Oh snap, Pixel 10 has magnets

So Abner, we are... without Damien this week. It is just you and I here to discuss the third week in a row of just a deluge of Pixel 10 leaks and Pixel leaks in general. It is, you can tell we are- during august because yes it's nothing but pixel leaks out there so yeah with that deluge in mind what stood out to you this week will i i mean let's start with pricing I think I think pricing is the most obvious place because we we have seen.

practically all there is to to see about the hardware side of pixel and the software side as we kind of discussed last week uh tends to not uh leak before the event or at the very least you have to wait until you know the those last minute leaks that have full product page leaks that highlight some stuff, right? So pricing is sort of the third pillar of that. And we are now at the point where we are close enough to launch that.

not only is pricing leaking but you can it's a u.s pricing and you can kind of take it uh without too much of a grain of salt right like these these sound right so and and it's really easy because it's are you familiar with last year's pixel 9 prices you're familiar with this year's pixel 10 prices i i you know with with one exception in the uh pro excel a little bit uh these are effectively

unchanged compared to last year although the only difference being that there's no 128 gigabyte uh pixel 10 pro xl that's just gone the prices remain the same But that 1099 model is no longer there. It's the Apple strategy. They did that a few years ago. Yeah, so I don't think they could have raised the price. Yeah. With it looking the same, which is, it's not psychology, but from people's perspectives, it's something that looks the same cannot be more.

It's good that Google isn't doing that and that tariffs or whatever did not impact the pricing. It'll be interesting to see what... Apple ends up doing actually because they're rumored to do price increases because of tariffs and their crazy margins but Google isn't and that's a nice change not that

Yeah, I don't think they could have raised it 100. Maybe they could have raised it 50, but I don't think 100 would have been pushing it this generation. Yeah, I think there's just not enough there in terms of hardware changes too.

justify to an audience why and you can do that mark that that are not marketing but you can do that messaging of um hey it's you know we've we've seen nintendo for example do it right like hey it's not our fault it's like we don't yeah we don't know what's going on with tariffs exactly but it's um i think at the end of the day these these devices are so similar um with the

single exception kind of being the pixel 10 the base model that you know it's difficult to see uh uh how they would have sold that to consumers and and at the same time on the on the pixel 10 side I don't know. You know, Google's... phone lineup is so set where it is right now that I don't even know what you would you know even with the inclusion of a telephoto lens what do you raise that price to it's you know once it's 850 or 900 you're really bumping up against

the pixel 10 pro and you start being like well okay like sure yeah they both have telephoto lenses but maybe i just you know that hundred dollars spread over 36 months is not a particularly large hurdle to uh So I think this pricing makes sense and is obvious in a way that I... I'm not surprised by this, would have been surprised by anything else. I think this is exactly what we all kind of expected.

That's it looks like that's what we're going to get. Well, I guess this month by the time you're listening to this, but but next month for us as we record this on Thursday. Yeah, so that.

phone stuff that's out of the way and again like it'll be one less and a complaint i guess yeah um So then there is Pixel Watch 4 pricing, which is the same starting price, $349 and $449 for the 41 and 45 mm respectively. But according to the latest leak, the LTE version is going back to $50 off. So with the original and the Pixel Watch 2, going from Wi-Fi to LTE was just $50. But with the Pixel Watch 3, it went to $100.

And that was a pretty big jump, especially if you got the 45mm and you were paying $499 for a watch. So if that $50 holds, that's a nice... price savings on google's part and honest encourages people to get i where are you on lte watches because i find that it's pretty Nice when exercising. That's my biggest use case. Same boat.

Same boat. I have I have I use LTE on whether I'm on a Pixel Watch or, you know, if I'm on an iPhone on the Apple Watch, I I always keep a LTE plan active for that because I. It's not for, I've never left my phone at home, you know, just going out to dinner or something. I could, it would maybe be relaxing. I could not. I absolutely could not do that.

too much in theory i could i would i would i'm i'm certain i would be you know i'd start to scratch the back of my head after a while and be like where i'm missing something um but but uh but no effort for for going out running um uh it's you cannot beat uh not having a phone on you it is so nice to like you know essentially care i carry a water bottle

