Google Pixel 3a – Good enough computing?

Pixel 3a may be a herald of woe.

• Google’s Pixel 3a is the first real test as to whether or not the smartphone has entered the realm of good enough computing.
• Good enough computing is the point at which hardware has reached a point where the experience is no longer meaningfully improved by further upgrades and the pace of innovation slows right down.
• This happened in PCs some time ago.
• If this proves to be the case, then the outlook for the smartphone market is bleak indeed as prices will be very likely to fall as cheaper devices would become demonstrably equivalent to flagships.
• The Pixel 3a is a device that looks just like the regular Pixel but makes some hardware compromises in order to bring the price down to $399.
• These are in the build quality, the processor, water resistance and wireless charging but the camera and the screen (OLED 1080p) are still pretty high-end.
• The Google software user experience and functionality remain exactly the same in a first crucial test of how much users are willing to pay up for these extra hardware features.
• Google’s pitch is essentially that the software can make up for shortfalls in hardware specification (e.g. multiple cameras and the processor).
• Google’s announcements at i/o particularly around how it has managed to shrink a number of its AI engines in size is an indication of how software performance may be able to improve the user experience such that it competes well with a flagship but at a lower price.
• Typically, cheaper Android devices compromise on the camera and the screen (both of which are harder to replace with software innovation) and are immediately noticeable to users.
• What Google has done with the Pixel 3a is to compromise on the processor where it thinks it can make up for the performance hit from a cheaper part with better software.
• If Google’s software improvements are as good as it is promising, then there is scope for this device to perform like a flagship but at half the price.
• Fortunately for the Android handset makers, Google’s ineptitude at hardware and physical distribution is likely to mean that volumes are a mere rounding error, but it is a dangerous moment.
• Should someone like Xiaomi (the cheap phone specialist) copy this idea and do a deal with Google for all the software rather than just Android + GMS, then there is a real risk to Android device pricing.
• The key to this would be a deal with Google which I have long advocated that Samsung (see here) should make, but no one seems to have been able or willing to make that happen.
• Consequently, the end result is likely to be no change, but this should serve as a warning shot across the bows to both the handset makers and the component vendors who supply them.
• I continue not to be in favour of investing anywhere in the smartphone value chain in 2019 as shipments find a new level based on the lengthening of the replacement cycle.