Google Pixel 6 announced with supercharged camera and a £599 price tag

This is the Pixel 6. Yes, after the trickle of details teased by Google over the last few weeks, we finally know everything about the next-generation flagship smartphone. The Pixel 6 series arrives in two flavours – the regular 6 and the Pixel 6 Pro.

The Pixel 6 starts from £599 in the UK and will be available on store shelves from October 28 onwards. It comes in three colours – Sorta Seafoam, Kinda Coral and Stormy Black. It arrives with a choice of either 128Gb or 256GB of built-in storage. Both models have 8GB of RAM.

Pixel 6 marks a dramatic departure for the smartphone series as it’s the first to be entirely powered by a custom-designed chip from Google. This is something that’s becoming increasingly common, with Apple, Samsung and Huawei all designing and building their own processors to boost performance and introduce new features.

Unlike using an off-the-shelf chipset, like the hugely-popular Snapdragon series designed by Qualcomm that used to power the Pixel range, custom-designed silicon can be better optimised a single operating system or device. And that’s exactly what the Tensor, the first system-on-a-chip designed by Google, wants to do.

Tensor also improves on the speech and language recognition capabilities of the Pixel. For the first time, the Google Assistant is able to automatically add in punctuation as you dictate texts or emails. The AI is also smart enough to know the difference between a system command – like “send” – and a word that should be added to the end of the messages, which should end the scourge of texts sent with hands-free assistants that end with “send text”.

This improved language recognition also enables the Tensor-powered Pixel to translate in real-time. So, you’ll be able to watch a YouTube video in a foreign language and see subtitles appear in real-time as the Google Assistant listens, transcribes and translates the clip for you. The same technology powers real-time subtitles for your own videos.

Google is keen to stress that all of this detection and processing happens on-device, thanks to the clever new Private Compute Core built into its supercharged new chipset, so none of your data leaves the handset. While that’s good for privacy, more importantly, it means the feature will continue to work even without network connectivity.

For the first time, UK owners will be able to use the Call Screen feature that debuted in the United States around 2018. If you have an incoming call from an unrecognised number, you can direct the Google Assistant to answer the call for you. A real-time transcription of the call will play out on screen, where the caller will be asked to state their name and the reason for the call. If you spot a familiar name – or a call that you’re expecting, you can takeover the conversation. If it’s spam, you can let Google deal with them.

Android smartphones are typically pretty shoddy when it comes to security updates, at least compared with iPhone. While Apple will still continue to bring the latest features and security patches to a five-year-old handset, an Android rival that cost the same four-figure sum at launch will be left without security updates within two or three years. But that changes with the Tensor-powered Pixel 6 range. Google has promised to support its new processor with five years of security updates, which should provide peace of mind.

But that’s enough about the small silicon brains inside the Pixel 6, what about the handset itself?

Well, the first thing you’ll notice about the Pixel 6 is what Google has coined the Camera Bar. According to the Californian company, it’s been designed to give the handset “a clean, symmetrical design that puts the camera front-and-centre.” It seems like a nice way to cram-in the dizzying number of camera lenses that modern flagship smartphones demand without creating a camera bump that will cause the phone to wobble when resting on a table. However, only you can decide whether you think it achieves in creating “a distinctive graphic and vibrant look,” as Google states in its blog entry on the Pixel 6.

Regardless of what you think of the Camera Bar, Pixel fans are sure to be excited about the lens tucked inside it. Pixel 6 lands with a new 50-megapixel main camera with a 1/1.3 inch sensor. The latter allows this new phone to capture around 150 percent more light compared with the primary camera fitted to the Pixel 5, which should dramatically boost the amount of detail and colour in still photos. Both phones also have completely new 12-megapixel Ultra-wide camera.

Of course, the new Tensor system-on-a-chip arrives with a new Image Signal Processor (ISP) to boost everything captured through those sensors. Not only that, but Google says it has worked hard to ensure that its new ISP serves all skin tones, including those typically under-served by smartphone cameras.

Google has also added some clever new photography features, like Magic Eraser. This can automatically remove any unsightly obstructions from your snaps – like a tree sticking out from behind someone’s head, or overhead powerlines ruining the aesthetics. You can also use a fingertip to scrub over an item in the image that you’d like to vanish and Google will do its best to replace the object with whatever was in the background behind it.

Another new photo mode is called Motion Mode, which includes two options – Action Pan and Long Exposure. You can use Action Pan to take photos of your kids riding their scooter or landing crazy skateboarding tricks against a stylish blurred background. Or create beautiful long exposure shots where your subject is moving, like waterfalls or vibrant city scenes with streaks of light from car taillights.

On the front, Pixel 6 sports a 6.4-inch OLED display with a variable 90Hz refresh rate. That’s not quite as smooth as we’ve seen from rival brands, like OnePlus and Samsung, but should still make scrolling a little easier on the eyes.

The chassis is built with recycled aluminium, which is a win for the planet. It’s also IP68 water-resistant, which means it can survive dust and a dunk in water over 1-metre in depth. The screen is shielded by the latest generation Gorilla Glass Invictus, which is twice as strong as the glass on the Pixel 5 and should ensure the Pixel 6 can withstand an accidental drop or two.

As you’d expect from a Google-built smartphone, the Pixel 6 arrives with the latest version of Android out-of-the-box.

Android 12 is designed to adapt to you, so when you choose your wallpaper, the entire user interface will update to reflect that choice. Colours for app icons, settings menus, and toggles will be updated to compliment the picture you’ve picked to theme your device.

Google says it’s also worked on a number of optimisations under the bonnet to ensure that everything feels more responsive. At a Glance, which shows up on the home and lock screen, has a fresh new look and some new capabilities. For example, it will now show your boarding pass the day of your flight or stats from your last workout.