In a surprising turn of events, someone claims to have used the unreleased Pixel 7 Pro for three weeks without noticing it wasn’t the Pixel 6 Pro, and they have pictures to prove it.
Last week, news circulated that a prototype version of the Pixel 7 was available for purchase on eBay, offering an early look at the upcoming phone, albeit little more than what Google themselves showed at I/O. Shortly thereafter, the listing was taken down from eBay, but some noticed in reflections that the Pixel 7 was photographed with a Pixel 7 Pro.
In a new post to the Google Pixel subreddit, user AMC20_ has revealed that they purchased their device from a Facebook Marketplace listing where the device was described as a “Pixel 6 Pro.” This makes sense — This Is Tech Today reported that they too found a Pixel 7 prototype on Facebook.
In the post, AMC20_ says that they were able to use the phone for three weeks without issue. In fact, it’s not clear that the redditor was even aware that they were using a Pixel 7 Pro rather than the Pixel 6 Pro that was advertised.
After all, based on the photos shared — seen below — their prototype Pixel 7 Pro has the Obsidian color option and looks quite similar to the Pixel 6 Pro in Stormy Black. The two phones should even have the exact same display tech under the hood.
Unfortunately, things went awry yesterday once news of the loose prototypes was reported. According to the owner’s post, the Pixel 7 Pro prototype was remotely wiped by Google and made unusable. Turning it on now brings the phone directly to Android’s fastboot recovery menu. From there, we can see the Pixel 7 Pro’s “Cheetah” codename alongside confirmation of our report that the Pixel 7 series will use the Samsung Exynos Modem 5300.
9to5Google’s Take
On the one hand, it’s great that Google has managed to land on a stable design language for the Pixel series, making it more easily recognizable. However, it’s probably not a good thing if someone can’t easily visually distinguish between two generations of your phone. It’s also really not a great experience to buy a phone online and have it be remotely shut down three weeks later without understanding why.
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