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Google Pixel 3 ‘Lite’ leaks in extensive video

Google Pixel 3 ‘Lite’ leaks in extensive video

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It wouldn’t be a new Pixel without a massive leak

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Image: Andro News

At this point it may be a tradition that new Google phones show up in unboxing videos from Eastern Europe before they’ve even been announced. So it is with the so-called “Pixel 3 Lite,” a midrange Pixel phone that’s already leaked extensively but has now shown up in apparently near-final form on video thanks to a new YouTube channel called Andro News. (Update: The original video has been removed from YouTube, but others have reuploaded it as seen below.)

The phone is supposedly codenamed “Sargo” and runs on a Snapdragon 670 processor and 4GB of RAM. It looks similar to the Pixel 3, with fairly sizable bezels above and below the screen, but there’s no secondary selfie camera on the top or front-facing speaker on either. The chassis is seemingly constructed out of plastic, and unlike on the flagship Pixel models Google has made room for a headphone jack. The screen is said to be a 5.56-inch 2220 x 1080 LCD, while the battery is reportedly 2,915mAh.

“The same quality photos as the Pixel 3”

Perhaps most importantly, the phone appears to have a similar camera to its more expensive cousins, featuring a 12-megapixel sensor with 1.4-micron pixels and an optically-stabilized lens with an aperture of f/1.8. Andro News claims the new phone takes “the same quality photos as the Pixel 3,” but doesn’t provide side-by-side comparisons. Given the lower-end Snapdragon system-on-chip it can’t be assumed that image rendering will be identical to the regular Pixel 3, particularly as there’s no mention of the Pixel Visual Core’s inclusion, but Google’s machine-learning chops should make this a strong performer no matter the hardware.

With a leak this extensive, you’d normally expect an official launch to be imminent. But every Pixel phone leaks in such great detail that we probably shouldn’t get our hopes up for an event before the thing appears for sale in Hong Kong. Stay tuned for more, probably.

Update January 17th 2019, 3:40PM ET: The story has been updated to reflect that the original Pixel 3 Lite video was removed from YouTube.