We don’t know when the Google Pixel 7 and Google Pixel 7 Pro will be fully released — September or October seem like good choices — but in the meantime, videos showing prototypes of the two phones have emerged.
Revelations video from Unboxing Therapy (opens in new tab) (pass 9to5Google (opens in new tab)) and give us an in-depth look at the Standard and Premium editions of Google’s upcoming flagship product. However, there is no software available on these devices, which appear to be the developers’ phones.
While it’s important to remember that these aren’t retail versions of the phones, the specs carry over well: we’ve got 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage on the Pixel 7, up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of Pixel Storage on the 7 Pro.
Dimensions and Weight
Both phones were compared to their predecessors, the Google Pixel 6 and Google Pixel 6 Pro, though there were actually only minor tweaks to the design, with some minor differences in size and screen curvature.
The Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro look slightly shorter than their predecessors, despite not being much longer. At the same time, the Pixel 7 is slightly lighter than the Pixel 6, although the Pixel 7 Pro and Pixel 6 Pro weigh about the same.
Aside from showing us the design, Google didn’t tell us much about these upcoming phones, other than that they’ll be running an upgraded version of its Tensor chipset. Everything should be revealed in the next few months.
Analysis: Slow startup
Back in May at Google’s IO 2022 developer conference, the Pixel 7 officially went on sale — if it goes on sale in October, as widely rumored. There will be a full five months between the first reveal and the actual official launch.
That’s certainly a long timeline, and it’s hard to know exactly what Google’s thinking is. That’s not a strategy followed by the likes of Apple or Samsung, although OnePlus does like to launch its phones by releasing small amounts of information just days before the big reveal.
Google IO has traditionally been used to showcase what Android can do — this year, Android 13 — which makes sense, since there are developer previews and public betas that need to be done before the final version of the software goes on sale. Not so with the Pixel 7.
If people knew another phone was coming, it might actually put people off buying other Google phones, including the Google Pixel 6a. It will be interesting to see if Google tries this again next year, when we expect to see the Pixel 8.
