Google’s upcoming smartphone line-up have been trending in the rumor mill for quite some time now. A new Geekbench listing speculates that the Google Pixel XL will run a new Android 7.1 Nougat. This is the larger of the two handsets which are supposedly scheduled to launch next month.
By now, it is almost clear that this year there will be no Nexus-branded smartphones. Instead, Google will release a duo of HTC made flagships under the name Pixel. The smaller one is codenamed as Sailfish and will possibly be called Google Pixel on launch. The larger one bears the code name Marlin and is presumed to be identified as Google Pixel XL. The leaked benchmark catalog names the listed device just as Google Pixel, but the “Marlin” writing in the Motherboard row confirms that this is actually the Pixel XL.
The rumored smartphone is seen to sport 4 GB of RAM and possibly a Snapdragon 820 SoC. While the chipset may not seem to be Qualcomm’s most powerful Snapdragon 821, this is said to be some kind of a second generation Snapdragon 820. This eventually indicates that it may actually be the Snapdragon 821 which is itself a second revision of the Snapdragon 820 with beefed up clock speeds. The system information of Pixel XL shown by the benchmark list displays that the core clock speed of the Qualcomm made quad-core processor as 1.59 GHz. This is same as the present generation Snapdragon 820s.
In the disclosed Geekbench listing, the HTC Pixel XL has scored 1659 in single core test and 3951 in the multicore one. This is a bit less than the 1806 and 5213 points of the Samsung Galaxy S7, which is presently the most powerful Android smartphone in that particular list. The latest Apple iPhone 7 squashes both the devices by scoring a massive 3420 and 5630 in the single core and multi-core assessments respectively.
Strangely, the listing mentions that the Pixel XL runs Android 7.1 Operating System, which has not yet released in public. This suggests that Google may announce the new Android version alongside the launch of its Pixel devices next month. The upcoming Android 7.1 may bring some minor improvements over the present Android 7.0 Nougat.
Google will unveil the 5-inch HTC Pixel and 5.5-inch HTC Pixel XL on October 4, along with a new 4K-ready model of the Chromecast. Apart from the size and battery capacity differences, both the smartphones will sport identical internals.
what are the geekbench scores for the 821? qualcomm isn’t that good at competing with apple or samsung.