Published , by Chris Jarrard
Published , by Chris Jarrard
While information on Google’s new Pixel 3 smartphones has been steadily leaking out for months ahead of the official launch event on October 9, an electronics shop in Hong Kong has ensured that those leaks turned into a full-blown flood after they began selling the new Pixel 3 XL model a few days earlier than Google would have liked. The team over at Engadget had a correspondent on the ground who managed to snag one of the new phones and posted a video to Youtube offering an unofficial unboxing and first impression.
The video confirms most of the pre-release leaks and gives an incredibly clear look at the much-discussed notch at the top of the display. Apple opened the floodgates for this design travesty last year with the launch of the iPhone X, offering a solution to a problem that no one was actually concerned about. Because their decisions often drive the mobile market, Apple’s notch was expected to appear on competitors devices this year and that prediction holds true.
The Pixel 3 phones will ship with Google’s newest OS, Android 9.0 Pie. The Engadget video also offers a glimpse of the final shipping version of the OS on retail hardware. While anyone who was seriously following the rumor mill on the Pixel 3 now knows everything they could possibly want about the phone, we expect that Google may still have one or two surprises left for their hardware event in New York CIty on October 9 at 11AM ET.