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# Who Hated the Google Pixel 4? Google, Apparently
- URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/who-hated-the-google-pixel-4-google-apparently/
- Published: 2020-10-01T02:35:28.000Z
- Updated: 2020-10-01T02:35:28.000Z
- Author: Matt Birchler
- Tags: google, pixel, #Import 2023-06-01 22:41, #Import 2025-03-29 19:29

Google unveiled the Pixel 5 today ([9to5Google has a good roundup](https://9to5google.com/2020/09/30/google-pixel-5/?ref=birchtree.me)), and nothing makes the Pixel 4 looks worse than seeing how few of the things Google said they were excited about last year being straight up gone this year.

- All that face sensor tech? Gone.
- That radar sensor that was **such a big revolution**? Gone.
- Proud bezels? Gone.
- An $800-1000 price range? Slashed! *This is a good one, actually.*
- A telephoto lens? Kicked to the curb.
- A tiny, 2,800 mAh battery? Blown up to 4,000 mAh! *Again, a good move.*

I’m not saying the Pixel 5 looks bad, far from it, it looks like a respectable phone, and is getting closer to the phone that I think Google should be making. I wish the price was $100 cheaper, but hey, $699 counts as a lower end premium phone in 2020.

What I am saying is that I don’t know what the hell was going on with the Pixel 4\. The iPhone line has a pretty clear, linear progression from one year to another, as do Samsung’s lines. Even the Pixel 1 and 2 made a ton of sense together, and while the 3 was a bit weird, the 4 feels like a phone made by a rogue group of Google employees who had a whole different set of priorities than the rest of the company. I don’t know what that was all about last year, and based on the fact the Pixel 5 throws out most of the headline features from the 4, and the fact that Google stopped selling the Pixel 4 just nine months after it launched and *before its replacement was available*, neither does Google.