KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 5 — After teasing it for over a month now, Google has finally held their latest Made By Google event, and with it they’ve now revealed their brand new flagship smartphone: The Google Pixel 8 Pro. It brings with it a new updated display, even more AI-powered features and upgrades to what is already one of the best cameras you can find on a smartphone.

Right off the bat, you’ll notice that the Pixel 8 Pro doesn’t have a curved display on it, a bid departure from Google’s previous Pro-tier Pixels. Another new thing here is its Super Actua OLED display, a 6.7-inch panel that is arguably the best ever display on a Pixel. It pushes a 2,992 x 1344p resolution in a 20:9 aspect ratio for a pixel density of 489ppi, and is capable of a HDR brightness of 1,600nits and a peak brightness of 2,400nits. There’s also a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate here, along with HDR support and a >1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. You’ll also find a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 over it for scratch resistance, while the back also has a layer of Gorilla Glass Victus 2 with a soft touch matte finish to it.

Under the hood, the Pixel 8 Pro sees the debut of the Google Tensor G3, their newest mobile system-on-chip designed in house with some help from Samsung. This comes with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 1TB of UFS 3.1 storage in the US, while units sold outside the US cap out at 512GB. While it might not win any benchmark drag races against the likes of the Apple A17 Pro, what the Tensor G3 does have going for it is its AI smarts, with Google’s edge in AI being used in various features from photography and videography tools, to even Google Assistant getting Bard integration later in the year for better speech recognition, real time web page translations, answer your calls and even helps you prevent typos and grammar mistakes more.

It comes with Android 14 out of the box, and incredibly Google is guaranteeing a whopping seven years of software support here, with seven full Android OS upgrades and seven years of security patches. This means that the Pixel 8 Pro (and indeed the accompanying Pixel 8) will be getting the best update commitment policy among major smartphone manufacturers. It’s also a massive step up from the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, which came with a guarantee of three major Android OS upgrades and a total of five years of software support. With its seven years of software support, you could end up using the Pixel 8 Pro till Android 21 rolls around some time in 2030.

Of course, it’s the cameras that really makes Google’s smartphones tick, and it’s no different on the Pixel 8 Pro. The Pixel 8 Pro features a main 50MP, f/1.68 camera using an improved 1/1.31-inch sensor compared to its predecessor. That gets flanked by a 48MP, f/1.95 ultrawide camera with a 125.5° field of view, and a 48MP, f/2.8 telephoto shooter offering a 5x optical zoom as well as 2x ‘optical-quality’ zoom, while a 10.5MP front camera rounds things off. Oh, and there’s a temperature sensor too, all of which is housed in that now iconic horizontal bar with a polished aluminium finish to contrast the matte back.

You now get ‘pro controls’ on the Pixel 8 Pro allowing for more subtle tweaking when taking shots than ever before, as well as a slew of new AI-powered features such as Magic Editor, which uses generative AI to tweak a photo after it has been shot, as well as Best Take which takes a bunch of photos and combines them to get the best results. Audio Magic Eraser meanwhile can get rid of unwanted background noise when shooting video, while previous features like Real Tone and Night Sight are coming to the Pixel 8 Pro’s videos too. Along with the pro controls, the Pixel 8 Pro has another feature that the regular Pixel 8 doesn’t, Video Boost. It basically uploads your video and uses cloud computing to process it off-device for better results. Lastly, the Pixel 8 Pro has an improved Magic Eraser, as well as Zoom Enhance, which does exactly what you think it does.

Other features of note include a 5,050mAh battery that Google rates for a ‘beyond 24-hour’ battery life, with support for 30W fast charging and up to 23W wireless charging via the Google Pixel Stand and up to 12W when using Qi wireless charging. There’s also stereo speakers, an in-display fingerprint sensor and an IP68 dust and water resistance rating, as well as support for 5G, NFC, WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3 wireless connectivity. Measuring 8.8mm thick and weighing in at 213g, the Pixel 8 Pro is available in Obsidian, Porcelain and Bay colourways.

Unfortunately, as expected the Pixel 8 Pro will not be going on sale in Malaysia in any official capacity. It is however already available for pre-order in regions where it is officially available, and starts at US$999 in the United States, while for those down south the Pixel 8 Pro starts at SG$1,549 in Singapore. Incidentally, that is a little more expensive than the Pixel 7 Pro, which was priced from US$899 and SG$1,299 onwards. — SoyaCincau