The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL should start shipping today to those who pre-ordered. Both phones will come with Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box but that won’t be for long.
Google has confined that an Android 8.1 Oreo update should arrive in coming weeks, though first as a developer preview (MR1). The stable update should follow after, arriving on the new Pixels first and then last year’s models.
The update is expected to activate the Pixel Visual Core chip inside the 2nd gen Pixels. No other features from the changelog have been mentioned.
Yesterday, Google revealed that the new Pixels have an image processing unit called the Pixel Visual Core. It will handle all things photography on the device. It is said to consume a tenth of the energy consumed by the SD835 while being 5X faster.
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Apart from that, developers will be able to use it to bring the Pixel’s HDR+ photography to their apps that use the Android Camera API. This feature is said to come later.
(Via)
