Zebeth Media Solutions

Google Fall Event 2022

Google’s Pixel Watch delivers nice hardware, but fails to answer the ‘why’ • ZebethMedia

It took some evasive maneuvering to get us here — the building out of a small-scale hardware ecosystem, coupled with a couple big-ticket acquisitions and a partnership with one of its largest potential competitors. But suddenly, Google emerging as competitive in the smartwatch space doesn’t seem an altogether outlandish proposition. One can make a compelling argument that the software giant learned some hard lessons from past smartwatch and earbud struggles. Entering an already mature hardware category isn’t easy for anyone; spending in excess of $2 billion is a pretty good shortcut if your pockets are deep enough. While devices are reasonably far along in this world, things aren’t that cut and dry. For one thing, Google’s partnership with Samsung meant an overnight increase in Wear OS market share. Both companies were staring at Apple’s first place lead from a distance, so why not join forces? At the very least, it’s been a swift kick in the pants for a wearable operating system that has languished for the better part of a decade. Image Credits: Brian Heater Even more central to the deal are a pair of big purchases. The $2.1 billion Fitbit deal was obviously the highest-profile move there — and understandably so. It’s not every day a household name gets acquired. Like the Samsung move, that deal immediately buys Google more market share, and from the looks of things, it will work out similarly to the Apple/Beats deal: Google gets immediately built-in sales and keeps the brand name around, as it uses Fitbit’s software as a foundation for its first-party play. The bit that gets lost in a lot of this is the company’s 2019 purchase of $40 million in Fossil IP. The deal mostly revolved around an unseen prototype that may well have served as the architecture for the new Pixel Watch hardware. Certainly the product looks like nothing Fitbit has ever given us before. It’s worth noting that Google didn’t just buy Fitbit and a piece of Fossil. There’s a sense in which it acquired the many companies they themselves acquired. It’s difficult to point to, but there are likely pieces of OG wearable Pebble, Vector, Twine and Coin (Fitbit), along with Misfit (Fossil) living in this small device currently sitting on my wrist. Add in the company’s work with Samsung, and you’ve got a kind of secret history of the smartwatch universe sitting in front of you. Image Credits: Brian Heater That’s an incredible cocktail of smartwatch DNA. Is it enough to catapult the Pixel Watch to the top of the rankings? Well, no. Obviously not. But it’s enough to compete. Apple remains the insurmountable mountain for the moment — and let’s be honest, the company effectively sits alone in the world of iPhone compatibility. Google’s competition sits much closer to home. Specifically, the company is up against Samsung, Fitbit and a number of companies like Xiaomi, which are duking it out for the lower end of the market. Garmin, meanwhile, is off in its own outdoor world with little competition outside the likes of the Apple Watch Ultra. So, really, that leaves Samsung as the Pixel Watch’s one immediate competitor. The Galaxy Watch has maintained the No. 2 spot for some time, so that’s still some stiff competition. Image Credits: Brian Heater The Pixel Watch is a looker. I really dig the design here. It’s about as minimal as one can get — a big change from the Apple Watch Ultra I’d been wearing previously. It’s a watch distilled down to its essence — glossy curved glass, with a haptic crown on the side. It’s also quite small. The case is 41mm, the smaller of the two standard Apple Watch models. The display is even smaller, at 1.2 inches, to the 41mm Series 8’s 1.53 inches. We’re very much dealing with screen sizes where a fraction of an inch can make a world of difference. Google’s device isn’t helped much by some sizable bezels on the sides. You mostly won’t notice them, due to all of the watch faces being black. With a lighter-colored face, the space would be much more noticeable. Ultimately what that means, however, is that there’s less surface area for a touch display. When it comes to wearables, I’ve long been of the opinion that the more size options, the better. Human bodies are like that, you know? Given the option, however, I’d say smaller is ultimately better. It’s a lot easier to wear a watch case that’s too small, instead of one that’s too large. The 41mm case felt and looked small on my wrist, but the screen size is enough for most things, assuming you’re not planning to do a lot of typing. Still, I would be shocked if the Pixel Watch 2 doesn’t arrive in at least two sizes next year. Image Credits: Brian Heater The bands snap on and off with a press of a button and a slide. It’s a little tricky the first time, so much so the company guides you through taking it on and off during setup. The connector is proprietary, and at present only Google makes compatible bands. There’s a decent selection of both materials and price points, and the company has plans to open it up to third parties. The Pixel Watch launches with an always-on display, though it was off by default. When enabled, it effectively presents a lower res and slightly dimmed version of your watch face. The battery was a bit disappointing in my trials, so you may want to keep it off, depending on how long you’re looking to eke out. With it on, getting to a full 24 hours can be tricky. So if you’re planning to do some sleep tracking, maybe budget in some quick charging time. One thing Google managed to avoid by way of its late entry was the years’ long search for meaning among smartwatch makers. Notifications were pitched as the thing in those early days. Eventually, however, health tracking became

