At Google’s ‘Nexus’ event in their Mountain View offices, Sundar Pichai announced a lot of new devices, software updates, and other news. Twitter’s exploded with talks of the New ChromeCast 2, ChromeCast Audio, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Pixel C, Nexus Protect, Android Marshmallow, updates to Google Photos, and a slew of other announcements. All of the news has flooded tech sites, with announcement post on each new service, update, and new device. We’re going to break down the most important announcements from today’s event, and have reviews post on the new devices in the coming days and weeks.
The bread and butter of the event today is arguably the Nexus devices, which we’ve waited on for some time. The leaks and rumors around the device flooded news outlets the days before, so we had a pretty good understand of what Google’s was going to announce. The Nexus 5X is the lower end, reasonably priced and spec’d device, while the Nexus 6P is the higher end, higher price device. Each phone sports Nexus Imprint, Google’s take on Touch ID for Android Pay and quick unlocking of the phone. The Nexus 5X starts are $379, and the Nexus 6P starts at $499. Both the phones work on Google’s Project Fi network, and are available for pre-order today.
The next big announcement from the event is Google’s next generation of ChromeCast, the ChromeCast 2. The device has a new design and form factor, along with better Wifi and a new app designed from the ground up. The device still starts at $35 and will be sold at stores across 17 countries starting today! Along with the ChromeCast 2, the company also announced the ChromeCast Audio with Spotify support. The Audio version plugs into your speakers in any room, and Google Play Music can automatically detect the speakers to cast to them directly. The ChromeCast Audio will also sell for the low price of $35, and be sold alongside the ChromeCast 2. Google announced that Showtime, NBA, NHL, Spotify, and Sling TV are all adding support for Chromecast as well.
Along with the big news Google announced the Pixel C, which is essentially a Surface iPad Pro tablet Android device. It runs Android, so it’s not a Chromebook device which might have made more sense as Google has tried to combine Android and Chrome OS in the past years. The device starts at $499 with another $149 for the keyboard to make it more like a laptop/surface than just a simple tablet.
Android 6.0 Marshmallow will start to roll out to existing Nexus devices, but didn’t outline which devices will get the update. We know some older devices like the Nexus 7 2012 won’t get the Android 6.0 update, but other older phones will get the new OS. Android 6.0 doesn’t bring a big visual overhaul like Android 5.0, however 6.0 is featured packed that’ll increase performance on many Android handsets.
The Google event brought a lot of updates to devices and software. They updates are all to help Android combat Apple’s continued march of dominance in the phone, tablet, and living room markets. Android may have had 1.4 billion activations, but the company cannot translate the massive market into power and clout like Apple has been able to do. Apple’s able to pressure Music labels, carriers, and app makers into conforming to their needs and wants, and Google’s failed at doing this over and over. Google Wallet is a prime example of Google trying something first, but then Apple swooping in with Apple Pay, and getting everyone to conform and start accepting the payment method.
Tell us in the comments below, or wherever we move them to in the future, what you think about all the new devices and software updates!