Google’s Pixel event: all the news from the big announcement – The Verge

Google Home Max vs. HomePod and Google Home Mini vs. Amazon Echo Dot: battle of the smart speakers

2017-10-05T16:48:15-04:00

On Wednesday, Google unveiled two new versions of the Google Home speakers: the Mini, which is priced to compete with the Amazon Echo Dot, and the Max, which is positioned at the luxury end of the market, similar to Apple's HomePod. Both the Max and the HomePod are set to come out in December. So how do these smart speakers stack up against each other? With most of these products still unavailable in retailers until November or December, we can't determine the best smart speakers in terms of sound quality just yet. Historically, Sonos has cornered the market with the very well-reviewed Sonos Play: 1 and Play: 3, and the company just unveiled …

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The 5 biggest announcements from Google’s Pixel 2 event

2017-10-04T15:00:02-04:00

Google's Pixel event today confirmed a lot of leaks and rumors, but it also held some surprises and software upgrades developed with machine learning. Marking its second year making hardware, Google announced the new Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL; an interesting new camera called Google Clips; a new Google Home Mini and Max; a Pixelbook, and an updated Google Daydream.

If you missed any of it, we have the biggest announcements right here.

Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL

The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL both use Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processors with 4GB RAM. (You can also choose between 64GB and 128GB options.) They have the same camera, processor, and speaker …

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Mossberg: Google’s first phone is first rate

2016-10-18T09:00:06-04:00

At long last, almost eight years to the day the first Android phone went on sale, Google is launching a smartphone for which it designed the hardware, software, and cloud ecosystem itself: the Pixel. No longer will the tech giant be entirely dependent on other companies to present Android in its best light, in hardware that varied wildly but never was built from the ground up to be the best physical instantiation of pure, Google Android.

I wrote last year and last week about why it makes sense for Google to become, like Apple, a vertically integrated hardware maker. I believe this is the right move. I believe it will shake up the industry. …

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Google Pixel review: Home run

2016-10-18T09:00:04-04:00

Every Android phone has always been a little compromised, and everybody knows it. There's been a veil of bullshit between you and what Google intended on all of them.

Sometimes that veil looks like ugly, bad, and usually unnecessary extra software. Sometimes it looks like a carrier failing to send out timely software updates. Other times it means getting something inexpensive, but fundamentally flawed in some way. Even the Nexus phones were behind the veil, little more than reference designs with hardware that was mostly determined by a third party before Google made tweaks here and there.

A pessimist would call this situation "fragmentati …

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Watch Google’s Pixel phone event in 10 minutes

2016-10-04T20:00:03-04:00

Google's Pixel hardware event today unleashed a torrent of news and product announcements on the tech world. We got to see two new phones, a new virtual reality headset, a tiny puck-sized router, a 4K-ready Chromecast, and pricing and availability for the new Google Home speaker. For Google - which tends not to have big, splashy events outside its I/O developer conference every May - today marked its most significant hardware push in years.

If you're still trying to wrap your head around everything the company showed off, you're in luck. We've boiled the 117-minute presentation down to 10 minutes of essential video. Check it out to catch up …

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Google announced an iPhone, a Gear VR, an Echo, and an Eero

2016-10-04T17:39:12-04:00

Everybody copies everybody. It doesn't mean they're "out of ideas" or "in a technological cul-de-sac" - or at least it doesn't necessarily mean that - it does mean they want to make money and keep users. It's actually one of my favorite elements of the tech industry. It's self-regulating in a small way, because there's a certain shame to, say, copying GoPro or Meerkat or Snapchat or Dropbox, but sometimes a product category or feature is just irresistible.

At today's Pixel event, Google hit a lot of pre-existing categories and features with its own Google-branded hardware. And to clarify once more, because I don't want to be misunderstood: …

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Google Daydream View is the coziest VR headset

2016-10-04T16:30:00-04:00

When Google revealed its Cardboard virtual reality platform back in 2014, it launched an endless series of conversations in which I tried to explain why a $20 piece of cardboard wasn't the same as an Oculus Rift. The two might both get called "VR," I protested, but their technology and design created two fundamentally different ways to interact with virtual worlds.

Two years later, Google has another VR platform. This one is called Daydream, and it's launching on the Pixel and Pixel XL phones, along with a $79 headset called Daydream View. More compatible phones and headsets are expected in the next several months, with the goal of turning …

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Google Assistant will live in three places, each with different features

2016-10-04T16:07:49-04:00

Google's had a busy day. It unveiled two smartphones, launched a connected speaker, introduced a VR headset, announced a fancy router, and debut a new Chromecast all in one fast-moving hour-and-a-half event.

But throughout all of those flashy hardware announcements were details about a software feature that Google seems to think will ultimately be more important: the Google Assistant.

The Google Assistant is, at its core, just a new way to make Google searches, but in a conversation with an AI that knows a lot about you. It's sort of like a mashup of Siri and a chatbot: you can ask it questions aloud or by typing, and it'll try to pull in …

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Google will walk you through switching from an iPhone to a Pixel

2016-10-04T15:30:26-04:00

Google is deadly serious about its new Pixel smartphones being able to take on the iPhone in every respect possible. And in a move that also mirrors Apple's own past efforts, the company is now providing instructions for anyone looking to switch from their current iPhone to a brand-new Pixel.

Google's instructions involve connecting an iPhone or iPad running at least iOS 8 to the new Pixel using Google's Quick Switch Adapter. The search company advises that you turn off iMessage in Settings first, but also links out to Apple's deregister tool in case you jump the gun and start losing texts. From there, you just need to sign into your Google …

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Google Daydream is a quixotic quest to make VR normal

2016-10-04T15:30:10-04:00

For years now, consumer virtual reality has been pitched as an exotic, futuristic creation; it's one of those products that seems created to fulfill the tech industry's sci-fi fantasies. But permanent novelty can only stay exciting for so long. So when Google announced its Daydream program earlier this year, it promised VR that felt normal. Daydream is an extension of your Android phone's existing interface, coupled with headsets that are supposed to feel as comfortable as a pair of nice running shoes, the first of which was announced today. But Google doesn't just want to make a piece of VR hardware - it wants to set the standard for how we …

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