Google’s Pixel won’t be waterproof, sports an IP53 rating just like the HTC 10

Perhaps this won’t come as a surprise considering some of the other disappointing tidbits we’ve heard lately about Google’s forthcoming Pixel flagship. Not only will the phone come at a premium, it appears more with every new leak that it won’t be much of a premium phone no matter the cost.  The latest is word (via Android Police) that the phone won’t be waterproof — it’ll only be rated at IP53…

For those unfamiliar with IP ratings, the first number is for dust resistance and the second is for water. So as far as dust, “ingress… is not entirely prevented, but it must not enter in sufficient quantity to interfere with the satisfactory operation of the equipment,” and as for water, the phone can sustain “water falling as a spray at any angle up to 60° from the vertical [with] no harmful effect.”

That’s compared to the newly-launched iPhone from Apple which is now officially IP67 waterproof (after being unofficially waterproof for at least a generation or two), and Samsung’s latest flagships which are both IP68. The former can withstand up to 1 meter of water for 30 minutes, and in the case of Samsung the phones can both withstand about 1.5 meter of water for the same amount of time. Google’s Pixel will barely handle temporary heavy rain.

There must be something that we don’t know, right? Right? At $650 the Pixel really needs to have little to no compromises. The specs are looking up to par (the SoC is a Snapdragon 821, which we’ve heard will be screaming fast), but specs aren’t going to cut it if Google wants to capture the eyes of the usual consumer. Its hype and marketing campaigns won’t do much good if the phone is lackluster.

In case you missed it, Nest mistakenly showed the Pixel phone in a commercial a couple of days ago, and the very first alleged real-life photos of Google’s Pixel and Pixel XL emerged. Google also recently began a marketing campaign teasing the Pixel announcement coming on October 4, and we learned just yesterday that a reboot button might be coming with the release of the new Pixel phones.