Software giant Google officially unveiled the Pixel 4, and Pixel 4 XL today at the Made By Google event held in New York City. Both devices, come with a number of photography features, including machine learning, and of course the Project Soli radar-based gesture control technology developed by Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects team (ATAP) back in 2015. The Google Pixel 4 and 4 XL starts at a price point lower than that of the Pixel 3.
Both devices are immediately available for Pre-orders, while actual sales and shipment begin from October 24 and October 21 in that order. While the devices will go on sale in key markets including the UK, USA, China, and a host of other countries, the devices won’t be offered for sale in India.
While it would be a surprising move from Google to not bring its flagship contender to the India market, the move is actually one that might not hurt the company in terms of sales, as the Pixel smartphones have over the years failed to garner a huge acceptance from the Indian populace. That, however, isn’t one of the reasons Google isn’t launching the Pixel smartphones for the India market.
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The barrier actually lies with one of the Pixel 4 selling points – the Project Soli radar-based motion-sensing chip baked into the new Pixel smartphones that rely on using certain frequency band — 60GHz mmWave. While the software giant got the express approval of the FCC in the States for the commercial use of the Soli earlier this year, Techcrunch reports that Google failed to secure permission from the local authority in India to use this frequency band, which the nation has yet to open for commercial usage. Whether or not it applied for permission has yet to be confirmed.
Google confirms Pixel 4 not coming to India
The search giant while reacting to the non-availability of the Pixel 4, and Pixel 4 XL in the India market has this to say:
Google has a wide range of products that we make available in different regions around the world. It further says it determine availability based on a variety of factors, including local trends, and product features. We decided not to make Pixel 4 available in India. We remain committed to our current Pixel phones and look forward to bringing future Pixel devices to India.
