Summary
Google just launched the Pixel 11 lineup, and if you squint at the spec sheet, you’ll find something odd: the phones cost more, but in some ways, they give you less. The base Pixel 11 starts at 100 jump from the Pixel 10’s 1,099. And this price gap will only increase as the Pixel 11 starts selling making Google’s previous phones an even better deal. Turns out the best thing about the Pixel 11’s launch is the discounts you get on the older, admittedly great, phones. Less RAM, more money, same phone Only the 512GB tier gets the RAM you’d expect The biggest change in the new Pixels is the RAM. Every single Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL configuration, from the base 128GB model all the way up, shipped with 16GB of RAM. The base Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL models however, not only increase the base storage to 256GB, but also drop RAM to only 12. If you still want 16GB of memory, you’re going to have to step up to the 512GB or 1TB models. The global memory shortage does have a part to play in this. As RAM and flash supply gets increasingly diverted to AI servers, consumer devices from all different fields are starting to feel the effects. It might be a real supply chain issue, sure, but it doesn’t change the math if you’re buying a new phone. You’re paying more for less memory than the one Google sold just last year. The standard Pixel 11 at least holds the line at 12GB of RAM, matching the Pixel 10, so it’s only the Pro lineup that’s suffering. Considering just how much phones are leaning towards on-device AI processing, this is a strange position for Google to be in. A refresh that barely refreshes anything Same screen, same camera, 15 extra mAh Beyond the memory, the actual hardware upgrades are also rather thin. The only real change is the Tensor G6 chip, built on the same 3nm process as Pixel 10’s Tensor G5, and Google has paired it with a MediaTek modem that has seemingly fixed Pixel’s long-running connectivity complaints. Apart from that, you’ll be forgiven for thinking the Pixel 11 is a rebadged Pixel 10. The display is the same at 6.4-inches, 60-120Hz, OLED. The camera hardware is essentially unchanged, with the same 48-megapixel main sensor and 10.8-megapixel telephoto lens carried over from last year. Battery capacity has gone up by 15 mAh, which is not really going to make a difference, and wireless charging has gone up from 15 to 25W, with support for Google’s MagSafe-like Pixel Snap feature. The phone did get noticeably lighter, dropping 204 grams to 197 grams, base storage has doubled to 256GB, so it’s not nothing. But none of these changes justify the 200 price hike across the lineup. Google’s answer is software, again Gemini is doing the heavy lifting hardware won’t Ever the software wizard, Google is compensating for lackluster hardware upgrades by offering you more features than you can count, and yes, most of them are powered by Gemini Intelligence. The Pixel 11 introduces agentic AI features that can automatically order groceries, book rides, manage reservations, and even call businesses on your behalf, all by parsing whatever’s on your screen rather than needing a special app integration. There’s also Rambler, a Gemini-powered dictation tool that cleans up rambling speech into polished text, and Magic Capture, a camera feature that analyzes around 400 frames to automatically pick and edit the best shot available. Live Translate now dubs video and podcast audio in real time, and Circle to Search works directly inside the camera viewfinder. These are genuinely clever features, and some of them like the sign-language-to-text tool built with Google DeepMind, do seem like they’ll be useful beyond novelty. But at the end of the day, they’re software wins layered onto hardware that, RAM cut aside, looks a lot like an incremental refresh. The real winner here is last year’s phone More memory, lower price, nothing to prove Among all this, Pixel 10 prices have been slashed by 599. The Pixel 10 Pro has seen a drop too, bringing it to $699. These promotions expired right before the Pixel 11 announcement, but they’re a pretty good indicator of the pricing we can expect for the Pixel 10 lineup in the coming future. You’re looking at a phone with the same display, same camera hardware, and, on the Pro models, more memory than the base Pixel 11 Pro — all for hundreds less. Unless you specifically need the new modem, the faster chip, or Gemini’s newest agentic tricks, the Pixel 10 makes a surprisingly strong case for itself as your next phone purchase.