Google Midrange Pixel Tipped For Early 2019

Google is reportedly working on a mid-range Pixel smartphone, with plans to release the more affordable Android handset early in 2019. The company is expected to reveal its new flagship Android smartphones – generally believed to be the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL – later this year, with the mid-range version likely to expand the line-up rather than replace anything currently offered.

A cheaper Pixel is certainly something people have been asking for. Google's original Nexus phones were known for typically being more affordable than rival handsets from other OEMs. However, with the transition from the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P to the original Pixel and Pixel XL, Google also took the opportunity to increase its prices.

Now, according to the rumor mill, there might be a new model to address those on a budget. According to WinFuture's Roland Quandt, Google has begun development on a new "mobile device" that will use Qualcomm's Snapdragon 710. That's a mid-tier smartphone chip that Qualcomm only announced last week.

While it may be designed to sit inside cheaper phones, that's not to say Qualcomm doesn't have considerable expectations from the Snapdragon 710. The promise is that it will bring features previously exclusive to 8xx-series Snapdragons – like the artificial intelligence engine of the Snapdragon 845 – to a more mass-market price point. Qualcomm has also been pushing its chips' computational photography talents in recent years, the same sort of hardware that powers things like the Pixels' ability to do portrait photography with only a single camera.

According to Quandt, hardware development on the phone only started roughly a month ago. While he can't confirm that it's for the mid-range Pixel – or, even, that it's going to be a smartphone at all – it would fit in with previous rumors of a cheaper device from Google. Other hardware details, like screen size and what cameras it might have, as similarly unknown. Quandt says that, according to his source, the phone is expected to launch in the first half of next year.

It's likely that Google is leaning heavily on the expertise it acquired when it bought a fair-sized chunk of HTC's phone business, a deal which closed earlier this year. That talent is believed to have quickly been put to work developing the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL. Unlike with their predecessors, which were built for Google by LG and HTC, this year's Android flagships are tipped to be manufactured by Foxconn.

HTC does have a track record of appealing mid-range Android phones. Indeed, you could make a solid argument that it does better in that category than it does with its flagships. It also stands to benefit Google's ambitions for a broader array of "pure Android" options, starting out with the most affordable Android One phones, and then progressing up through the price points for those who insist on having the cleanest version of the OS.