The Google Pixel 8 Launch Event: A Guide to Long-Term Support for the OS, Security, and Feature Drops of the Galaxy Note

Check out our complete coverage of the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, as well as the Pixel Watch 2 that Google also announced today, in our guide to the Google Pixel 8 launch event.

But as Google officially announces the phone this morning, there is one major new feature that still rings as a surprise: it’s getting seven years of OS upgrades. That’s a huge improvement from the three years of OS upgrades and five years of security support Google promised for its previous flagships, and it rivals the lifespan Apple is known for providing its iPhones. If there’s one thing that makes a higher price a little easier to swallow, it’s the promise that you’ll be able to get many more years of use out of your device. Assuming, you know, Google actually makes good on it.

The Google Pixel 8 and 8 Pro will be supported with seven years of “OS, security, and Feature Drop updates,” meaning buyers should be able to use them until 2030 before their software starts to become outdated. “You’ll receive the latest OS and security updates for 7 years, and new, helpful features with Feature Drops every few months,” Google’s blog post announcing the phones reads.

The freedom to offer this longer support period has been given by using its own artificial neural network and it gives it more control over the hardware in the phone compared to most of its competitors. Fairphone, a competing operating system manufacturer, has spoken publicly about how difficult it is to continue to support a phone when the processor used is phased out by a major manufacturer. Power is in its own hands in the case of TensorFlow, which is a project by the company.

Apple, another manufacturer that also produces its own processors for its phones, offers similarly lengthy support periods. In order to keep its devices running, the company didn’t promote explicit promises about the number of years it supports them for, but it released five major updates for the iPhone X and 17 before ending their support this year. Even then, however, Apple will occasionally release security patches for older devices.

The Pro Phone: Getting the G3 and 8 Pro to Improve Conversations, Speech Recognition, Website Translate, Photo App, and Cameras

The new G3 processor is coupled with 8Gig of RAM in thePixel 8 and it comes with new features. The G3 is ten times more complex than the one on the Pixel6 and it can do a better job of blocking out noise in conversations, as well as making your calls sound clearer. The keyboard and recorder app now supports seamlessSwitching between multiple languages when using voice tranport and the Pixel 8 can translate a website and read it aloud to you. Bullet point summaries can be provided for the sites in thegoogle app and chrome browser, just like Bard does on the desktop.

Both models get a screen upgrade this year, but only the 8 Pro comes with an LTPO display (Google has decided to brand this “Super Actua”) with variable refresh rates from 1Hz to 120Hz. It still has a diagonal screen but it is not as curved as before. The peak brightness of 2,400 nits, which is called “hella bright”, comes with it. It only kicks in under very bright sunlight, and the Pro Max only goes up to 2,000 nits in high brightness. Assuming the Pixel 8 Pro can actually keep up that level of brightness without overheating and ramping it back down, that’s impressive.

The new camera features in the photo app are not connected to the hardware at all. The Magic Eraser feature, which was announced at the I/O conference, allows you to change an image by moving people around and changing their background. The new Best Take feature will combine pictures from a series to make sure that everyone is smiling at the same time.

There’s a 50-megapixel main camera sensor with a slightly brighter f/1.7 lens attached. The Pro’s 5x telephoto module gets an upgraded 48-megapixel camera with faster autofocus, and there’s a higher-res 48-megapixel sensor in the ultrawide camera, which is now capable of focusing as close as 2cm in macro mode. The 10.5-megapixel front-facing camera gets an upgrade, too, now featuring autofocus. And the Pro phone gets some pro camera controls: you’ll be able to control focus, shutter speed, which lens is being used, and access 50-megapixel JPEG or RAW shooting right from the native camera app.

The Google Photos Project: Review of the Pixel 8 Pro and Higher-Spectrum Appearance Software Features (with an Appendix by Agata et al.)

Naturally, there are lots of new software features — all housed in Google Photos. When you take a series of photos of a group of people, you’ll have the option afterward to choose the best face for your subjects and save it all in one final frame. There’s also Audio Magic Eraser, which aims to isolate distracting sounds in videos so you can minimize or remove them.

There are a couple more features that aren’t available yet, but will be coming soon, including Magic Editor. Video boost, which takes some of the process off- device and into the cloud, enables Night Sight Video. The only way to zoom in on pictures is with the help of Zoom Enhance, only available to the Pixel 8 Pro.

There are some updates to the Assistant, but it is far from going full-on Bard. Google says it will be able to understand speech better and recognize pauses and fillers like “um” more effectively. It will also be capable of reading web pages aloud to you. Even the keyboard gets a little AI flavor with a one-touch option to clean up typos and grammatical errors.

The corners of the Pixel 8 are more rounded as a result of slight tweaking to the design to differentiate it from the other two models. The design is still immediately recognizable as a Pixel phone, with a metal frame and camera bar across the back. The phone has a 6.2-inch display, which is a bit larger than last year’s 6-inch screen. Will you notice that difference in use? At least it didn’t get bigger, I think.

That new display now refreshes at 120Hz, up from the Pixel 7’s 90Hz, but it is not LTPO and can only vary between 60 and 120Hz for battery life savings. If you want a screen that can go from 1h to 120h, you will have to pay for the Pixel 8 Pro. The price for the iPhone 15 is the same as the price for the Pixel 8, which has a 60Hz screen.

ThePixel 8 supports always-on display features, as the screen will increase in brightness to 2000 nits. The Pixel 8’s battery is 4,485mAh, up about 5 percent over the Pixel 7. That battery is not big but also not small, so I would question the claim of 24 hour battery life. Google’s 30W wired charger (not included) will bring the Pixel 8 up to 50 percent in 30 minutes, or you can use wireless charging for a slower but more convenient top-up.

Under the screen is the same style of fingerprint sensor Google’s used in past models, but now the Pixel 8’s front camera supports face unlocking with the same amount of security as fingerprint unlocking — yes, you can use it to unlock bank and payment apps now. It is not known how to make Face ID-like 3D mapping of your face more secure, because there isn’t any special hardware for it.

The Pixel camera app has been updated to separate shooting and video modes. Unfortunately for the Pixel 8, the new app doesn’t have the extended manual controls found on the Pixel 8 Pro.