The Pixel 11: a Phone Designed to Help You Use It Less

It is pixel time, and there is a lot to talk about this year. But rather than try and cover it all, I want to talk about one specific reason why I think these phones are worth your attention. And ironically, I think the reason you should pay attention to these phones is they can help you pay less attention to your phone. Because these pixels were designed for Gemini intelligence, they can help you be more intentional about your attention. So I'll explain that. And actually, I want to show you one other thing that maybe doesn't fit the theme, but it's too good for me to skip. I'll save that for the end. First, though, I mean, just look at these phones. I love the Pixel's design language. It's elegant and practical. There's no wobble on a desk. And just look at these colors. There's olive, hibiscus. This canyon color is beautiful. And if you prefer everything to be matte black, this Obsidian Pixel 11 Pro XL has matte black rails, too. There are four models of Pixel 11, 11 Pro, and Pro XL, and the 11 Pro Fold. All of them, including and especially the Fold, are the most durable pixels yet. The specs have been upgraded across the board on all of them. Brighter screens, faster processors, and faster charging. And they all come with PixelSnap for magnetic accessories, which is something I honestly don't know if I could live without. And of course, the camera systems have also been updated on all of these devices, some pretty significantly. For example, night sight photography is four times faster on the Pros. And speaking of cameras, the other design element that's been updated is the camera bar. It's glass the whole way across, and you might notice this thing right here. That's one of the features that can help with your attention. It's called Highlight. The idea is simple. You can set your phone on a table face down, but you can still ask Gemini for things. And it subtly glows to show you when Gemini is listening or responding. And it can also be customized with different colors for important calls from your VIP contacts. Pixels are also the first phones to ship with a really great Android 17 feature called Pause Point. What you do is you mark an app as distracting, and then when you try to open it, it makes you take a pause to consider if that's what you actually want to be doing. So, you know, maybe instead of giving my attention to yet another scrolling feed, I'll give it to that book that I've been meaning to read. I think of Pause Point as the me right now that's trying to be more intentional about my attention. Not the me from a few months ago that randomly tried to set up screen time limits on a per app basis. Sometimes helping with attention simply means saving me from having to tap around so much on my phone. And this is where Gemini Intelligence comes in. It means the Pixel can handle the busy work. And the thing you probably tap the most is your keyboard. And so Pixel 11 phones come with Rambler, our incredible new voice to text feature that lets you just ramble on and all of the ums and ahs get automatically taken out. So you can write a really complicated text really fast. And it even supports multiple languages in a single text. And I'm very sorry for what's about to happen here. I apologize for this, but puedes hablar en espanol tambien. My accent is awful, but look, it's right here, fully formatted text that fast. Another thing that's easier is sharing files and contact information with QuickShare, which now supports tap to share. You just tap to share contacts or you can open up the share sheet to quickly share files with fewer digging through menus. With Gemini Intelligence, Pixel is able to provide more proactive information in context. So when somebody asks me when they're supposed to show up to the picnic, Gemini Intelligence can pop up a chip with the info right there in context, which lets me pay attention to the actual conversation I'm having and not where the info might happen to be in some other app. And if I need to get supplies for the picnic, I can just go to my shopping list and have everything put into a grocery cart for me. With Gemini Intelligence, app automation handles all of the tapping around the app for me in the background. And all I need to do is the final checkout. It's designed to let me handle that last step. Really, one of the times I end up paying attention to the phone when I should be paying attention to the people around me is when I'm taking pictures or video. So the Pixel camera has this really clever new mode called Magic Capture. You just tap over to it and hit record. And then you can actually give your attention to the people and not to what's happening on the phone screen. Magic Capture records a short video and then it's able to pull out the most interesting photos automatically and at good quality. These are just some of the ways that Pixel phones with Gemini Intelligence can help you be intentional about your attention. But if you were paying attention, I mentioned up at the top that there's this one other feature that's just so cool. I had to add it into this video. Video on Pixel 11 Pro has got a big upgrade, but there's new tools in here that are worth checking out. This is Creator Studio, which makes it easy to shoot multiple clips and string them together. And it comes with a built-in framing overlay for social media and a teleprompter function that automatically keeps pace with you as you speak. I'm gonna use the hell out of this. These features are all rad. And you know what? These phones are also all rad. I could go on and on about them, but you know, I've taken too much of your attention already. Thanks for watching.