The Pixel 11 is getting brutally crushed by its bigger brothers before launch

Out of 659 votes the poll has received to date, only 6.07% of the votes have been cast for the vanilla variant. My colleague Alan also ran a very similar poll in one of his stories, and there too, the Pixel 11 received very little love from our readers compared to its Pro siblings.

Why the affordable Pixel 11 is getting overlooked

Based on everything that has surfaced to date about the entire Pixel 11 family, Google seems to have given the least attention to the base variant this year. Compared to last year's model, the battery capacity is expected to see a boost of 15 mAh. The rear cameras could support up to 30x zoom, which is definitely a noteworthy upgrade over the Pixel 10, which caps out at 20x.

There have been some rumors that the Big G could ditch the telephoto lens in the vanilla variant, but that seems very unlikely as all renders that have surfaced till now of the device show a triple camera setup at the back. The selfie shooter might be upgraded to 13 MP from 10.5 MP. There could also be no 128 GB variant this year, and the device could start from a 256 GB storage option.

Well, if you keep your Pixel bias aside, you will realize that the phone isn't getting any groundbreaking upgrades compared to last year's model. Battery, camera, and processor are three things users generally look forward to in a phone, and the upcoming device doesn't appear to be offering anything groundbreaking in any of these departments.

Pixel Glow HiLight, which is expected to be the center of attraction at the Made by Google event, would most likely remain exclusive to the Pro variants. Also, how could we forget the price increase the entire lineup is expected to experience? So, all these are the reasons why our readers are apparently the least interested in the base Pixel 11.

Pixel 11 isn't bad; it's just not for certain users

If all the surfaced details pan out to be true, then the vanilla Pixel 11 might not be worth the upgrade for someone like me who daily drives the Pixel 10. As mentioned above, there aren't any groundbreaking changes compared to last year's model. In fact, sentiment on online forums like Reddit suggests that users who own a Pixel 9 family device are also not looking forward to upgrading to Pixel 11.

A Pixel 9 Pro XL user commented that there isn't anything wrong with the device, and as a result, they might not upgrade this year. They further mentioned that they will probably wait until the company starts using silicon carbon batteries and offers some really exciting camera upgrades. Samsung has already adopted the latest battery technology in its smartphones, so there's a high possibility that the Big G could embrace it as well in the Pixel 12 series in case it doesn't want to stay behind in the battery race.

 

Another XL variant user of the Pixel 9 series commented that the upcoming device doesn't seem to offer anything extra or useful. Interestingly, I was also able to spot plenty of comments, which basically state that users could consider upgrading if the company offers really high trade-in values. Well, whether this will happen is something we would know when the device becomes publicly available.

All that said, based on the surface leaks, I really think that users who own Pixel 8 or earlier family devices should really go for the upcoming Google phones.

Can Google surprise us all?

Although the chances seem very slim, I really want the tech giant to surprise us all by offering something exclusive and exciting for its base variant. If not, I am really afraid that it might turn out to be one of the worst-performing flagships of 2026.