Google may be looking to launch an entire army of products in India, including, most intriguingly, a mid-range Pixel phone.
That begs the question, then, what might a mid-range Pixel phone be like? We took some educated guesses, and this is what we’d expect from a Pixel phone in the mid-range segment.
Processor — Snapdragon 660 or Snapdragon 700
If Google is to launch a mid-range Pixel phone, surely a flagship processor isn’t what they’ll go with. However, the Snapdragon 660 might just be the darling from Qualcomm that Google needs for a phone in this price-bracket.The Snapdragon 660 and 700 series are pretty close to the Snapdragon 835 in a lot of ways. They both have 8 cores, that are clocked in the same ballpark as the SD835, come with integrated LTE, and use big.LITTLE technology. In addition both also support higher frequency RAM.
RAM – 4GB
Speaking of, even though the Pixel 2 and the Pixel 2 XL both come with 4GB RAM, going any lower than that will definitely hinder user-experience, so while it may be possible for Google to go down to 3GB on a mid-range Pixel, I still think they’ll stick with a 4GB configuration, purely for user-experience purposes.
Display — LCD?
Bringing a Pixel phone down to a mid-range price point means definite cost-cutting measures, and a switch from AMOLED to LCD will probably be the biggest point of cost-reduction in the phone.
Camera – Original First-gen Pixel Camera with Pixel 2-Like Features
On the camera front, Google might put in the camera we found on the original Pixel phone, albeit with improved features from the Pixel 2, such as the much better portrait mode, and HDR capabilities.
USB-C Should Still be There
A mid-range flagship without USB-C would make little to no sense, and without that, Google will have to put a headphone jack on the phone anyway, leading me to think that a mid-range Pixel will definitely have USB-C. It is the future, after all, and Google will definitely want to attract people with a phone that will be able to work with Type-C connectors in the future, especially in India where a majority of the population doesn’t frequently change phones.
I fully expect it to be a much better phone than most other phones in its price bracket. Simply on the camera front, even a mid-range Pixel should be able to beat other phones quite easily. Add Google’s software support to that, and the company definitely has a cool phone going for it.
I don’t think people will complain about the company not bringing a bezel-less phone at the price, especially considering the fact that it’ll most likely offer a great camera, great processor, 4GB of RAM, and stock Android experience.