The Google Pixel 8 is official with 7 years of updates

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  The Pixel 8 Pro in a lovely blue. [credit: Google ]

Google's newest flagship phone is finally official. The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro were both unveiled today, with the headline changes being a whopping seven years of updates, flat screens across the board, new CPUs, and a $100 price increase. The Pixel 8 Pro is officially $999, while the Pixel 8 is $699.

The Pixel 8 Pro features a fair number of design changes. The front screen is flat now, dumping a trend started by Samsung (and its ability to make curved OLED displays). For years, Android flagships have curved the side edges of their displays, making the edges of the screen distorted and more prone to glare and accidental touches. The Pixel 8 Pro now looks just like the Pixel 8, with a normal, flat display.

The 8 Pro also gets a "soft touch matte glass back," which sounds like the same finish that was applied to the Pixel Fold. We loved the Pixel Fold back, as the satiny finish looked nice, seemed durable, provided a bit of grip if you were just carrying the phone around, and did a good job of hiding fingerprints. The aluminum on the Pro model is still polished to a mirror shine, which has the opposite of all those qualities listed above (that is, it's slippery, easy to scratch, and greasy), but at least the back is improved. The camera bump on the Pro model merges all three cameras together under a single cover, and of course there's a temperature sensor that we'll talk about later.