And that's it. I carry I carry like a little collapsible water bottle on a run. And then otherwise I have my watch and my earbuds and I'm good to go. And it's it's great. I still get notifications. I can switch playlists on the fly without having to worry about whether. I downloaded them and I find that no matter what.

music streaming platform or watch you're using downloading playlists can often be straight surprisingly finicky we're we're more than a decade into smart watches and it's still like man this still kind of sucks like it's still like i i hit bugs all the time yeah it's wild how that it's so it's so resource constrained even though these chips are getting pretty good and the ram is getting pretty good yeah but it's all

actions processes on the wall just have to happen so quickly or they gated after a few seconds so that's the that's the thing that still needs improvement and honestly it's a battery thing it'll always be a battery thing oh yeah until we get a breakthrough on that front speaking of battery i think we got a really big confirmation on the phone that there are chi magnets chi 2 magnets and that pixel snap is going to look like a magsafe puck basically

yeah i mean this is um everything i've wanted i i truly i think this might cement uh that i am i am upgrading uh to my personal i've seen that sentiment yeah all over the place i've seen that this is the this is literally the one thing that is getting people to upgrade and i don't none of the previous features that have leaked have caused this level of yeah excitement or straight out i'm upgrading but so this is it um

so yeah you have a charging puck that's uh it's basically a large version of the pixel watch 3 charger um it's it's rounded it's white it's such a it's such a google move to like make make it look like the watch charger the the year that they appear to be switching to a new style of charger it's like oh yeah you guys it was the same thing last year where it's like we've unified around the camera bar dot dot dot except for on the pixel

9 pro fold that one has its own camera design it's like guys so close you're so close so far away yeah so magnets that's it's going to be a boon for case Yeah. Accessories. But I'm thrilled as someone who doesn't typically, I actually have a case on my Pixel 8 right now, but someone who doesn't typically use... uh cases at least all the time i i'm really happy that there is finally going to be like a mainstream android device that has these magnets built in because you know

I've been begging. I believe the Chi 2 standard was finalized almost two years ago. I think it was the fall of 2023. And obviously... That doesn't mean that it's ready to go and ready to be put into a phone. You know, I think maybe looking back, anyone, including myself, who was hoping it would be in the S24 was maybe getting a little ahead of themselves.

But certainly it could have been in the S25. Certainly it could have been in the Pixel 9. And I'm just happy to see it's here. And I think with just one company making the jump into... Having it built into the phone rather than relying on cases, I think, you know, I'm really hoping we'll see Samsung and OnePlus. These companies we've seen. This is going to cause such a huge upgrade cycle. That too. Yeah, it's so ingenious. And I really, you know, the less.

techie people in my life like Even they have like, especially obviously if they have an iPhone, like have really fallen in love with MagSafe accessories in a way that like other quote unquote nerdy, you know, relatively niche features or even just like wireless charging in general have not. convince people like the ability to swap in and out of accessories. Go ahead. Yeah, no. Wireless charging is not that.

People are fine with wires, which I've always found to be an interesting thing. I'm thinking of car dock accessories, being able to easily dock your phone to a... next to your steering wheel or whatever um that's like vents uh accessories that go into vents that kind of stuff that's going to be a big upgrade cycle for android and i think the nice upside is how it can leverage existing apple stuff so like exactly even though there's no like a pixel snap or no android stuff out of the gate

being able to leverage that existing ecosystem is going to be really nice and or a proponent for standards for cross-platform standards yeah oh my it's well in in you know so let's let's say you buy a pixel 10 And you buy a bunch of MagSafe accessories, PixelSnap accessories and so on. And then, you know, in a couple of years, two, three years, you decide you're ready to upgrade and you want to go to the Galaxy S28 that has G2 built in. Like, I love that.

all of those accessories you can keep you like you won't have to replace those after this like unless unless they eventually fully redo both like the magnet alignment for both magsafe and and g3 or whatever like in theory Like, this is what the magnet arrangement is. And so, you know, it might, you know, maybe your charging puck grows outdated because we support faster charging speeds now or something. But largely speaking, like...

