Google is testing a MediaTek modem in the Pixel 10 series

Over the past month, we’ve seen a lot of information about the future, fully in-house designed Google Tensor chips leak, including full specs of the Tensor G5 and Tensor G6, a list of features they might enable, and more. We went from knowing basically nothing to having a good idea of what the future Tensor chips and the Pixel handset they’ll power will have to offer.

One important unanswered question, however, is what modem would be used in the future Pixels. All the devices using Tensor chips designed in collaboration with Samsung used Exynos modems, presumably because they were the easiest to integrate, but with Google going fully independent, it doesn’t necessarily have a reason to continue that practice.

We finally got an answer to this question and it’s not what anybody expected. Thanks to a source inside Google, Android Authority has learned Google’s plans regarding the modem it intends to use in the upcoming Pixel 10 series.

There are currently only three companies with modern, 5G-capable modems: Samsung (S.LSI), Qualcomm, and MediaTek. Google didn’t have too much choice there, unless it wanted to build its own solution, which even with a premade 5G IP block, like Ceva’s PentaG2, would be risky and much more expensive.

Before making its decision, Google evaluated all the available options, including Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X75 modem, which is the same one used in Apple’s iPhone 16 series. Speaking of Apple, it plans to move away from Qualcomm to its inhouse modems in the coming years as well. Finally, though, for one reason or another, Google decided to go with MediaTek’s (not yet released) T900 modem.

Unfortunately, we know basically nothing about this new modem, except that it’s based on MediaTek’s “M85” generation modem IP. For reference, “M70” supported 3GPP Release 15 5G specification, “M80” upgraded to Release 16, so it’s safe to assume “M85” will support Release 17 or even newer.

Unfortunately, we don’t even really know that much about MediaTek’s previous generation T800 modem to make assumptions. While we do have a specs sheet, it doesn’t tell us much (e.g., if it’s manufactured on a Samsung or TSMC’s process node). As far as I can tell no device has actually used it either.

We can’t really know how good the T900 will be, but I would cautiously assume that it will be at least okay. After all, Google is well aware that thermals and battery life are some of the largest issues with Tensor-based Pixels, in large part due to their modems, and I doubt they’d let the disaster that was the Pixel 6 happen again.

A MediaTek modem is definitely not what most expected — or wanted. A lot of you will probably even criticize this move after reading this article and declare the Pixel 10 a dead-on-arrival product, but I think it’s way too early to say anything like that. We basically don’t know anything specific about this modem and neither do we know much about how Qualcomm’s external modems perform, as the only devices using them are iPhones. Not to mention that even Samsung, heavily criticized by many, managed to release a relatively decent modem — the Exynos Modem 5400 — and as a result of that, the Pixel 9 series has a pretty solid battery life.

Ultimately, we’ll have to wait and see how things look when Google releases the Pixel 10 series, but I doubt it will be anywhere near bad. Google makes the choices it does for a reason, even if it sometimes doesn’t seem like it, and this definitely isn’t an exception.