'Affordable' Google Pixel smartphone, Pixelbook laptop may be launched soon in India

India is fast emerging as one of the biggest markets in the world of technology. Every major brand including Google, whose parent company is Alphabet, therefore, wants to introduce more and more products in the Indian market. Other foreign firms like Apple and even Amazon have already expanded their portfolio in the country. Despite unveiling its Pixel series of smartphones, Google is mostly known for its search engine in India, as the device remained out of reach for common masses. Looking to create a sizeable presence for itself in this segment, Google is now gearing up to bring most of its smart products to the Indian market, and reports say that a midrange Pixel smartphone may come this year as part of that effort, said an Economic Times report.
 
According to the report, a midrange Pixel smartphone, specifically for Indian users, may be launched in July-August this year. Google may also unveil a premium laptop Pixelbook along with intelligent home automation products such as doorbell, camera, alarm system and a smoke detector, sold under the Nest brand along with its Wi-fi system - Google WiFi, said the report, pointing out that the firm will expand distribution into general trade and spend big on marketing like Apple and Samsung.
 
Apart from the midrange smartphone, the company is also expected to release its range of smart speakers. Google has already teased the launch of the Google Home and Google Home Mini speakers. Although the company hasn’t disclosed the prices, the Home may reportedly be priced at Rs 9,999 while Home Mini may come at a price of Rs 4,499, thereby, posing a tough competition against Amazon’s Echo smart speakers.
 
The company is also expected to launch a slew of other home automation systems to expand its presence in India, and to strengthen its presence further, it is rumoured to have partnered with Redington for exploring brick-and-mortar stores to reach out to customers, like Apple. 
 
Google is reportedly gearing up to launch ‘Google Home’ and ‘Google Home Mini’ in India this month, and the announcement in this regard may come soon. The Assistant in Hindi is rolling out to Android phones 6.0+ (Marshmallow and above) and would soon come to Android 5.0 Lollipop, iPhones as well as Android Oreo (Go edition) devices.
 
A GizmoChina report also stated that Google Home and Google Home Mini will be available in India in April this year. This launch comes a few months after Amazon launched its Echo smart speakers - Echo, Echo Plus and Echo Dot with Alexa in India.
 
It may be noted that Google has earlier launched the Assistant in Hindi in Allo, brought the English Assistant to more phones, and made a special version available for Reliance Jio feature phones. The Google Assistant lets us have a conversation with Google to help us get things done in our world from telling us about our day, to finding the fastest route to work, or just setting an alarm for the next day all in Hindi. 
 
I you want to try it out, just touch and hold the Home button or say "Ok Google" on smartphones and your personal Google Assistant will be ready to help you throughout the day. Even when your hands are full, you can quickly send text messages, set reminders, or get directions with the Google Assistant.

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Powered by machine learning, the Google Assistant is reportedly built on two decades of experience in search as well as natural language understanding, computer vision, and understanding user context.