If the boring and graceless Google hardware event wasn’t enough, here is another announcement from Google, exclusive for Indian fans.
Google Pixel 4 and 4 XL will not be launching in India, according to the spokesperson of the tech giant.
At first, I found it hard to believe considering the company’s high talks for India and its relentless measures to bring the entire Google eco-system into the country.
However, Google has some good reasons for not launching devices in India.
Thanks to Project Soli
According to Google, the bottleneck is Project Soli, the new radar-based motion sensing system used in the Google Pixel 4 devices.
As it turns out, the “Motion Sense” of the Project Soli relies on using 60GHz mmWave length frequency. Unfortunately, the Indian government does not allow phone manufacturers to use this frequency band for commercial purposes.
There have been proposals to remove the limitation, however, no concrete step has been taken towards it.
Why not just remove the Soli chip?
I thought you would ask that! Well, actually, the majority of Google Pixel 4 new features use the Project Soli chip such as the face unlock, the new camera setup and a lot more. Removing the chip would make Pixel 4 a lot less unique than it actually is.
“Motion sense prepares the camera when you reach for your Pixel 4, so you don’t need to tap the screen,” said Sabrina Ellis, VP of Product Management at Google.
At the hardware event, Google said that “Motion Sense” interacts with the nearby surroundings to make the gestures work efficiently. It also shared how one can just reject a call just by waving a hand over the phone.
Motion Sense helps you get things done on your #pixel4 without touching it. Swipe to skip a song, silence a call with a flick of your hand, and unlock your phone super fast with face unlock. #madebygoogle pic.twitter.com/HAIBtBUsxE
— Google (@Google) October 15, 2019
Will Google will ever release Pixel 4 in India?
According to Statista, the number of smartphone users in India is estimated to increase to about 442 million in 2022. Given the huge market and Google’s already poor smartphone sales, we believe that Google would try hard in order to place its product.
In the near future, we could see a cheaper version of Pixel 4 probably the 4a, to come to the Indian market.
However, it would ultimately depend upon the Indian government whether it would choose to remove the restriction following pressure from the biggest tech company in the world.
