Like everything else in the tech industry, Google’s Pixel 11 series is getting a price hike, but there are a few factors that make it a bit harder to accept.
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First things first: it’s official. Google is unveiling the Pixel 11 series during an event on August 12.
But just hours before it was announced, a report revealed potential pricing for the Pixel 11 series, and ouch.
According to this week’s reportThe Pixel 11 series as a whole gets a €100 (probably $100) price increase. The grain of good news is that the 128GB tiers are going away, but that’s pushing the Pixel firm Into high-end flagship territory with the Pixel 11 for €999, the Pixel 11 Pro for €1,199, the Pixel 11 Pro XL for €1,399 and the Pixel 11 Pro Fold for €1,999. If we convert these to US prices and assume no regional variations here, we’re looking at $899 for the Pixel 11, $1,099 for the Pixel 11 Pro, $1,299 for the Pixel 11 Pro XL, and $1,899 for the Pixel 11 Pro Fold.
Again, wow.
Currently, price increases are inevitable. Google’s next Pixel was always the price is going up, but there are several reasons why this price increase is especially difficult to absorb.
It starts with the Tensor of all.
Personally, I’ve long felt that Tensor is perfectly acceptable in terms of overall performance and is capable of more than most users would really want to do with their phones, it would be silly not to accept that objectively these chips aren’t as good as the Snapdragon flagship. When Google charges the same price points for its phones as we’ve seen with Snapdragon-powered flagships like the Galaxy S26 series, it’s hard to ignore that at the end of the day you’re looking at a drop in performance in specific areas like gaming, as well as other downsides like the Pixel’s long-running struggles with thermal management (mostly caused by it).
Tensor G6 looks quite promising however, unless something incredible happens, the Pixel 11 series will still be less powerful than devices at comparable price points.
Memory changes help a bit here. The Pixel 10, which still has a base 128GB, was a huge underdog last year, but it’s also hard to accept the price increase for it. Google is giving up on this base storage level, which is probably two generations out of date. This “upgrade” that’s finally coming softens the blow of this price hike, but it also feels like the least Google could do in this situation.
But storage is also part of the problem I see. There’s only a $100 difference between the Pixel 9 Pro and the Pixel 9 Pro XL — $999 and $1,099. That changed in the Pixel 10 generation, with the Pixel 10 Pro (128GB) starting at $999 and the Pixel 10 Pro XL at $1,199, but with 256GB of storage as the base. Comparing equal storage levels, there was no price increase. But this time, Google is increasing the price of the XL to where there is a $200 gap between these devices. It’s more or less the industry standard, but I think Google had it before and it’s a bit of a sneaky change.
The Pixel 11 Pro Fold has no right to be expensive in my book. It recycles the same design that can’t keep up with the rest of the foldable world. Nobody should be looking at $1899 for the Pixel 11 Pro Fold when they can get a Galaxy Z Fold 8 for $100 more with a thinner. better form factor (or, you know, a used Fold 7 for less).
The other elephant in the room is the alleged drop in RAM units on certain models. A previous leak was suggested said the base Pixel 11 could drop to 8GB of RAM, while the Pixel 11 Pro models could drop to 12GB. If so, that makes price hikes almost impossible to accept, because paying less just hurts more when storage prices are really skyrocketing, especially for Google the smartphone brand focuses on AI, which needs more RAM than anyone else.
Still, price hikes were inevitable, and these alleged prices may not even be the worst. Ramageddon rages. But these Pixel-specific factors make it a bit difficult to handle the increases Google is assuming.
What do you think?
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