If you buy a MagSafe battery bank for your Pixel 10, it should work on your Pixel 12, assuming it still has G2 built in or a future Galaxy device. Battery packs, that's the thing I also forgot.

yes they are yeah if that's that's also going through i kind of want google to make one i'm curious what their design would look like oh can i tell you my my dream thing and they'll never do it because it's it's they don't they don't do this anymore but i would i would have loved back in the day uh a magnetic battery bank covered in like the old uh like the material they made the fabric cases out of that would have been so nice it would have been so cool

Oh, this is so dumb. But battery packs that have screens are causing me to upgrade all my battery packs. I don't know why. It's such as going from like the five tiny lights or whatever to a screen with a percentage.

is actually kind of nice. That has caused a personal upgrade. No, it's great. Anchor, when I was at their booth at CES, they were like, hey, I was checking out that like... that bigger battery bank they have that's like retractable and has like a lanyard cable um and and they were like hey we don't

I don't really want to carry this home. Like I don't want to pack this and put it on the plane because it's a pain. It's a pain to do. Yes. If you come back tomorrow, we'll just give you this unit that we've been showing everybody. And so I have this like $130. Anchor battery bank that they just gave me at CES and I use it all the time. It's so nice. I genuinely will just throw it in my backpack if I'm going somewhere because it can top up.

anything switch steam deck laptop anything is and it's like 20 000 milliamps or something it's it is like maybe my favorite gadget in years you it has pass-through power so if you just plug it into a usbc port it's now you've got a bunch of different usbc ports it's great I love nerding out about battery banks. And like, again, you know, to bring it back to Pixel, we're going to get so many cool things out of this like, you know, like...

futuristic battery banks and stuff that I think will like make the pixel 10 series feel like much more of a leap forward hardware wise than I think it otherwise would. Yeah. They needed one big hardware change. And it's, I think, to the detriment of you. It's not something you see in leaks in just lenders.

magnets are invisible of course but it's it really changed the narrative in a significant way and i feel like if google talks about the design like the hardware changes needed too put in those magnets i think people will be much more appreciative it's of of like yeah it looks the same but there's a lot of work went into supporting these magnets

Again, that's to the detriment of weeks. So, yeah, one thing I hope is that G2 or if like made for Google certification or whatever, is that we get, we are able to see. the percentage status of battery packs in like the battery widget or in settings i think that'd go a long way like apple to make the battery pack experience on android a bit more uh cohesive yeah i mean i don't know i i i really think that this opens up like you know not just better

existing accessories as you're saying like the ability for it's not just a dumb power bank with four leds on the side now it's a it's a smarter power bank that can either either has a screen on the back or can just communicate with your phone as you're saying uh what the what the rating percentage is um i also just it just makes

It makes the accessory library so much larger. I've been staring at this render of this blue Pixel 10 with the puck while we've been talking. And it occurred to me that they could do a... a moto mod style like that because of the way the pixel 9 and 10 is is like laid out they could they could have back plates like

They don't do anything else. They're just protective back plates. We've not seen this in a leak. I don't think this is happening, but like I was staring at it and I was like, wouldn't it be so cool if it was like you could buy like. You know, you don't like you don't like your boring blue pixel, you know, 10, but you can slap.

like a bunch of different like back plates on that both help protect the phone and so on. Like it's, it's the perfect shape for it. No, I was just this weekend on cleaning stuff last weekend or whatever. I was just looking at the motor mods. So my original Moto Z has a swollen battery, which is a rip. Such a shame. I ended up putting it in the original box and not touching it.

Because I don't want to open the box to see how bad it is. So that's... probably an active hazard like packed away oh yeah but um it is yeah i have them too i i cleaned up my closet a few months ago and i was like oh four four of these have swollen batteries huh just sitting in my closet

yeah i don't want to throw it away either but at the same time i yeah that's a problem for another day but anyways i have a z2 or whatever yeah and i was the motor mods they are one with a nice floral pattern and wood grain and yeah etc they they are nice from a flattening

If you didn't like the camera circle on those and on the pixels, it's a good way to flatten it out. It doesn't fit any battery. It would be amazing if battery... cells got so small and you could fit an extra I know 10 15 safely yeah that'd be pretty cool but even just beyond that yeah would be cool Wow, I might have to write about this actually. I might have to make my pitch to Google because I've now thought of this and it's...

