From the Editor’s Desk: Google’s looming Pixel 4 disappointment

It’s been three years since Google first launched its Pixel series of devices. In that time, despite lackluster sales, the company’s phone brand has managed to carve out its own niche around quality photography and software purity. There’s no denying Google’s Android software is more enjoyable to use than anyone else’s, and that its HDR+ camera is in a league of its own.

But with flagging Pixel 3 sales, it’s also evident that the Pixel series as a whole has been far from a resounding success. A big part of the reason why the Pixels have failed to enjoy success beyond a niche audience is that Google seems to have its head in the sand when it comes to what the Pixel line actually is.

You can attribute the Pixels’ lack of barnstorming success to occasionally sluggish software or ho-hum hardware designs, but in my view one of the Pixel brand’s most significant weaknesses is Google’s stubborn insistence that the normal rules of high-end smartphones do not apply to it. See: Generic hardware build and no water resistance in 2016. Bad screens in 2017. 4GB of RAM and single cameras in 2018. And in 2019, only two cameras, no fingerprint scanner and hefty top screen borders.

In other words, Google is trying to be Apple. Now Cupertino, with its reality distortion field and near trillion dollar value, along with its own custom silicon and supply chain dominance, is one of the few players who really do exist outside the norm. Google, however, is for all intents and purposes just another Android smartphone maker, with access to largely the same components as everyone else — outside of its unique Pixel Visual Core chip.

The obvious counter-argument is that regular consumers don’t care about specifications. You buy a phone for what it does, not numbers in a spec sheet. Yet the Pixels’ current weaknesses go beyond mere figures on a page. Lackluster battery capacities compared to its peers put the Pixel 3 line at a disadvantage compared to the Galaxy Note 9s and Mate 20 Pros on…