Google Pixel - Great phones, just not for us

Now I am usually not one to criticise. Most of the time, I am optimistic about products and services. Especially ones coming from big names like Google. However, the pixel phones are just not really compelling to anyone living in Ethiopia and here’s why. Before that tho, I want to say how great of a smartphone the Pixels really are.

The Good before the bad

Marquest put it best when he called them “The smartest smartphones out there”. I like everything about them from the visor camera bar design that just reminds me of RoboCop to the clean software experience to how good the still photos look with Google’s computational photography. I love it all. The newly added 7 years of promised software updates to the 8 and 8 pro is no small thing either.

The big “but”

Despite all those goodies though, I still wouldn’t recommend it to my fellow Habeshans. Look, the biggest strength of all the pixel phones is the software experience. These features enabled by Google’s tensor chip and how well they work, some even when you are offline, is one of the Pixels main selling points. There is Live transcription, Call Screening, Live Translate, Magic Editor, Magic Remover, Best Take the list goes on. The things Google is pulling off here are truly impressive.

The only problem is that a lot of these features are language and region based. Meaning that cool Call Screening feature where the phone will listen to the automated call center message from 994 and put it in text buttons for you to press on might not work when the service is in a non-english language like our own ‘አማርኛ’.

Now, I have not tried this out to check if or how well it works, but that’s where the problem lies. I don’t think there is enough training data and media coverage for Google to take the time to make sure everything works perfectly. We are simply not the target market for these products. While that is not a huge issue for hardware parts, it is a big concern when it comes to software.

Google’s reliance on software to set its line of phones apart from the rest is precisely why it isn’t the best suit to us or any other Non-English speaking region for that matter.

The Exception and Alternatives

There is still one aspect of these phones we can still enjoy and that is the photo processing. Google’s algorithm for fine tuning the Pixel’s images are loved by (almost) everyone. And then there’s the Pixel’s unique design. Since the Pixel 6, You can tell it’s a pixel, even from quite some distance. If one or both of these two things are what you are looking for in a phone then go for it and kudos to you. Otherwise you’re just better off with something like Samsung’s S23 FE or Xiaomi’s 13T. These are both more capable than the latest Pixel 8 - in terms of hardware - while also being cheaper.

I just hope that someday we hit Google’s radar and for them to properly optimise their products for the Ethiopian and more generally the African market. Till then, I am sticking to my Galaxy and so should you.