A high end smartphone made by Google, designed to compete with the
iPhone. Unfortunately, Google seems to be doing this by copying
whatever "courageous" thing
Apple did but a year or two later. iPhone removes the headphone jack in
2016, Pixel in '18. iPhone adds
Face ID in '17, Pixel might have it in '19. As you might expect, most
people aren't going to buy an iPhone copy when they could buy an actual iPhone for the same price.
Google pushes for two main advantages that it has over it's competitors:
* The Pixel's camera (Legitimate advantage, but most
people the Pixel targets will put filters on their photos or have them compressed to
hell regardless of how
good the camera is).
* The fact that it uses stock Android (Not applicable to about 95% of the
people Google is targeting).
Design and feature wise, the Pixel is behind most of it's competitors. Put a Galaxy Note or a high end OnePlus or Huawei next to the Pixel, and you'll see the latter looks objectively blander and less premium than the more ostentatious competitors. When it comes to software, the Pixels often lack features that the competitors have had already (facial recognition, dark mode, SD card slot, dual/triple cameras).
All of this being said, the Pixels could have sold decently if they were marketed towards the tech enthusiasts rather than a mainstream audience. Google's old Nexus phone managed to have some appeal with that crowd. But with the Pixel, they're stuck in an uncomfortable middle ground.
Person A: I have a Galaxy S10
Person B: I have an iPhone X
Pixel owner: I have a Google Pixel.
Person A & B:
Dude, wtf is that thing? Looks like an
iPhone copy.
Pixel owner: My Pixel is better than your rubbish
Samsung.
Tech head: That thing doesn't even have expandable storage,a wideangle or telephoto camera, or dark mode. The gesture navigation it forces you to use is also dog shit, and it's got a ton of software bugs as well. And it costs $900?
Pixel owner: bUt mUh uPdAtEs
