On October 4 Google launching Pixel series next phone Pixel 2

 Google is launching the successor to its Pixel smartphone on October 4, as confirmed by a new advertising campaign and official landing page citing the date, and suggesting that anyone who is “thinking about changing phones” tune in for more information coming on October 4.

The landing page asks for an email address to be alerted with updates, and this same date and a tagline about asking “more of your phone” which appeared on a billboard in Boston this week (via MobileSyrup). Previous reports had pegged the date for a Pixel successor unveiling at or around October 5, too, so this is in keeping with that.

Rumors around the Pixel 2 (or whatever it ends up being called officially) have been flying for a while now, suggesting it’ll use a Snapdragon 835 processor with 4GB of RAM, as well as ‘squeezable’ pressure sensitive sides, and IP68 water and dust resistance. Leaks in Android Oreo have also seemingly confirmed a new always-on display, similar to the one found in Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and Note 8.

The “ask more” instruction appears to tease an evolved and improved Google Assistant, one that presumably does more when you ask it for more. For now, all we have to go on is the teaser video from Google and a litany of leaks detailing the features and looks of the upcoming Pixel 2, made by HTC, and Pixel 2 XL, expected to be manufactured by LG and based on the promising, bezel-deprived V30.

So what exactly is Google promising? Here’s a list of the rhetorical questions that the company’s teaser video throws at us:

What’s wrong with my phone’s battery?

• Why is my phone always out of storage?
• Why does my phone take so many blurry photos?
• Why doesn’t my phone understand me?
• Why can’t my phone update itself?
• Why is my smartphone so slow / hot / fragile / annoying / broken / cruel / impersonal / dumb? 

Most of these are self-explanatory, but here’s some speculative context. The blurry photos question would seem to suggest optical image stabilization (OIS) being added to this year’s Google Pixel, something the 2016 edition lacked. HTC’s U11 has some of the best OIS in the business, consistently eliminating the blur produced by shaky hands from photos that look comparatively softer on the Pixel. And Apple just managed to put OIS on both of its iPhone X cameras, so Google will want to keep up in having that important spec.

As to the points about fragile, hot, and broken phones, that might be Google’s way of taking a dig at the current trend of every device going for full glass covers on both the front and back. Yes, Samsung made it look very luxurious and premium with its Galaxy S and Note lines, but glass is glass, and these increasingly expensive devices do seem to also be growing more fragile. Anything Google can do to reverse that trend would be a plus.

The cruel, impersonal, and dumb comment seems to be targeting the iPhone and its Siri personal assistant. Most Android flagships now ship with Google’s Assistant on board, so the only relevant devices out there that aren’t intelligent enough in Google’s estimation must be iPhones. It’s interesting that Apple didn’t mention Siri once in its entire presentation of the revolutionary (for Apple) iPhone X, whereas Google is making the Assistant and its smart capabilities a key selling point of the Pixel phones.

The Pixel 2 is also said to be coming in both a standard and an XL version, just like the original released last year, but the larger device is said to have some additional features on top of its 6-inch display, including very narrow bezels, whereas the smaller phone could more closely resemble last year’s model.

We’ll have more information in less than a month, but based on the landing page and tagline, it seems like Google will be emphasizing its virtual Assistant again with this hardware revision. Google also released a teaser video on its YouTube channel that suggests a number of other key areas of focus, including battery life, camera, self-updates, voice recognition, speed durability and more.

Pixel-by-pixel analysis

The playful searches hone in on skills that the original Google Pixel was already pretty stellar at and we assume its successor will be even more proficient.

Things like battery performance, waterproofing, image quality, and providing an added layer of smarts via the Google Assistant could very well make the Pixel 2 one of 2017's best smartphones.

This teaser drops just hours after eagle-eye Boston residents noticed a fresh billboard that also confirms the October 4 launch, but had “Ask more from your phone” plastered on.

Whether the Google Pixel 2 will be waterproof or lack a headphone jack are questions that not even Google can answer, but we don’t have long to wait now.