Refinements are perfectly fine • ZebethMedia

Following last week’s Google event, a colleague commented to me that the Pixel 7 wasn’t as big an upgrade as the Pixel 6. This is an objectively true statement. But also, it’s fine. Whatever you think about the yearly refresh cycle hardware makers are locked into, we’ve all come to accept that some upgrades are going to be more incremental than others. In fact, most years are going to be iterative. That’s how this works. The contrast is strong here, because last year was anything but. The Pixel 6 was Google’s breakout phone. Last year was the year Google finally answered the “why,” marrying excellent hardware and software with an affordable price point. It’s a question the Pixel Watch may spend another generation or two addressing. But last year the Pixel smartphone line broke out of the cycle, and all it took was a massive restructuring of Google’s hardware division. The Pixel 6 changed the conversation around Google’s smartphone efforts. The Pixel 7 is, by and large, an iteration on last year’s model. And that’s totally fine. In 2021, the company worked to catch up with the rest of the flagship market, and now it’s about keeping that pace. The truth about the way the category is structured currently is that it seems likely that any one will change the conversation completely. Image Credits: Brian Heater So many of these devices revolve around same or similar components powering the same operating system. At present, Google’s biggest differentiator is software. The Pixel may have been developed as a method for showcasing new Android features, but these days, those features are precisely what distinguishes the product from the pack. The other big (and related tentpole) are the company’s advances in machine learning. Those are present in a number of spots, but most primarily imaging, where this thing really shines. I opted to review the 7 Pro instead of the 7 this time out because we’re finally getting some nice fall weather here and I really wanted to take some good photos. Is that selfish? I mean, yeah, for sure, but photography is the battlefield on which the smartphone wars are currently waged. There’s a third potential plank for some differentiation: processing. Like Apple, Google has broken out of the Qualcomm mold that powers a majority of flagships these days, instead opting to build its own chips in-house. Unfortunately, there’s really not a big leap from original Tensor chip to the G2 — certainly nothing worth dwelling on here. The benchmarks do get a small uptick, but for day-to-day use, it seems unlikely you’ll notice much there. Image Credits: Brian Heater The hardware is refined over last year’s model. It’s a nice looking phone (the camera bar has proven somewhat polarizing, but I like it). It’s slim, slick and shiny, and the phone doesn’t feel as outsized as its 6.7-inch screen (though single-handed use is largely a no-go for me). The 1,000 nit display is nice and bright, and the 1440 x 3120 512 ppi resolution looks great coupled with the smooth 120Hz refresh rate. Like the new Pixel Watch, it’s got an always-on option, though again, that’s going to have an impact on battery life. Also like the Pixel Watch, I wasn’t particularly impressed with the on-board battery. Rated at 5,000 mAh (a slight downgrade from the 6 Pro’s 5,003), I’m looking at around 25% capacity nine hours in. Once again, imaging is where this thing really shines. One of the earliest hard-learned lessons for the line is that computational photography alone isn’t enough. Google felt it had something to prove in those early days, with a single camera sensor, but it ultimately came up short. Computational photography, coupled with good camera hardware, on the other hand, is a force to be reckoned with. The standard 7 sports a 50-megapixel wide camera and 12-megapixel ultrawide, while the Pro adds a 48-megapixel telephoto into the camera bar. I’m not permanently packing up my SLR any time soon, but as far as a frictionless, out of the box experience goes, it’s tough to beat the Pixel 7 Pro. Generations of camera software updates have made taking a good photo dead simple, and recent upgrades have brought dramatic improvements to things like zoom. [Insert: Full zoom]The phone will only get you up to 5x with optical zoom, but it does an impressive job beyond that, all things considered. When you really push things to 20-30x, you’re going to see clear noise on the image, but the result is still impressive, particularly when shooting in direct sunlight. Image stabilization also does a good job minimizing some of the unavoidable handshaking that comes with telephoto shots. Light also makes a world of difference for macro shots. Holding the camera around one to two inches from a subject will surface the setting automatically. There’s no specific macro lens built in (as we’ve seen on a smattering of other models). Instead, the feature relies on the ultrawide, and the results are impressive, nonetheless. Coupled with upgrades to features like Real Tone for more authentic skin tones and Night Sight and you’ve got an extremely well-rounded and impressive little camera in your pocket. Image Credits: Brian Heater The biggest exclusive (for now, at least) software updates arrive on the Speech side of things. These have long been top of the list of Pixel standout features, so it’s no surprise to see that they’re still a focus this time around. Voice Recorder adds Canadian English, American Spanish and Hindi English to a list that also includes German, French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese. Google’s longstanding quest to make automated phone menus less annoying continues in earnest with the addition of pressable menu options that populate even before the robot voice speaks them. Much like the phone itself nothing there is a true breakthrough, so much as a refinement on an already good thing. With a starting price of $599 for the 7 and $899 for the 7 Pro, Google is more

Subscribe to Zebeth Media Solutions

You may contact us by filling in this form any time you need professional support or have any questions. You can also fill in the form to leave your comments or feedback.

We respect your privacy.
business and solar energy