Is HTC making the next Pixel phones for Google?

The Google Pixel is the Holy Grail of all Android smartphones. It is the guideline around which other manufacturers build their iterations of Android-based smartphones. The astonishing fact about the Pixel is that it has been designed and made by HTC, one of the pioneers in the world of Google’s open source operating system. That reassures a Pixel customer that the phones would stand the test of time and provide the best hardware experience, even though with conservative designs. And, it seems that HTC is going to do that with the next generation of Pixel smartphones as well.

A Japanese blog, called HTCSoku, has found a reference to the next generation Pixel phones while playing around with the HTC U11’s file system. The HTC U11’s system files have references to ‘S2’ and ‘M2’. The current generation of Google Pixel and Pixel XL phones had the codenames ‘S1’ and ‘M1’ respectively during their development process, which was loosely based on the HTC A9 and the HTC 10. Therefore, the next generation of the Pixel smartphones should be called the ‘S2’ and ‘M2’. The blog also found links of the ‘S2’ and ‘M2’ files with the Snapdragon 835 chipset.

This renders speculations that Google’s next generation of Pixel smartphones will be based on the existing HTC U11. The Google phones might drop the delicate rear glass panels and adapt a metallic body along with a rear fingerprint sensor. They could be running on the SD835 chipset with 4GB of RAM and 64/128GB of storage. Since there’s no dual camera sensor on the U11, the 2017 Google flagships could also be sporting single lens rear camera. However, the Edge Sense feature from the U11 may not find a place on Google’s smartphones as it is an exclusive feature to the 2017 HTC flagship. And, they will have a solid build quality as well.

The Google Pixel 2 smartphone range could be unveiled later in the year. Stay tuned for further updates on the next generation Google Pixel smartphones.