The launch of the Pixel 6 series is just around the corner, and thanks to leaks and Google themselves, we know pretty much everything there is to know about it. While we’ve seen leaked renders, official renders, live shots in carefully crafted professional advertisements, and photos of the phone behind glass, we have yet to see candid shots of the Pixel 6. Now, thanks to a brief hands-on video of the Pixel 6 Pro, we have our first real-world, unglamorous view of the upcoming smartphone. The leak not only confirms the Pixel 6 Pro will have a glossy back — which our own source can corroborate — but it also corroborates our earlier exclusive on the Google Tensor specifications.
The real-world images of the Pixel 6 Pro were first shared publicly online today by M. Brandon Lee of ThisIsTechToday. The device is a prototype — as is clearly indicated by the lack of the Google logo on the back — but the hardware shown should match the final design, as it’s apparently from a Product Validation Test (PVT) batch.
We can see the hole-punch camera on the front, a bar on the back containing three cameras, and the curved front and back of the Pixel 6 Pro. The back of the phone shines brightly when light hits it, suggesting the finish will be very glossy.
Apart from confirming the glossy back, this leak also corroborates the specifications of the Google Tensor chip, as we previously mentioned. An image of the phone running the CPU-Z app reveals the Google Tensor CPU to have two of Cortex-X1 cores, Arm’s most powerful Cortex CPU to date. In contrast, neither the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 nor the Samsung Exynos 2100 have more than one Cortex-X1 core.
Assuming that the output wasn’t tampered with, CPU-Z identified the same core configurations and frequencies as we previously did for the Google Tensor chip.
2x ARM Cortex-X1 clocked at 2.802GHz
2x ARM Cortex-A76 clocked at 2.253GHz
4x ARM Cortex-A55 clocked at 1.80GHz
The story behind this leak is also quite interesting, as this Pixel 6 Pro appears to have been discovered in a computer shop in Nigeria, continuing the trend of unreleased Google phones appearing in random shops around the world. The original source of the images and video remains unknown at this time, as one user claiming to be the original source may only just be a friend of the source. In any case, we can expect more details to leak in the coming days if this Pixel 6 Pro prototype is out in the wild.