Google announced its Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones at the Made By Google event earlier this month. The smartphones come with built-in Google Assistant and offer a pure Android experience, with some custom features on top.
The tech giant has now clarified via a support page that the Pixel and Pixel XL are guaranteed Android updates till October 2018.
“Pixel phones get Android version updates for at least 2 years from when the device became available on the Google Store. After 2 years, we can’t guarantee additional updates,” the page says.
The timeline is similar to what most Android OEMs follow.
Furthermore, Google mentions that updates will rollout to all Pixel phones brought from the Google Store within 2 weeks. If the device is picked up from a mobile carrier or somewhere else, the updates may take longer to arrive. However, Verizon, the exclusive carrier partner in US has confirmed that the updates will roll out at the same time as Google.
Coming to security patches, Google says “Pixel phones get security patches for at least 3 years from when the device first became available, or at least 18 months from when the Google Store last sold the device, whichever is longer,” which means that security updates should be available for Pixel phones until October 2019.
To recall, the Google Pixel and Google Pixel XL phones sport an aluminium unibody and also feature polished glass combination at the back. The Google Pixel sports a 5-inch full-HD Amoled display and the Google Pixel XL sports a 5.5-inch Quad HD Amoled display – both with Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection. Both phones are powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor, paired with 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM, and sport Pixel Imprint fingerprint sensor. The smartphones offer 32GB and 128GB of internal storage options.
The Pixel is up for pre-order in India on Flipkart, and the delivery is promised to begin on October 25. The Pixel 32GB costs Rs. 57,000 and the 128GB costs Rs. 66,000. The larger Pixel XL 32GB costs Rs. 67,000 and the 128GB costs Rs. 76,000.