Google Pixel 7 up close: The software's the thing

As with the Pixel Watch, we’ll be bringing more in-depth thoughts with a full review in the near future. It seems now is the right time to share some thoughts and pictures about the Pixel 7 & Pixel 7 Pro.

The price is the first. I suspect it’s not the first thing Google wants to discuss in regard to its new smartphones, but it’s important. The 7 and 7 Pro are priced at $599 and $899 respectively. It’s not budget — or event mid-tier — necessarily, but cost is an important differentiator from the Apple and Samsung flagships of the world.

Image Credits Brian Heater

We all know that phone sales have slowed due to a variety reasons, including price. With flagships routinely topping out well above $1,000, it’s a lot tougher to regularly upgrade — especially with all of the economic uncertainty of the last few years. For the record, the Pro can be specced at $1,099 if you choose 512GB storage. That’s important to note, but it’s still a relative deal compared to other big names in the space.

The design has been tweaked a bit since last year, but it’s still easily recognizable as the same line, thanks in large part to the signature camera bar (which itself is refined over last year’s model). Really, I think that’s a pretty fair microcosm of the device itself. The Pixel 7 isn’t a huge jump over the Pixel 6 — nor did we expect it to be, really. Google made a big leap last year. The Pixel 6 was the result of a complete overhaul of its hardware division. But you’d don’t get a breakthrough that size every year — that kind of the deal with annual hardware updates.

Image Credits Brian Heater

Thankfully, Google long ago abandoned the idea that it could make a premium quality camera through software/computational photography alone. The Pro model adds a 48-megapixel Telephoto and a 50-megapixel wide-angle main camera. But this is Google, so software very much remains the thing — both for imaging and otherwise.

Ivan and Haje have a good breakdown of the imaging advancements and Sarah wrote a big piece about all of the software stuff, so I’m not going into a ton of detail here. The 7 is still the main driver of the Pixel, and continues to be the tip of the spear in Android updates.

Image Credits Brian Heater

This serves a dual purpose. First, it gets these updates into people’s hands on hardware with specs built to accommodate them and second, it immediately distinguishes the line from the hundreds of other Android handsets out there.

All in all, it’s shaping up to be a nice — if not particularly groundbreaking — update to the line. Preorder the handsets today and they will be available for sale on October 12.