9/30
Google's Launch Night In event was short and sweet, focused on casual presenters speaking about Google's new products and services. It only took thirty minutes for them to unveil the Pixel 4a 5G, Pixel 5, Google TV, an updated Chromecast with remote, Nest Audio, and a handful of useful software improvements.
Here's what you need to know about the event.
Google Play TV and Google Play Movies are both dead—replaced with the simply named Google TV experience. It's your one stop shop for all the media you watch—YouTube TV, Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, Disney+, etc. It also plays nicely with any Nest devices you have on your network and can, of course, double as a music player if you want.
As a subscriber to both YouTube TV and YouTube Premium, Google TV looks like a compelling media offering. They talked a lot about searching for content with the Assistant, which I'm sure works well when you know what you're looking for. However, the problem with consuming streaming media these days is finding something you don't know you want to watch. YouTube and YouTube TV already do a solid job at this. The organizational media categories shown seem standard for this type of product, but I have more confidence in Google than any of its competitors that it can tune and personalize them to be useful in solving the endless browsing problem.
I'm going to miss the original Google Home. I've had one sitting in my living room since 2017 and haven't once thought about replacing it. Over the years, Home Minis have popped up—seemingly out of nowhere—in some of my other rooms as well. With their all fabric design being such a good decision it only makes sense to bring it back to the original Home device. Of course, as Google shifts the branding of their in-home hardware to Nest, it also required a name change. For $99, the Nest Audio will offer customers a better sounding device at a lower starting point than the original. This one's a win-win to me.
Google is always pushing the envelope on its AI photography features and has forced the smartphone industry to play catch every year. These updates continue that trend, though they feel more iterative than revolutionary. I'd say the standout additions are Night Sight in Portrait Mode and the new Portrait Light feature. I want to specifically call out how amazing Portrait Light looks from a purely technical level. It's going to force other smartphone makers to come up with their own answer to it. I assume Samsung is already scrambling. Even better, Portrait Light will roll out with the upcoming and updated version of Google Photos', giving more than Pixel owners a taste of the magic.
So we got two new Pixels instead of one. If you're a normal person this was a bit of a surprise. If you're a weirdo and read every leak and rumor, then not so much. Launched next to the Pixel 5, the 4a 5G is a cheaper alternative that is still 5G capable. You'll see some compromises with the 4a 5G that seem to explain why it carries the 4a badge. Both devices are competitively priced—$499 for the 4a 5G and $699 for the 5.
Google TV killed off two more Play branded services, bringing the total for this year up to three after Play Music was replaced by YouTube Music (boo!). I'm willing to bet the strangely-named-from-the-start Google Play Books is on borrowed time. I've always found the Play branding a bit off and am glad to see it being replaced by more sensibly named products that also seem to be better. I won't be missing those triangular app icons, either.
I don't know what Google's original reveal and launch plan was for its Pixel devices but I'm certain it wasn't what we got this Fall. The 4a was initially rumored to release in May of this year—four months earlier than it actually shipped. I offered a solution to the shuffling that Google was doing behind the scenes, suggesting that they hold the 4a for the 5 launch and simply distinguish their portfolio based on price and features. What I didn't know was that Google had a third phone they also needed to launch. Pushing the Pixel 4a out a few months before makes sense now that we can see the full picture.
That picture, however, is messy. Don't get me wrong, the 4a is an impressive device (I own one) and the 5 appears to be Google's admission that we've reached peak smartphone. In isolation the 4a 5G has a great value to feature ratio. Objectively, it's a frankenstein that's mostly a Pixel 5 but also makes tactical sacrifices like the 4a. Strangely, it has the largest screen of the bunch. What? Why? From a marketing and positioning standpoint, this product confuses me.
What makes the Pixel 5 a Pixel 5? I thought that line would be clear: it has this year's Snapdragon 765G instead of last year's 730G in the 4a. A modern and higher end chip for their flagship—okay, that makes sense. Well, the 4a 5G also has the 765G, so that can't be it. Is it the extra 2GB of RAM? That would be pretty arbitrary. Is it the extra... well, extras—water resistance, wireless and reverse wireless charging, and a 90hz display? Maybe, but I'm not convinced. The 5 and 4a 5G even share the same cameras. So, why isn't the 4a 5G a 5 variant? It sure doesn't feel like it belongs to the 4a family.