At $899 the Pixel 11 matches the base Pro on memory, early reviews say
Reviewers at Android Authority and The Verge have spent days with Google's new Pixels, and the cheapest one comes out looking awkwardly good next to the $1,099 model.
If you were planning to buy a Pixel 11 Pro for the performance, the early reviews complicate that. The base Pixel 11 starts at $899, which is $100 more than the Pixel 10 and $200 less than the Pixel 11 Pro, and with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage it delivers the same performance as the entry Pro model, because the 11 Pro and 11 Pro XL now start with 12GB instead of the 16GB that was standard last year.
That is the whole value argument in one paragraph.
The cheap Pixel also isn't small anymore. It has the same 6.3-inch footprint as the smaller Pro, a 3,000-nit Actua display, Gorilla Glass Victus 2, a 60-120Hz refresh rate and Tensor G6, with battery life reviewers describe as enough to get most people through the day and beyond.
Where the money goes is the camera and the light. The regular Pixel 11 gets none of the Pro's telephoto hardware, making do with a 48MP main sensor, a 13MP ultrawide and a 10.8MP 5x telephoto, and its Super Zoom tops out at 30x. The Pro adds a 120x Pro Zoom mode, which Google credits to the new image signal processor inside Tensor G6.
The other Pro-only feature is HiLight, a glowing notification light that responds to Gemini prompts. Right now it glows for exactly two things: Gemini voice interactions and calls from your favorite contacts. There are five colors to pick from, and one of them is white. Google has confirmed it's looking to add text notifications from favorite contacts.
The software side is more convincing than the light. Rambler, the Gemini-powered voice-to-text, strips filler words, applies grammar and punctuation without being asked, and rewrites misspeaks mid-recording. Camera Looks splits into four subtle variants of the standard camera, Original, Natural, Shadows and Vanilla, plus six creative ones called Editorial, Velvet, Classic, Digi, Black Tie and Minimal.
Proactive Assistance reads incoming messages for actionable detail. A text asking "Can you make a reservation at Frankie Spuntino next Saturday at 7pm?" surfaced a chip offering to automatically book it.
Published by Techtutka ·