Do you regret buying the vanilla Pixel 8?

Every year Google releases two flagship Pixel phones and they are never equal. However, there’s even more reason to be disappointed by the differences between the Pixel 8 and the Pixel 8 Pro, Google’s current line of premium Android handsets.

Just yesterday, we were told that the vanilla Pixel 8 model wouldn’t benefit from one of the Pixel 8 Pro’s biggest attractions – the Gemini Nano AI model. It looks like Google will skip adding on-device AI to the base Pixel 8 due to some “hardware limitations.”

If you’re wondering what the problem is, here’s what the standard Pixel 8 model will be missing. Gemini Nano powers many of the AI ​​features on the Pixel 8 Pro device. This means that all processing for these features is done primarily on the phone, without having to access a cloud server using the Internet.

For example, inside the Pixel 8 Pro, Gemini Nano powers features like Summarize in the Recorder app and Smart Reply in Gboard, all without a network connection. It’s not just that, but Google is surely planning more Gemini Nano-powered features for the Pixel 8 Pro in the future, and it’s sad that the vanilla model won’t be able to take advantage of any of them.

Another blow for Pixel 8 users is that Google announced that it would bring Gemini Nano to phones from other manufacturers. The full Galaxy S24 lineup also supports in-device AI.

Add to that the spec differences and you get a greater separation between the base and Pro Pixel 8 models this year (see video above).

So keeping the latest developments in mind, we want to know if you bought a Pixel 8 instead of the 8 Pro due to the price difference, but we now regret your decision. Do you think Google should have been upfront about the AI ​​differences on the two models at the time of their launch to help you make a more informed decision?