The Pixel's Biggest Weakness? It Can't Think for Itself

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요약

Whatever Google does with the next Pixel smartphone this week, it needs to scale back on server-based camera gimmicks and return to on-device processing. I have been rocking a Pixel smartphone since 2022, after a brief pause to give OnePlus's flagships a test…

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I have been rocking a Pixel smartphone since 2022, after a brief pause to give OnePlus's flagships a test run (RIP, almost). I fell back in love with the Pixel after Google refreshed the hardware and gave it a unique look with the Pixel 6. The camera bar stood out on its own on the back, as if to loudly and proudly carry the torch as one of the best camera phones on the market.

But things have changed since that major makeover. Although Pixel devices have always been about taking stellar shots with Google-branded algorithms, I've been less than satisfied with the camera system after switching to the Pixel 10 Pro last fall. On the cusp of the next-generation Pixel 11 family launching at Made By Google on Wednesday, Aug. 12, I wanted to put together a wishlist of hopes and dreams for the Pixel smartphone going forward, despite what the rumor mill has already revealed.

The Concert Zoom Let Down

In the summer of 2024, my almost middle-aged self decided to get back into concerts and shows. I was at a festival in the middle of the Dutch countryside when I realized the Pixel 8's measly 2x optical zoom, while capable, wasn't ideal for capturing footage of beloved live artists. That fall, I upgraded to the Pixel 9 Pro for the expanded optical zoom—up to 5x this time around. It worked so well on my concert tour in 2025. I managed to get clear shots of Papa Roach from the pit at Sacramento's Golden 1 Center, my favorite Dutch hardcore artist from a balcony seat in Los Angeles, and bands that were far away on stage at Warped Tour.

(Credit: Florence Ion)

When the Pixel 10 Pro launched, I told myself I'd upgrade for science and because I was aching for the green Hazel colorway—anything but black, white, or pink has been my choice the past few years. But to my chagrin, upgrading the colorway meant trading in a more finicky photographer instead. I haven't been able to replicate the sharpness in my concert photos with the Pixel 10 Pro since switching. I also noticed the AI is overly aggressive in its processing. As a result, I'm hesitant to zoom in past 10x when I'm at a show.

(Credit: Florence Ion)

Here's the other major bummer about the Pixel 10 Pro: The video boost capabilities require the internet to upload video and process it before it's returned to your phone from the cloud, as high-resolution and sharpness-tweaked as possible. Even though it's recording a proxy file locally for later processing, the raw data still has to hit Google's cloud servers before anything is available to share. You can't touch the videos to trim or edit them, because it'll mess up the temporary video needed to upload to the cloud. Video boost is effectively useless unless you're in a cellular coverage area. For that reason, I didn't get any boosted videos from the bands that I saw at Warped Tour this summer. I barely had enough connection to send a text to find my friends.

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Too Much Cloud Reliance

People agree with me about this. It's been discussed in blog posts and on YouTube, and I occasionally get complaints about it on social media. For a smartphone's camera system to be truly capable, it has to work on its own without the cloud's help. When they say the best camera is the one you have with you, it shouldn't mean one that requires an internet connection to produce a simple video clip. But that's not in Google's playbook right now, as it steers the business primarily toward Gemini and its capabilities.

We've yet to see what Google announces with the Pixel 11 series. Gemini Nano 4 is expected to be announced alongside it, bringing faster, more multimodal tricks and possibly handling some minor on-device photo processing. But let's be real: It won't be on par with Video Boost. With the 12GB RAM cap on the Pixel 11 Pro models, Google will be budgeting the phone's local resources. Besides, offloading video processing to a well-cooled server farm prevents the phone from overheating and exhausting its resources. And it lets Google continue to boast that its phones are well-tempered.

There is also no financial incentive for Google to change course. Keeping processing in the cloud means that everything you do that requires a more powerful Gemini must pass through a gatekeeper. Your raw media hits Google's servers before it's bounced back to Google Photos, where you're also paying for Google One to access those algorithms and get enough storage space for the video.

Future Pixel devices will suffer if Google continues to treat them like tickets to a magic show that only its data centers can perform. A Pro-level phone shouldn't need an internet connection to produce quality video when I'm out in the middle of nowhere, dancing my ass off. It's going to be harder to consider the Pixel a daily driver if this cloud-dependent trajectory becomes the new normal.