The problems with Google Pixel price hikes

Ben Schoon | Jul 12 2026 - 9:15 am PT

Like everything else in the tech industry, Google’s Pixel 11 series appears to be getting a price hike, but there are a few factors that make this one a bit harder to accept.

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First things first: it’s official. Google is launching the Pixel 11 series during an event on August 12.

Google announces August 12 event for Pixel 11 and Pixel Watch 5

But just hours before that was announced, a report revealed potential pricing for the Pixel 11 series and, ouch.

According to this week’s report, the Pixel 11 series is getting €100 (so probably $100) price hikes across the board. The grain of good news there is that the 128GB tiers are going away, but this pushes Pixel firmly into top-tier flagship territory, with Pixel 11 at €999, Pixel 11 Pro at €1,199, Pixel 11 Pro XL at €1,399, and Pixel 11 Pro Fold at €1,999. If we translate these to US prices and assume there are no regional changes here, we’re looking at Pixel 11 at $899, Pixel 11 Pro at $1,099, Pixel 11 Pro XL at $1,299, and Pixel 11 Pro Fold at $1,899.

Again, ouch.

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Price hikes are, right now, inevitable. Google’s next Pixels were always going up in price, but there are a few reasons this price hike in particular is hard to swallow.

That starts with the Tensor of it all.

While, personally, I’ve long felt that Tensor is perfectly acceptable in general performance and more than capable of what most users actually want to do on their phones, it’d be foolish not to acknowledge that, objectively, these chips are not as good as a Snapdragon flagship. With Google charging the same prices for its phones as we see on Snapdragon-powered flagships like the Galaxy S26 series, it’s hard to ignore that, at the end of the day, you’re looking at a drop in performance in specific areas like gaming, as well as other downsides, like Pixel’s long-running struggles with heat management (which largely stems from Tensor).

Tensor G6 looks promising enough but, unless something incredible happens, the Pixel 11 series will still be less powerful than devices at comparable price points.

The storage change helps a bit here. Pixel 10 still having a 128GB base was a big detractor last year, but it’s also hard to accept a price increase for that. Google ditching that base storage tier has been long overdue, arguably for two generations now. That “upgrade” finally arriving softens the blow of this price hike, but it also just feels like the absolute least Google could do in this situation.

But the storage is also a part of the problem I’m seeing. Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL only had a $100 difference in between – $999 and 1,099. That changed on the Pixel 10 generation, with the Pixel 10 Pro (128GB) at $999 and the Pixel 10 Pro XL at $1,199, but with 256GB of storage as the base. Comparing the equal storage tiers, there was no price hike. But, this time around, Google is upping the XL’s price to where there’s a $200 gap between these devices. That’s more or less the industry standard, but I think Google had it right before, and this is a slightly sneaky change as such.

The Pixel 11 Pro Fold has absolutely no right to go up in price in my book. It’s recycling the same design that’s simply not keeping up with the rest of the foldable world. No one should be looking at $1,899 for a Pixel 11 Pro Fold when they could get a Galaxy Z Fold 8 for $100 more with a thinner, better form factor (or, you know, a used Fold 7 for less).

The other elephant in the room is the alleged drops in RAM allotments on certain models. A prior leak suggested that the base Pixel 11 could drop to 8GB of RAM, while the Pixel 11 Pro models could drop to 12GB. If so, that makes price hikes virutally impossible to accept, as while memory prices are indeed skyrocketing, paying more money for less just stings all the more, especially seeing as Google is the smartphone brand more focused on RAM-hungry AI than anyone else.

Again, price hikes were inevitable, and these alleged prices might not even be the worst of it as RAMageddon rages on. But these Pixel-specific factors make Google’s supposed raises a little harder to deal with.

What do you think?

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