According to the latest reports, the upcoming Google Pixel 8 series is set to arrive in up to three storage variants; 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB reserved for the Pro model. That’s the same configurations as last year, so we imagine there’ll be a similarly hefty $100 premium to move up each storage band. Suddenly the Pixel doesn’t seem so affordable, and it’s hard not to feel that Google is shortchanging customers by sticking to such a low-base storage model, especially for the Pixel 8 Pro model.
The problem: Google pitches its flagship as a photography powerhouse, and we fully expect the Pixel 8 series to be one of the best camera phones. Yet, subtract the roughly 15-20GB of storage occupied by the OS and pre-installed apps, throw in another 20GB for your own apps, and the base model leaves you with perhaps 80GB or so for photos and video. That’ll be far less if you’re hosting a serious media or game collection on your phone too. Best case, that’s a hefty sounding 20,000 12MP pictures at 3.5MB a piece or eight and a half hours of 1080p video, providing you dedicated the phone to mostly just content capture. That might be fine for light users, but start mixing in some 4K videos, and those numbers quickly feel a lot tighter.