it will be available on all media (and in three different colors). You can pre-order today .
Now for the details. The Pixel 4 comes with a built-in radar sensor that supposedly provides ultra-fast face detection to unlock your phone – “Motion Sense,” as Google calls it, which also allows you to quickly control your device with gestures. (It’s pretty neat.) Also, what you do with Motion Sense is stored locally on your device and is not shared with other Google services.
Google also announced that it is bringing in more Google Assistant processing on the Pixel 4 itself, which should speed up communication between you and the Assistant (instead of constantly processing your commands in the Google datacenter, that is.)
The new ‘Recorder’ app on the Pixel 4 lets you record in real time everything you hear in a super-convenient way, which is definitely great for lectures and meetings. Finding specific recordings using word and phrase searches is easy, and each occurrence of that word or phrase is highlighted in the timeline of your recording for added convenience. As a journalist, I love this feature and would use it often.
The Pixel 4 features an OLED display and a 90Hz refresh rate. The refresh rate will automatically adjust depending on what you are doing to reduce the drain on your battery when you don’t need that much firepower.
In terms of the Pixel 4’s photographic features, you get a rear, wide-angle, and telephoto lens, as well as a “hyperspectral sensor” and a microphone. However, for Google, camera specs are not as important as the software that guides the entire process.
For example, Google uses a hybrid of optical and digital zoom to improve the clarity of your image as you zoom in. In fact, Google recommends scaling instead of just taking a big, distant shot and cropping – the more you know .
At the event, Google also announced four other interesting computational photography features for the Pixel 4:
- Live HDR + or use machine learning to roughly determine in the viewfinder what your HDR + shot might look like. Plus, there are double exposure controls that let you adjust brightness and shadows when planning a shot.
- White balance . All photo modes now benefit from learning-based white balance. In other words, you will have more accurate colors, especially when you shoot in more difficult situations.
- Portrait mode , in which depth is calculated using machine learning to improve the accuracy of portrait mode and allow you to use this feature with additional subjects (and at greater distances).
- Night sight . An improved night sight for improved astrophotography if you like shooting stars (or anything that requires longer exposures).