The press release over 3 months ago:
> Pixel 8 Pro — the first smartphone with AI built in — is now running Gemini Nano
> https://blog.google/products/pixel/pixel-feature-drop-decemb...
The Pixel 8 does not have Gemini Nano, the Pixel 8 Pro does.
Apparently, one of the things that make it "Pro."
https://blog.google/products/pixel/google-pixel-8-pro/
> Meet Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, engineered by Google and built with AI at the center for a more helpful and personal experience. These phones are packed with first-of-their-kind features, all powered by Google Tensor G3.
Obviously the answer is "Google wants to differentiate these phone price structures with features" to make the Pro more appealing, but they use the same "AI" hardware, and it's not because they never marketed AI on the base Pixel 8...
Yet they literally said this time around
> "[Gemini] Nano will not be coming to the Pixel 8 because of some hardware limitations."
Some of us just want a clearer explanation of what the hardware limitations are, and they they don't show up in the spec comparisons between Pixel 8 and 8 Pro.
There's a 4GB RAM difference between the two.
With what I know of LLMs...that'd make sense. But sure I'd love a technical walkthrough of everything.
Which, to be clear, launched after both phones were released anyway.
During Gemini's initial release the language surrounding nano was that it was only the Pro initially, and I was happy to wait. The complete inability to run it, when the new Samsung phones can (including the model with 8GB as reported above) feels not only like a bait-and-switch/false-advertising, but a constraint based solely on driving sales. It does demand a clear explanation.
I care less about another potential Pixel class action, and more that I have to get another phone to test and deploy my apps to a smaller audience to.
> The main differences between the two phones are screen size (6.7 inches versus 6.2), battery size, a different camera loadout, and 8GB of RAM versus 12GB. RAM is the only known difference you can point to that could create a processing limitation, but Gemini Nano also runs on the Galaxy S24 series, where the base model has 8GB of RAM. RAM being the issue would mean Samsung phones are somehow more RAM efficient than Pixel phones, which is hard to believe.
Not necessarily. It’s at least possible that the overall experience is degraded in the low RAM system, and Samsung is willing to overlook this… which isn’t hard to believe.
It's probably a safe bet to say that the phone itself is perfectly capable of running the raw model, but not necessarily while remaining usable or without disrupting other features.
The Verge, Arstechnica, etc - their tone is at best highly skeptical about tech, and often downright opposed to it (especially if it's AI).
Now they write articles like "my balls-out quest to achieve the perfect scrotum": https://www.wired.com/story/my-balls-out-quest-to-achieve-th...