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The first Made by Google event of the year was packed with announcements, with a slate of Pixel products unveiled, new Google Gemini features, and a host of clever AI tools to go with the new hardware.
For a beat-by-beat recap of the showcase, check out our Made By Google event live blog. But read on for the seven biggest announcements that caught our collective attention during the showcase.
1. The Fold goes Pro
Rather than a simple successor to the Pixel Fold, the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold is, as the name suggests, a foldable version of the Pixel 9 Pro. That means it gets the non-folding version’s powerful camera suite, along with a mix of AI-powered features, and slaps them into a properly foldable phone package.
So you get a Tensor G4 chip, 16GB of RAM, and an 8-inch OLED Super Actua Flex foldable display. Add in AI features and a thinner, lighter design, and you’re looking at a foldable phone with some real ‘pro’ features.
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2. The Pixel Watch gets bigger and smarter
The Google Pixel Watch 3 is a surprisingly comprehensive update, including the most visually impressive upgrade of the bunch: a new, larger option. The new 45mm Pixel Watch 3 XL model sports a brighter display than ever — it’s 40% larger than the Pixel Watch 2’s screen — but there’s also a host of new features crammed under the glass.
A 35% larger battery in the XL means all-day battery life, even with the brighter screen and always-on display enabled, while health-related Loss of Pulse Detection can identify if your heart has dropped off and send a message to emergency services. There are also a bunch of new Fitbit training tools, including a revamped Daily Readiness score and improved running metrics. The Pixel Watch 3 is certainly shaping up to be Google’s best wearable yet.
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3. Don’t want a foldable phone? The Pixel 9 Pro has gone XL
You could argue that the Google Pixel 9 Pro has a fairly large display, but maybe you’re of the opinion that bigger is indeed better: meet the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL. The new addition to the Pixel phone lineup takes the core of the Pixel 9 Pro and adds a 6.8-inch display and a 4,700mAh battery. And that’s it.
As such, you’re getting a new Pixel Pro phone with a display that’s just 0.1 inches larger than the Pixel 8 Pro’s screen; it’s not a huge amount, but a little space can go a long way when you’re holding a phone horizontally and watching Netflix. But the flip side of that is that the Pixel 9 Pro now has a smaller 6.2-inch display, making it easier to wield one-handed for people who want “pro” features but don’t want a big, chunky phone. And for those who do, the XL fills that gap.
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4. Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 are smaller, but can now cancel ‘twice the noise’
Active noise cancellation that’s “twice as strong” as the older model is a big claim, but that’s what Google says it’s achieved, thanks to the Tensor A1 chip inside the Pixel Buds Pro 2. This (the first Tensor chip in a true wireless earbud) apparently processes audio 90 times faster than the speed of sound – meaning the ANC algorithm can adapt to your surroundings (and filter out that extraneous noise) up to three million times per second.
According to Google, they’re also the “smallest premium earbuds on the market” – and at 4.7 ounces and 27% smaller than the previous set, they’re certainly small.
In addition to a transparency mode, active in-ear pressure relief, and a new Conversation Detection feature (it can detect when you’re talking and automatically switch to transparency mode), you also get an extra earbud, giving you four in total. Finally, you get Google Gemini on board for your deepest queries, with transcriptions saved to your Google phone for later access.
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5. There’s more to the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro than meets the eye
The Google Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro were the most predictable of the four Pixel 9 phones launched at Google’s Made by Google event, but both models bring a number of worthwhile upgrades over their respective predecessors. In a nutshell: The Google Pixel 9 gets the same 50MP main and 48MP ultra-wide cameras as the Pixel 9 Pro, along with a more durable design, a brighter display, and a more powerful chipset than its predecessor.
The Pixel 9 Pro, meanwhile, gets a whopping 16GB of RAM to power a host of Google Gemini tricks, not to mention improved camera performance and a similar-but-not-the-same design as the standard Pixel 9. Yes, these upgrades sound iterative (on paper, at least), but the Google Pixel 9 Pro in particular is almost certain to prove to be one of the best AI phones of the year.
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6. Gemini Live encourages you to be rude to the AI
We’ve probably all had a moment where we’ve made fun of Siri or antagonized Alexa, and Google seems to know that there’s an inherent appeal to being a little rude to AI-powered assistants. So with Gemini Live, a feature of the Gemini assistant designed to respond to informal language and offer speciation and brinadstomping, you can interrupt the assistant and change the subject mid-conversation.
That’s not as rude as shouting obscenities at a virtual assistant who misheard a command, but it’s not the politest way to have a conversation. Still, such an approach does mean that using AI-powered chatbots and tools can feel more natural, and less like you’re just talking into a soulless machine… even if it is.
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7. And Gemini can do so much more…
At its recent Made for Google event, the search giant announced some impressive new Gemini features that take AI to a whole new level in mobile computing. First, Gemini Live takes AI voice interaction to a whole new level, allowing you to have a conversation with your phone about complex topics as if you were talking to a person.
Then there are the new multimodal features – Gemini can analyze a photo you’ve taken and use the information in it to answer questions. It also has a Screenshots feature that looks at your screenshots (assuming you take them) to collect random bits of information about you that it can use to get to know you better. Gemini integrates into Google apps, so it can peek into your inbox and calendar to glean details about your life, if you let it. Pixel Studio uses Gemini AI to generate photos on the phone. You just type out some AI prompts and let Gemini do the rest.
Another AI feature for images is Add Me, which lets you insert a separate photo of yourself into a photo of your friends, so you no longer have to hand your expensive phone to a stranger to take a group photo. There are also new AI photo editing tools that let you type in what you want to see in a photo and it just adds it. Google has also added Call Notes, which Gemini uses to record your phone calls and produce transcripts. Finally, Gemini is now a real research tool, creating Google Docs documents of any topic you want to research.
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