Google, which dominates the phone market through Android, on Tuesday launched its first smartphones. The phones, named Pixel and Pixel XL, were announced at a global event in San Francisco, although they will also be available in India for pre-order from October 13. The actual availability is likely to be from October 20.The phones will have a starting price of Rs 57,000.This price is for the Pixel phone, and the Pixel XL will cost a little bit more.

Globally the Pixel is priced at $649 while the Pixel XL is priced at $749, which means in India you can expect the Pixel XL to have a price of around Rs 65,000.



Both phones, at least initially, exclusively at Flipkart when it comes to online retail. At the same time, they will be available at over 1000 plus organised and multi-brand retail stores with leading retail partners including Reliance Digital, Croma and Vijay sales among others. India is among the first six countries where Pixel is being launched. In India, Pixel phones will be available in two colours -- black and silver. The blue colour available in other markets is not yet arriving in India.

The Pixel and the Pixel XL are Google's first phones. Until now, it has always made and sold phones, including Nexus phones, in partnership with companies like Samsung and HTC. But with the launch of Pixel phones, Google has finally taken control over the phones it sells in the hope of beating the iPhone in the premium segment. Although, Pixels phones are made by HTC, they only carry Google branding, a change compared to earlier Nexus phones, which carried the branding of the company that made them.

The arrival of Pixel phones also means that Google's Nexus phone programme is effectively dead, with the Nexus 5X and the Nexus 6P being the last phones in the lineup.

"We designed everything about Pixel, from industrial design to software. The Pixel stands for designed by Google," said Rick Osterloh, chief of Google's hardware division.

Google says that the Pixel phones are its first phones that have designed and the engineered in house. According to a report by Bloomberg, the project to create Pixel phones was given a go-ahead in the summer of 2015 by CEO Sundar Pichai. "The difference with this device is that we started from the beginning," Dave Burke, who runs Android engineering, told Bloomberg. He reportedly noted that by comparison, Google did not contribute to Nexus phones until they were 90 per cent complete.

High-end hardware, premium design... kind of

In the past, when Google and its hardware partners built the Nexus phones the objective was rarely to create the best Android phone. But with the Pixel phones, it has changed. The objective is to create and high-end premium Android phone, or at least that is how Google is positioning its Pixel phones.

The two phones share identical design -- metal and glass body -- and has identical hardware. The only big difference between the two is in the screen size. The Pixel has a 5-inch AMOLED screen with resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels while the bigger phone has a 5.5-inch screen with the resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels. The battery size too is different. The Pixel has a battery size of 2770mAh while the battery inside the Pixel XL has a capacity of 3450mAh. The battery in Pixel phones supports quick charging.



Both phones have Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 inside them and 8GB RAM. The internal storage options start from 32GB.



The design of the phone is kind of a mixed bag. Both the phones look very similar to the iPhone 6S, which in turn is the result of the fact that they are based on HTC made One A9. the HTC A9 had a fingerprint scanner on the front whereas the Pixel phones have it on the back. While this is not an issue for the Pixel XL, which has a bigger screen, in the Pixel this means there is too much empty bezel on the screen. This takes away from some of the premium design touches that Google and HTC have given to Pixel phones. Also, unlike the A9 -- or for that matter the iPhone -- the Pixel phones use a glass layer as the top portion of the back cover.



"With an aerospace-grade aluminium unibody and smooth surfaces, the phone was made to look and feel good in your hands," said a Google spokesperson.



Unique features



With the Pixel phones, Google is also moving to integrate its services deeper into the phone. In fact, the Android 7.1 that powers the Pixel phones can be said to be the exclusive Google version of Android. It runs a launcher that other Android phones will not get by default and has some unique features like swipe on the fingerprint scanner to see notifications.



One of the top features of the Pixel and the Pixel XL is its camera. The 12-megapixel camera with optical image stabilisation and the large 1.55 pixels is, according to DxO the best camera ever tested in a phone. DxO Mark gives it a score of 89 points. But even beyond the points, given the good hardware of the Pixel camera -- it has the Sony IMX 388 image sensor -- it is expected to perform well in the real-world use.Google services like Assistant -- first seen in the Allo app -- and chat apps like Allo and Duo come deeply integrated within the Pixel and the Pixel XL. Another key feature that Google is bundling with its first phones is unlimited Google cloud storage for photo backups. Also, the photos will be backed up on Google servers in full resolution, said the company.

Google Pixel and Pixel XL are also accompanied by live cases, similar to the live cases released for the Nexus 5X and the Nexus 6P earlier. These cases, sold separately, will help users customise their phones.



The full specs for Google Pixel and Pixel XL



-- Size: 143.8 x 69.5 x 8.6 mm. For Pixel XL: 154.7 x 75.7 x 8.6 mm,

-- Weight: 143 grams; 168 grams for Pixel XL

-- 5-inch Full HD AMOLED display (1920 x 1080 resolution, 441 pixel-per-inch density) with Gorilla Glass 4. 5.5-inch with 1440P resolution in Pixel XL.

-- 2.15GHz 64-bit quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor

-- 4GB of RAM

-- 32GB/128GB storage

-- no microSD support

-- 12.3-megapixel camera with f/2.0, 1.55um pixels, and unlimited Google Photos storage

-- 8-megapixel-front-facing camera

-- Fingerprint sensor

-- NFC

-- USB-C support

-- 3.5mm headphone jack

-- 2,770 mAh battery with fast-charging support. 3450 mAh in Pixel XL

-- Android 7.1 Nougat with new Pixel Launcher, Google Assistant and Google Magic (live cases)