Why the new Google Pixel 2 might not be worth the wait
Google Pixel was undoubtedly the flagship of all Android smartphones launched last year. It was (and still is) a thing of beauty. With a sturdy metal uni-body design, a 5.0" 16M-color HD AMOLED screen, a 12.3 MP main camera primary camera with f/2.0 phase detection and laser assisted autofocus, and an 8 MP front camera, the Pixel was the complete package.
The phone was as smooth-functioning as it was pretty. But now, as is the way with all tech advances, the Pixel will soon becomes outdated – not typewriter outdated, but outdated all the same. And Google will have to give us something better. And they have it ready for us. Almost.
The successors (only time will tell if they are worthy or not) of the Pixel, which are expected to be launched later this year, are reportedly called Google Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL and Pixel 2 XXL and have the codenames Muskie, Walleye and Taimen, respectively.
While little is known about the first two, the Google Pixel smartphone codenamed Taimen has been spotted on the benchmarking site GeekBench.
In terms of specifications, Geekbench results are of no us. What the results do tell us, however, are the key hardware running the smartphone. According to benchmarking results, the Google Taimen smartphone has logged a score of 1804 in single-core test, and a score of 6248 in multi-core test.
According to a report in SlashGear, this is not the greatest of scores, especially compared to the 1929 and 6084 scores that the Galaxy S8+ got, or the leaked OnePlus 5 scores of 1963 and 6687, in the single- and multi-core tests, respectively.
The listing also shows that Taimen will be powered by a 1.90Hz Qualcomm octa-core chipset. Some reports have suggested that the Pixel 2 smartphones will be powered by a Snapdragon 835 Pro SoC with X16 LTE modem offering download speed of up to 1Gbps. In terms of memory, the smartphone is likely to come with 4GB of RAM. But some websites report that the GeekBench scores indicate that the Google Taimenmay run on a mid-range processor like the Snapdragon 653.
Additionally, the smartphone runs on the unreleased Android O. The developer preview of Android O is already available and the beta version will soon roll out. According to Google’s schedule, Android O is expected to release by September, followed by the Pixel smartphones launch in October.
Earlier rumours about the Pixel 2 have claimed that Taimen will be bigger than both Muskie and Walleye, something athat is obvious from the name Pixel 2XXL. The size suggests that there is a possibility of the Taimen being a tablet, like the Nexus 6.
But all that's speculation as of yet.
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