The Made by Google 2026 event featured a slew of celebrity appearances including host Trevor Noah, who all helped Apple designers and developers demonstrate — with no major lags or glitches during the live event — how Gemini Intelligence can be used on its new line of Pixel 11 phones, Pixel Buds 2 and the Pixel Watch 5.
As Yahoo!Tech reports, most of the features announced were not earth shattering — and the only brand new item was the Pixel Tag, an answer to Apple’s AirTag. However, improved translation features, more durable foldables and new colorways give a new feel to Pixel’s already reliable devices. Here’s everything announced at the Made by Google 2026 event.
Pixel 11 Pro Fold
Google says the Pixel 11 Pro Fold is its most sophisticated foldable smartphone, coming in at 10% lighter and 1mm thinner than its predecessor. It comes with a new hinge mechanism that makes it three times more durable, and a camera array that has two bars on top of each other on the outside of the phone.
The Pro Fold has 10MP inner and selfie cameras, 10.8MP telephoto, 10.5MP ultrawide, 48MP wide lenses, with up to 56 percent improved light sensitivity. Its new composite back cover is designed to be nearly impossible to crack.
The newest Pro Fold starts at 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, with 24 hours of battery life, powered by a Tensor G6. Its Live Transcribe option now supports American Sign Language; if you sign into the front camera, the viewer will see the translation. And with the new Bubble Anything feature, any app can be turned into a Bubble, which lives in the bottom corner of the screen for quick access.
The Pixel 11 Pro Fold comes in olive and obsidian colorways. Its starting price is $1,899, a $100 bump from last year’s base Fold model.
Pixel 11 Pro and 11 Pro XL
Google says its bigger Pixel 11 models, the Pro and the Pro XL, are its most durable pros yet. Pixel 11 Pro has a 6.3-inch display with Gorilla Glass Victus 2 cover glass and an anti-scratch shield, and is drop resistant as well as dust and water resistant. The Pro XL has a 6.8-inch display, and can charge up to 65% in about 30 minutes.
Pixel 11 Pro has a 50MP wide camera with 48MP ultrawide, 48MP telephoto and 42MP selfie lenses. Like the Pixel 11, the Pro and Pro XL both start at 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage and go up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Both Pros come in canyon, olive, fog and obsidian colorways.
The Pixel 11 Pro starts at $1,099, matching the price of the 256GB Pixel 10 Pro. The Pixel 11 Pro XL starts at $1,299, a bump up from the $1,199 starting price of the Pixel 10 Pro XL.
The Pro models come with a new feature that sounds pretty useful, called HiLight, that provides “glanceable” information. For example, when the phone is face down, LED lights around the camera lens will glow when Gemini is replying to a voice prompt. Perhaps even more useful: you can assign HiLight custom colors to glow when favorite contacts are calling. For example, if you’re stuck in a business meeting or on data, anywhere it’s deemed rude to flip your screen, HiLight shows custom LED colors to let you know who’s trying to reach you.
Pixel 11
The Pixel 11 has a more refined design, Google says, with a 6.3-inch display and a 40% thinner camera bar than previous models (i.e., can fit more easily into snug pockets).
The camera bar contains a new, larger 48MP main sensor. Google says its light sensitivity has increased by 58%, which should mean it handles challenging low-light environments better. It also comes with 13MP ultrawide, 10.8MP telephoto and 10.5MP selfie lenses. The telephoto sensor, which has an optical zoom of up to 5x, now supports Super Zoom at up to 30x. Tech experts who have had the chance to test it can’t stop raving about the improved zoom-in capabilities. It starts at 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage — double the starting storage of Pixel 10 — backed up by the Tensor G6 processor.
Google says the Pixel 11 has 30 hours of battery life and charges to 55% in 30 minutes, with 25W of Qi2.2 wireless charging, a 25% boost. And Pixel 11 comes in four (somewhat delicious-sounding) colorways: frost, hibiscus, pistachio and obsidian.
The starting price for the Pixel 11 is $899. That’s more than the $799 starting price for Pixel 10, but remember you are getting more storage by default with the Pixel 11 models.
Pixel devices will all have enhanced Gemini Intelligence features, including Rambler, which translates natural language messages into more succinct text messages (without the “ums” and pauses). Circle to Search has added Translate, so you can point your Pixel camera device at a sign in another language, for example, and get a translation right away. And Google has added AirDrop compatibility to its Quick Share feature as well.
Pixel Watch 5
The Pixel Watch 5 ramps up its use of Gemini Intelligence, with advanced fitness features debuting in September that include a workout builder, rest timers and weight and rep tracking. It will also track blood pressure trends — note this isn’t FDA-cleared, so not quite a BP monitor in the truest sense.
The newest Pixel Watch will provide helpful info at a glance, and will simplify tasks into one-tap actions, so you don’t always have to start an action on the Watch and complete it on your phone, like finding a phone number in an email. Google is adding new watch faces including “generative AI” watch faces for further personalization.
Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 processor, the Pixel Watch 5 has 50% more RAM and is 20% faster overall. It comes in 41mm and 45mm versions, and is available in obsidian, fog, olive and canyon colorways, and a special edition Stephen Curry band will be available in the U.S. only. Pricing for the Watch 5 starts at $399 for the 41mm edition, $429 for the 45mm version and $579 for the Stephen Curry edition. Pre-orders start August 12.
Pixel Tag
The only brand new item Google unveiled was the Pixel Tag, a 1-inch oval Bluetooth tracker that weighs less than an ounce and is compatible with Android phones running Android 9 and later.
Pixel Tag is Google’s answer to Apple’s AirTag, which launched in 2021. You can locate and ring the Pixel Tag, which comes in one color, fog (aka gray), from your compatible watch or phone. It’s oval-shaped, but conspicuously missing a keyring hole, making it even more like an AirTag and more of a challenge to attach to things without an accessory (as shown in the photo). A single Pixel Tag is priced at $29, while you can get a four-pack for $100. They’ll be available for purchase starting November 11.
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Photo Credit: quietbits / Shutterstock.com
