Just last week, news landed that Google’s long-rumored custom chipset is likely to make an appearance in the upcoming Pixel 6 (and potentially the Pixel 5a). “Whitechapel,” as the SoC is code-named, has been in development for the last year at least, with help from Samsung. While a whole lot of our readers are already Pixel fans, we’re curious to know if this news already has you sold on Google’s upcoming Whitechapel-powered Pixels.
Even as a big fan of Google’s recent hardware, Pixels are usually three things: Expensive, a little buggy, and at least a mild compromise when it comes to hardware. To its defense, Google has done a lot in recent years to address those issues. The new-ish mid-range A-series brings the Pixel experience to a more reasonable price tag, and our coverage of Pixel-related problems for the last year or so has been very light compared to earlier eras. There’s no question that Google is getting better at making smartphones. And even if we thought the Pixel 5 was too expensive compared to things like the Galaxy S20 FE and Pixel 4a 5G, our readers considered it the best phone of 2020.
A lot of us are pretty hyped about Google rolling its own custom silicon for future Pixels, in part, at least, because of the obvious iPhone comparison: Apple controls both the iPhone’s software and hardware, and that means it can tune each around the other, adjusting things perfectly to ensure ideal performance. And both benchmarks and my own personal experience support the fact that iPhones are faster — though I’d argue there’s more to a phone than just speed. But the hope for many of us is that Google might be able to do the same with its Pixels, and maybe even make a dent in the Qualcomm US monopoly while it’s at it.
I know it’s very early to be asking this question, but I’m curious if you’re already sold on the upcoming Pixel based on this alone, and if not, precisely what else you’d need to know before you make a decision. We have a lot of Pixel-using readers, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them were budgeting for the upcoming phone based on news like this already. It’s a messy question, though, so feel free to select all answers that apply or chime in with your own specific concerns.
