If you’re looking for an update on the 2017 Pixel phones, there’s quite a bit of news which has been making the rounds.
Back in March, it was rumored that Google was working on a total of three Pixel phones for 2017. The two devices known as Walleye and Muskie were expected to be the direct replacements for the 2016 Pixel and Pixel XL, while the mysterious Taimen was rumored to be a larger device with a display close to 6-inches.
As is turns out, sources close to the project now claim that the Muskie has been scrapped and the Taimen has taken its place. We do not know the exact reason why the number of phones has been reduced from three to two, but some are speculating that the battery life and cost effectiveness of the Muskie didn’t meet Google’s expectations.
While there are still two Pixel phones in the pipeline for 2017, there’s new evidence which suggests that HTC will not be building the Taimen for Google. A bug report file by an LG employee in the Android Issue Tracker shows that LG is definitely involved with the construction of the upcoming Pixel phone. However, we’d like to point out that we’ve known about the LG connection for some time. In April, we learned that Google invested nearly $1billion into LG’s flexible OLED business to ensure there would be enough supply of LG’s displays on hands for an upcoming Pixel smartphone. The bug report may simply be ties to LG’s involvement as a supplier of the display panel, but there’s also the chance that Google has turned to LG to build the entire phone.
Hopefully, we’ll hear more about the Taimen over the next few weeks to clear up some of this mess. Would you still be willing to buy the 2017 Pixel phone even if it’s not built by HTC?
Source: 9to5Google