I hadn't even thought about the fact that the Z series had that circle puck, but it's so similar. It's got like, yeah, I don't know. I'm really into this now. I would absolutely... use use one of those instead of a case because it adds just as much as just as much bulk as a case or actually even a little less less less yeah and so it's not even like it's gonna make glass yeah exactly

And it's, oh, if Google's not doing this, you know, they're leaving money on the table. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, they should absolutely do this for future generation. I know the mods. It would be, it's right there. Ideas on the table.

speaking of pixel leaks we also saw uh right before we we started recording the pixel buds 2a leaked and i don't have a ton to say on these mostly because um they look like pixel buds they look like a cross between the a series and the in last year's pro uh pro 2 um yeah yeah i think the thing i'd add is so uh i was i

like the original pixel buds pro the shape the the fit was fine for me but they were admittedly they were pretty heavy so much so that like uh i would at times I would use the original A series uh the Pixel Buds Pro 2 fixes that issue for me though like

I still find the original Pixel Buds Pro design that I'm being shaped to be a bit more comfortable. So I'm curious to see where the 2A goes, especially in terms of like... stripping features out I assume it won't have a gesture pad that you just only be able to tap and you can't do anything with volume which is really all earbuds need volume controls

as a baseline yeah i fully i fully agree it is interesting and not that we expected this to change but google's kind of the last or not the last but certainly the the last like android oem company making headphones that hasn't like adopted that stem shape that we've seen yeah first with the airpods and then samsung has it and oneplus has it like i i you know obviously there are other earbuds that don't Sony, you know, on and on Bose.

kind of bose bose has a stem design but it's much it's very different than like the earpods does um and and i think that's interesting um like obviously we've seen that kind of happen because not just because of the volume controls you're talking about but also like it's just the mic

improves the mic placement like it just makes for a better slightly closer yeah exactly it's the thing i don't like about the stem design is when you put it in the case when you take it in and out of the case yeah you're inherently touching the part that touches your oily ear yeah it's and that you have to wipe your hands afterwards that's rather than the back of it the like rubberized back yeah yeah that's and it seems like I'm pretty sure that's unsolvable. Unless you have some kind of design.

like yeah like a lifts them up or something like you push the bottom and they pop out or something i don't know how you would do that but it would be either no i think i mean and it makes the it would make the case so much bigger too so i i doubt it ever happens yeah i guess it's It's a trade-off for that improved mic placement. But I don't know. The only Pixel Buds I've used were... The only...

Pixel Buds I've used were the original A-series, which I got free with something. I don't remember what. Maybe my Pixel 6? Are they that old? Right now, I have a pair of the whatever the most recent. Bose earbuds are that I don't know. I had some issues with previous Bose QuietComfort earbuds with the software, but these have been pretty rock solid in the ANC.

is good and then i also have uh one plus uh uh buds 3 pro or whatever uh somewhere around here and a pair of airpods pro around here somewhere uh and i switch between them kind of at uh based on what i'm using and whatever is charged um But yeah, I like the Bose ones a lot because they have really good ANC and they're super comfortable.

they and grippy um and actually that's that's a device that doesn't have the the stem thing at all they are they are very uh pixel bud shaped i would say so those are those are not terrible um but

I don't know. I always really liked the A-series because, like you said, they're very light. I haven't used the pros, but it's good to note that those are now as light as those. But I always had issues with the rubber... the little rubber tip on them never quite fit my ear right and would like after an hour I wouldn't my ears wouldn't feel heavy but

that little rubber tip would start to kind of give my ears like a whatever the equivalent of a not really an earache but you know what I mean yeah I still feel that again like I feel like the the bean shape of the original pixel buds pro that rested in your ear much more comfortably versus the current pro 2 where it's there's something a half circle semi-circle protruding so

But in general, it's interesting that they still see value in the A series and the Pro 2, which they look to be offering a new color, and nothing in the middle. like the original pixel buds approach it's either super cheap or something a bit more premium it's an interesting space they've got it but yeah the 2a they should continue with the a series people know what it is but i'm surprised there isn't a base or what what would the base pixel buds even look like

Like a theoretical base? A theoretical base, yeah. I don't know. They should keep the older A-Series 1 around and just... Like the Pixel Buds A, the first gen around and just sell those at like $50 or something. Yeah, it's a very interesting way to get into Google's ecosystem and you get Gemini.

