Is the most anticipated AI phone of this year going to be a flop?

In less than 48 hours, this year's Google hardware launch event, Made by Google 2026, is going to kick off.

Even though Pixel phones barely have any user base in mainland China, their position as the Android reference design and the testing ground for Gemini features remains quite solid.

Photo courtesy of ZDNET

This event will be held at 6 a.m. Beijing Time on August 13. Apart from the Pixel 11 series of phones, we expect to see the Pixel Watch 5, new Pixel Buds earbuds and many other products:

Photo courtesy of Android Headlines

As for the revamped GoogleBook, it has not received much public attention. The latest leaks even point out that Google may not mention it at all during the Made by Google event, and instead hold a separate small launch event for it this fall:

Photo courtesy of Techgenyz

It is worth noting that Google will continue the "talk show" style of last year's conference this year - a core host will lead the whole event, showcasing products and new features through interactions with various guests.

After inviting Jimmy Fallon, the host of *The Tonight Show*, last year, Google officially announced that this year's host guest will be Trevor Noah, the well-known comedian and critic who used to host *The Daily Show*:

Photo courtesy of Rolling Stone

In addition to Trevor Noah, the officially announced guests also include well-known podcast host Alex Cooper, cricket player Shubman Gill, Japanese actress Ayami Nakajo, NBA three-point king Stephen Curry and many others, forming a very luxurious lineup:

From left to right: Alex Cooper, Shubman Gill, Ayami Nakajo, Stephen Curry

It can be said that even if you ignore the product announcements at this Google conference, just watching it as an English variety show will probably be a pretty good experience.

However, as one of the few brands that currently have thriving software, hardware and model businesses, ifanr commented in its preview last month that the Pixel 11 series is "the most anticipated AI phone of the year" —

Related Reading:The most anticipated AI phone of the year is coming

But after seeing the latest leaks and the updates of Gemini recently, we have to appropriately lower our expectations.

ifanr will still bring you first-hand reports at the event. But before that, the Pixel 11 series can only be "one of the slightly anticipated AI phones of the year".

Pixel 11 Series: You Can't Rely on Software to Pull Through All the Time

As the most representative product, the protagonist of this year's Made by Google event is undoubtedly still the smartphones.

Photo courtesy of Android Police

Just like previous generations, the Pixel 11 series still includes three bar phones and a large foldable: Pixel 11, 11 Pro, 11 Pro XL and 11 Pro Fold.

Probably because the response to the first-generation Pixel Fold was too lukewarm, Google is obviously in no hurry to enter the "large-screen foldable" market:

Photo courtesy of Tom's Guide

Among the four phones, the Pixel 11 and 11 Pro will still keep the 6.3-inch small screen body, the 11 Pro XL will be 6.8 inches, and the inner screen of the large foldable 11 Pro Fold is also a regular 8 inches.

It is worth noting that according to the latest batch of leaks, the base version Pixel 11 may cancel the telephoto lens added on last year's Pixel 10, and return to the dual-camera solution of the 9th generation.

At the same time, the camera module with an indicator light that was repeatedly leaked in the early stage has also been confirmed — Google has directly released the rendering of the new indicator light:

Photo courtesy of YouTube @Made by Google

From the official image, you can see that Pixel Glow is a round colorful light hidden under the camera cover, and the soft glowing effect on the edge is very similar to that of the HomePod.

By unpacking the recently updated Google App, foreign media found nine selectable light colors in the corresponding setting strings, but it is not certain whether it supports RGB color wheel selection.

Photo courtesy of Droid Life

Apart from acting as a resurrected notification breathing light, the most important function of Pixel Glow is to display the background execution status of Gemini, which works with the agent-related control functions in Gemini Spark.

As for the Tensor G6 processor, there is no new news compared to before. It is basically confirmed that it will use TSMC's 2nm process, adopt MediaTek M90 external baseband, and mainly optimize power consumption.

Photo courtesy of Android Police

According to some leaked e-commerce materials, the basic configuration of the four models in the Pixel 11 series is 12GB RAM + 256GB storage, and only the top versions of Pro XL and Pro Fold are equipped with 16GB RAM.

The leaked starting prices are 899 US dollars (about 6050 RMB), 1099 US dollars (about 7400 RMB), 1299 US dollars (about 8750 RMB) and 1899 US dollars (about 12800 RMB) respectively.

Android AI: Beware of Being Outperformed by Doubao

Apart from the Pixel 11 series, this Made by Google event will undoubtedly devote a large amount of space to the Android system and its built-in AI features.

Photo courtesy of ZDNET

However, this is where the biggest problem lies: Gemini 3.6 Flash was not favored by netizens in the first place, and it turned out to be even more underperforming than expected.

If you have been using Gemini since last year, it feels like watching your own brother slowly develop Alzheimer's disease.

Related Reading:Gemini 3.6 Flash Released: It's Really Fast, But Its Capability Is Really Disappointing

The key point is that Google has released a bunch of Flash models, but the real flagship models 3.5 Pro or 3.6 Pro are nowhere to be seen.

And considering that there has been no relevant warm-up recently, Google most likely will not release the Pro model at the Made by Google event —

Photo courtesy of Google

In this case, apart from those exclusive features for first-party apps, the pure intelligence level of the Pixel 11 that was originally marketed under the banner of "OS + AI" may be even less capable than a separately downloaded DeepSeek app.

This insufficiency of Gemini's basic capabilities also directly shifts the pressure to those "generative" or "agent" features inside Android 17 —

Photo courtesy of Android Police

For example, the vibe coding widget that has not even appeared in the Canary Beta, Gboard Rambler as the Typeless alternative, the cross-modal auto-executing Gemini Spark, and so on.

In other words: It is difficult for Pixel 11 to even fill the gaps left at the Google I/O Developers Conference in May, let alone launch any distinctive new features.

Related Reading: Google launched the Android AI system, which is exactly what Apple imagines itself to be

However, no matter what, "with Gemini Intelligence" is a phrase that appears very frequently in the exposed Google official promotional materials and third-party channel materials:

Photo courtesy of X @_evanblass_

At least from this point of view, Google hopes to fully implement Gemini Intelligence on the Pixel 11 series.

However, judging from the launch progress of Android 17 so far, while Gemini could have made the Pixel 11 shine, it is very unlikely that Gemini will make the Pixel 11 shine this time.

A Wake-Up Call for AI Phones

Even though the leaked hardware configuration of the Pixel 11 so far is mediocre, the price is not competitive at all, and its proud OS and AI integration have encountered the so-called "American version of Doubao" that underperforms.

But all in all, the Pixel 11 series is still quite worth looking forward to —

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