Google Tensor G3 and beyond

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TL;DR

• Google’s in-house Tensor chips are facing heavy criticism from fans for their subpar performance and poor battery life.
• Readers feel that Google Pixels, which are priced as flagships, largely lack the performance to justify the price tag.
• While some fans appreciate the AI features and software integration of the chip, many believe that its flaws outweigh its benefits.

The recently launched Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 looks promising on paper, and Qualcomm seems poised for another successful year, securing its place among top Android flagships once again. Despite its dominance, it’s looking unlikely that a Snapdragon SoC will make its way to a Google Pixel flagship anytime soon, and my colleague C. Scott Brown is actually glad that Pixels don’t use Snapdragon. Much like he predicted, this opinion was highly controversial, and it seems a lot of our readers are done forgiving Tensor for its mediocrity.

A recurring frustration that we could sense across over 130 comments in that article is that Tensor seems to have lost the plot for performance big time, especially when compared to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon and Apple’s A-series chips. The original article argued that not everyone needs blazing-fast performance, but readers are quick to point out that several of Google’s inefficient and outdated decisions on the Tensor are holding back the Pixel lineup, especially in areas such as gaming, heat management, and long-term performance.

Adding fuel to the Tensor fire is the fact that Pixels are priced like flagships, and yet, they don’t come with flagship performance. A few loyal fans do praise the tight software integration and AI features enabled by in-house chips, but the overall reader sentiment is heavily negative, with many likening the Tensor to a budget chip sold at luxury prices.

Take, for instance, our reader kylesbeautydiary, who mentions that it would be one thing if Tensor chips could approach today’s flagship performance, but they say that they don’t even come close to last year’s mid-range Snapdragon phones. The reader agrees that performance metrics aren’t everything, but at the same time, they do reflect an impact on everyday usage.

One reader recounted their personal experience upgrading from the Pixel 4 XL to the Pixel 8 Pro, only to find that some games that ran fine on the Pixel 4 were barely playable on the Pixel 8 Pro — one would presume that Tensor would be able to hold its ground against Snapdragon SoCs from four generations ago.

Reader Chaldon Pretorius presented several points against Tensor chips, namely that:

1. Pixels are worse value than competing Galaxy or iPhone models, and are blown away by the likes of OnePlus.
2. Pixels have significantly worse battery life than the competition.
3. Pixel cameras used to be great for photos, but they are just on par with the competition now as others have caught up. Pixels remain significantly behind in video.
4. Pixel’s value-adds are “AI slop” that ends up on other smartphones anyway.

The reader still agreed with the original premise of our article, that not everyone needs a “Porsche” and that Qualcomm needs competition. However, with that being said, users shouldn’t settle for “paying Porsche prices for a hopped-up Mustang.”

Reader Luke Vesty had a counter-argument to the last point, though. Just because Pixels ship with Tensor doesn’t mean that Google cannot charge a premium price, as a phone’s price is not defined by the chip alone. Pixels have numerous headlining features, both in hardware and software, that lend weight to its value proposition. Not everything is about benchmarks and battery drain tests; ultimately, it’s about the user experience.

One commenter even had a better Tensor-Snapdragon analogy than C. Scott’s Sprinter camper van-Porsche analogy:

Reader Jim Vlahos is a Pixel fan who prefers the software experience. However, even they agree that Snapdragon chips can do everything that Tensor can, but also do more, and do it faster and more importantly, more efficiently. The mediocre battery life is really getting old, and others agree that there is a big gap in battery life between Tensor and its competitors.

One thing is clear from the entire discussion: Tensor has a ton of room for improvement. Google has a lot of catching up to do, and much of the criticism coming its way is from fans who want to see Pixels succeed. Much like the company has to win back customers for its Home strategy, it also needs to win back smartphone fans with a home run.

 

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Google initially debuted its Titan M security chip back in 2018 with the Pixel 3 before following it up with Titan M2 in its first-gen Tensor launch. Now, as we approach the tenth anniversary of Pixel and the five-year anniversary of that step into custom silicon, Google is rumored to be working on yet another step forward for its security coprocessor.

As reported by Mystic Leaks on Telegram, Google is apparently working on Titan M3 for this year’s Tensor G6, codenamed “Google Epic,” running firmware “longjing.” There’s not much else to go off of here other than these initial internal listings, though this leaked report suggests Google is aiming to compete more directly with Apple’s Secure Enclave. It’s certainly been a while since we’ve seen a fresh Titan M-series coprocessor, and whatever anniversary plans the company has in store for Pixel this year seems to suggest this is as good a time as any for a refresh.

But as for what to expect, all we can really do is speculate using past information. The blog post for Google’s initial Titan launch points to a handful of ways it’s designed to protect your phone, including bootloader validation, lock screen protection through a limited series of login attempts, and the ability to “generate and store” private keys through the then-new StrongBox KeyStore API launched with Android 9. When Google launched the RISC-V-based Titan M2 chip alongside Tensor, it promoted protection against “electromagnetic analysis, voltage glitching, and even laser fault injection.”

Google has certainly seen a handful of Pixel vulnerabilities over the last half-decade, though it’s been able to fix most (if not all) of them through monthly security patches. Whether Titan M3 brings improvements to that front — or, perhaps, goes for more out-there targets like the M2’s laser fault injection protection — remains to be seen. Either way, it’s shaping Tensor G6 up to be an interesting launch, and one that could help the brand during otherwise unsteady times.

 

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