Google Pixel Series Struggles to Compete in Hardware, Performance
The Google Pixel series has been around for nearly 10 years, but recent early impressions of the upcoming Pixel 11 are underwhelming.
One of the main reasons enthusiasts have grown tired of Pixel is the phone's hardware design. The focus has shifted from competitive hardware to software and camera processing, resulting in Pixel phones having worse hardware than competitors for the same price.
For example, the Samsung Galaxy S25+ and Pixel 10 Pro both started at $999, but the Samsung device offered twice the storage, a larger and sharper display, faster charging, and a more powerful Snapdragon processor. While the Pixel had a better camera array and more RAM, its Tensor chip lagged behind.
The performance gap between Google's Tensor chips and competitors' processors has widened over time. The current flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is roughly 2.5 times faster than the Tensor G5, according to AnTuTu benchmark scores. Even MediaTek's latest SoCs outperform Tensor processors.