Google Pixel 8 Pro prototype spotted with improved fingerprint sensor
Evidence of a prototype Google Pixel 8 Pro of sorts appears to have been spotted in testing, with one notable hardware improvement.
We may have only just received the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, but the protracted nature of hardware development means that Google is already hard at work on the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro.
The first evidence of this may just have emerged courtesy of tipster Kuba Wojciechowski, who has informed 91mobiles of a device codenamed the Pixel G10 that’s currently in testing with Google.
It seems this G10 model is all but identical to the Google Pixel 7 Pro, with the exact same dimensions and display. The one thing that’s different is that it packs a Qualcomm Ultrasonic fingerprint sensor rather than the optical sensor found in the Pixel 7 Pro.
This would mark a potentially significant upgrade over previous Pixel phones. The fingerprint sensor was a bit of a weakness in the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, though we found the latest generation to be better.
Given the otherwise identical nature of this hardware, it seems likely that the so-called Pixel G10 is a prototype device intended to test a specific new hardware feature – likely the aforementioned fingerprint sensor. As such, it’s unlikely to be fully representative of what will be the Pixel 8 Pro.
That would appear to be confirmed by another interesting morsel of information surfaced by Wojciechowski. The ‘G’ in ‘G10’ could well stand for ‘gepard’, which is German for ‘cheetah’. Cheetah was the codename used for the Pixel 7 Pro ahead of launch.