Yeah, I mean, there's real advantages to getting these over, like, well, like any of the earbuds I just mentioned. Yeah, I don't know. Like, I think these are interesting. I think... I wonder if we'll start to see more. frequent buds releases because of Gemini. Like, I do wonder if, you know, because again, when was the first day series? Are those like four years old? Am I? Those are very old. No, those are very old.

I feel like I got them with my Pixel 6. Like, I think that's where I got them. And maybe I'm wrong, but I...

I didn't pay money for them. I know that. I got them as an inclusion from something. And I don't know. I think we're long overdue for a refresh for these. And I do think with Gemini being... the future of google like straight up um i i i wonder if we start seeing more frequent releases if only just to like either push you know maybe give gemini more processing power or something like i wonder if we just lean into

um you know in addition to better better audio quality like leaning into these as like gemini first earbuds assistant lowercase a earbuds you know So yeah, those are the latest leaks this week. It will absolutely continue. Oh, we've got like 20 days to go. You better get ready for a leak a day, probably. absolutely everything is going to come out um oh one more thing i would say about the pixel watch uh on charging so it appears of

Alongside the same week as the Pixel Snap, which the name is interesting. Let's touch on the name for a hot minute. Sure. I assume it'll be camel cased, but the fact... Yes, they should brand it in the first place, like MagSafe. G2 is not something that will be recognizable to most people. So yes, it's good they're branding it, but... On the flip side, it's going to be weird when Samsung gets into the space and they brand it something else. I guess as long as people know...

They think magnets and they know it works, but the fragmentation there might be harmful for the Android ecosystem. Yeah, I don't disagree with you. I would be... surprised i i think really only google and samsung are gonna because i do think samsung will chase google on this and run kind of headfirst into additional accessories and i i do think we're headed towards samsung building

if not into the S26 series, and certainly the S27 series will have magnets natively in the phone with a first party lineup of accessories that I'm going to. assume are called galaxy mag that's my desk right now galaxy snap and galaxy mag oh gosh that's listen you know it's possible i do i do uh i i like the pixel snap branding

Because I think... It reminds me of Nintendo. Yes, I was going to say the same thing. If they advertise it right, they can do the same snap of the... switch commercials with the like accessories of the pixel like i think that's a really good way to get people's attention and i think maybe the smartest piece of branding nintendo ever did was that snap sound with the first switch uh

uh it's a company with good that knows typically knows how to advertise maybe the wii u era assigned so you know that says a lot but um uh yeah i don't know i kind of like it i agree with you that i would expect this to be camel case and not be like one full word lowercase as we're seeing it right now but um either way i

I think it's good branding. And I think you're right. It's really smart for Google to not just do like, oh, we've got G2 accessories. Like we support G2, but to make it its own thing, to make it, you know, to make it feel like.

pixel is an ecosystem which it is but i i think this is another really good way to be like we are an ecosystem if you're buying this phone you get an ecosystem yeah so yeah that that that's the name but with the pixel watch 4 uh with the renders we've seen like there is a protrusion there are two protrusions um yes to allow for the side charging the side dock or whatever and

I think it's mostly fine, though. That said, I am somebody that wears the speaker side out. The speaker side is facing the world versus it facing me. So I'm... pretty sure there won't be any durability issues there it doesn't get bumped a lot but uh it's i mean like google we'll see what the when official vendors and advertisements look like, but it's going to be noticeable and it's something that people will absolutely notice. Yeah, I think it's kind of a...

You know, we talked a lot about the charging dock last week, and I still think there's like smart ideas out of that. But at the same time, it does like, you know.

For more reasons than just the placement of the dock, it really gives Modo... 360 vibes in which i mean that like in the way that the moto 360 looked really good until you turn the screen on and you saw the flat tire aesthetic which which never bothered me but i know bothered a lot of people and i had two i had the first two generations of that watch

but um i feel like it's going to be similar with this where like you know it's kind of a perfect round circle except if you look at the right angle you see these like sort of unsightly so yeah but that gives such a such a watch I don't know I feel like these are this is the one thing that really inter like it screams smartwatch in a way that like maybe the side button doesn't so much you know I

I don't know. I know, obviously, Ben Schoen has also focused on this a bit. He wrote a piece about it yesterday as we record this. But...

You know, I don't think it's going to bother me too much, but I would need to see it in person on at least somebody's wrist, if not. Unless it appears to be color matching, which is what... one when this so far shows us maybe it looks perfectly fine if you get the silver ruin them shiny case but it appears that it's always going to be silver regardless of color and

If it's silver and black or silver and whatever, that might stick out a bit more. Exactly. As you pointed out last week, it's three generation. four generations of watches three different charging mechanisms yeah so i do think they have to stick with this one they have to decide honestly the puck was perfectly fine for me yeah i agree

I guess this gives it a bit of a differentiator. I mean, exactly like the Moto 360, which had the dock too. The side dock. Yeah, it's so funny that I fully forgot. I wore those watches for, you know... years and i fully forgot about the charging dock until we talked about it last week where i was like oh yeah i i fully i completely forgot that like you know through

most of college that was like my bedside uh my bedside clock was the moto 360 and i had i had forgotten so i am kind of looking forward to that design uh coming back um although this is not enough to make me upgrade from my Pixel Watch 3, if I'm being honest. I would need to see some more. I'm not sure this is my generation. Hopefully this is still the charger in a couple years. So that when I eventually upgrade, it's still there. All you entirely skip it.

I might, you know, who knows? The Pixel Watch 5 might come with, maybe they adopt Pixel Snap for the Pixel Watch 5. Who knows? I don't know. Probably not, but... anything's possible at this point i know the sizing doesn't fit but i'm just you know i i don't feel uh i don't feel i wouldn't bet money on on future pixel watches using this dock because as we have seen uh google will change its uh its charging decisions on a whim yeah i'll tell you you know we can we can end on this yeah i um

I got AI weather reports on my Pixel 8 this week and Google did not make a big deal out of it. It just kind of happened. I opened my Pixel 8, my weather app and like...

There was like it was trying originally trying to just like load a a. uh it was trying to load the ai weather report yeah the gemini exactly exactly and it was like it was like a blank space where it couldn't quite get it so i had to force close the app a couple times uh which is my favorite android hobby and then uh and then yeah suddenly it was there um i i just i want to call this out because we're talking obviously a lot about um new pixel

uh hardware right that we're going to get in a few weeks right and i just think it's very uh cool that um google will kind of extend you know features back to older hardware without much fanfare. I do appreciate that even though I'm on two-year-old hardware at the moment.

it is nice to open up my device and be like, Oh, that thing that is on the pixel nine is, or the, you know, the pixel nine pro is suddenly on my like older device that Google figured out a way to make it work, you know, and feel native. And, um, yeah i don't know this is that's not a thing that is unique to to google but i uh i i appreciate it nonetheless as we are so caught up in in pixel uh hype cycle territory i'm happy to see um

attention still given to some of these older devices that you know you don't need to upgrade from and more broadly i i'm very curious what the nine the nine pro especially with that what it gets from the 10 series because I do think that I do think that 9 Pro especially needs to get more new features backported whether it's whatever the latest version of pixel screenshots is or what yeah I think it's to really uh continue the pixel drops to make them

meaningful and if you buy basically if you buy a modern pixel you get AI features for more than just the latest AI features for more than just one year I think that's a critical thing. Google will probably not talk about it in August, but come the next, well, the December feature drop, I think that's when they need to backport some of these old features to really...

Just even for existing customers. Like if you buy the 10, when your event comes out, you want to know you still have the latest. Yeah. They're pretty, as you said, they're pretty good about that. Like I do think that... that December feature drop always has is always a big part of it is always like last year's hardware gets 80% of the stuff we introduced, you know, two to four months ago. And.

I don't know. I appreciate that they don't keep you waiting that long and it's pretty standard. And even when you do have to wait a year for something like AI weather reports, it's obvious that they are working on trying to make this stuff work on... hardware as old as they can and and you know i i don't know i i uh i appreciate it as a as a pixel user without the the latest hardware

But yeah, that's I think that'll do it for us this week. Abner, thank you for joining me. I hope Damien is back with us next week. He is he is in travel hell. I would say he is trapped in travel hell. So we wish him. the best um but uh but yeah thank you uh for joining me abner and uh to everyone else uh thank you for listening we will catch you again next week bye