The Pixel 11 is available to pre-order, but you probably shouldn't right now — here's why
Google has officially revealed the Pixel 11 series, and pre-orders are now open ahead of an official release date of August 20. The four new phones don't offer amazing upgrades compared to the Pixel 10 series, but there's enough that some of you are probably prepping to pre-order this phone as soon as you can. I'm here to tell you why you shouldn't do that.
The thing about Pixel phones is that they're like video games. You could buy them as soon as they're released, and pay full price to experience them right away, but you're just spending money that could be better used for other things. And it all comes down to the fact Pixel phones are essentially the mattresses of the smartphone world.
Considering how often, and how quickly the newest Pixel phones go on sale, paying full price is essentially agreeing to be ripped off.
Pixel discounts happen regularly, and quickly
Imagine you're looking at a new phone that's just been released. The $900 price tag is a little expensive for your tastes, but you know that waiting for a major discount is a fool's errand. Maybe you'll be able to save a bit of money during the next sales event, like Black Friday or Prime Day, but there's never any guarantee that it'll actually happen — or how much money you might save.
For the last few years I've noticed that this isn't the case with Pixel phones. In fact, sometimes the discounts can start coming within a few weeks of the phone actually going on sale. If you're willing to wait for the Fall Prime Day sale, or the Black Friday season, you could be looking at a pretty hefty discount.
Admittedly I am making an assumption about what the future holds for the Pixel 11 series. I don't have a crystal ball or magic powers that let me see into the future. But this is not the first time I've noticed this trend, and I would be very surprised if the Pixel 11 broke rank.
Pixel 10 discounts we spotted last year
The first Pixel 10 discount we spotted was at the start of September 2025, during Amazon's Labor Day sales. The phone didn't get any discounts, per se, but buying one did net you a free $200 Amazon gift card. While it's not the same as cold-hard cash, Amazon's ubiquity means that this is almost as good as getting $200 off your total.
I should mention at this point that the Pixel 10 was released on August 28, with pre-orders opening eight days earlier on August 20. This means the first Pixel 10 retailer deal happened just four days after release day.
The first actual discount happened in early October, during Amazon's fall Prime Day, with the $799 price tag dropping to $649. That's just on Amazon too, and further price drops did happen elsewhere — including Mint Mobile who started selling the Pixel 10 for $549 around the same time.
Further discounts towards the end of the last year eventually saw that price matched at Amazon, with occasional discounts to that same price happening in the early months of 2026
Price trackers show similar trends with the Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL — though the larger phone's discounts are a little more erratic. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold took longer to go on sale, and didn't get any meaningful discount until November, with the likes of Amazon, Google and Best Buy all knocking $300 off.
This trend isn't exclusive to Pixel 10 either
The quick discount situation is an ongoing trend for Pixel phones and it is pretty common to see those prices dropping within a couple of months of release date.
Pixel 9 prices first dropped in October 2024, following the late August launch, though the price tracker does seem to have more ups and downs than a rollercoaster during the later months of 2024.
We saw the price drop as low as $548 during that year's Black Friday sales, though prices seemingly stabilized until before the Pixel 10 launch — after which they started to dip even further and more frequently.
Things never seem to get quite as low as the Pixel 8, which has been spotted for as low as $399. However, that low price happened in February 2025, almost a year and a half after it was first released.
I don't think waiting that long is worth it, but the price trackers do show the first dips in price happening around the Black Friday and holiday shopping seasons — occurring less than 2 months after the phone's October 2023 release.
The Pixel 7 followed a similar trend, eventually tapering out at around $449 almost a year after its initial release.
Though going back, it seems the Pixel 6 wasn't quite so quick to drop in price, and the price trackers don't have a lot of information from that far back. But considering the Pixel 6 started at $599, there wasn't a lot of room for price cuts until much later in its life cycle.
Regardless, we've seen that the last four generations of Pixel phones have enjoyed generous discounts very soon after release. Which tells me that we should certainly wait and see whether the Pixel 11 follows the same trend — because odds are that it will.
The Pixel 10 might be the better option right now
Saving money is all well and good, but there is one more question you need to ask yourself before you pick up a Pixel 11 series phone. And that is, "would you be just as happy with a Pixel 10 instead?"
Not only are Pixel 10 series phones cheaper than their Pixel 11-series counterparts, the differences between them aren't actually that extreme. Whether you're looking at the standard model or the Pixel 11 Pro XL, you're not getting a lot of upgrades.
There's a new modem, 256GB of base storage, faster wireless charging (25W vs 15W) and the Tensor G6 chipset. There's also a smaller battery, which doesn't fill me with much confidence.
The difference on the Pixel 11 Pro XL is even worse, since the 10 Pro XL already came with 25W wireless charging and 256GB of storage as standard. It apparently charges a little faster, gaining an extra 5% battery in half an hour, but that's the only extra upgrade it has compared to the smaller 11 Pro.
Admittedly we haven't done any lab testing with the Pixel 11 series yet, so we don't know how much of a change there is in terms of performance and battery life. So our opinion on the Pixel 11 upgrades may change later.
It's also worth noting that the Pro models also suffer from reduced RAM on their cheapest option, with 12GB of memory on models with 256GB of RAM. Meanwhile 16GB was standard on all Pixel 10 Pro and XL variants, including 128GB and 256GB storage variants.
Considering additional RAM is essential for on-device AI features, this actually puts the cheapest Pixel 10 Pro models at an advantage compared to their successors.
You can pick up a Pixel 11 Pro or Pro XL with 16GB of RAM, but you'll need to pay out for the higher 512GB and 1TB storage variants. That'll cost you an extra $120 for 512GB or $350 for 1TB. All while the equivalent Pixel 10s are available with heavy discounts, even if that means you need to pick up a refurbished model.
Bottom line: It all comes down to pre-order bonuses
The one thing that may affect your decision to pre-order or wait are the pre-order bonuses that are on offer. Google is offering increased trade-in credit during the pre-order window, gift cards with each new phone sold and discounts on the Pixel Watch 5. However the amount you get will vary depending on the device you buy and what you trade-in, and different retailers may have their own promotions in mind.
Pro buyers get up to $600 trade-in credit, a $200 gift card and $250 off a Pixel Watch 5. Meanwhile Pixel 11 owners are restricted to $500 trade-in credit, a $100 card and $130 off the Watch 5. This could be enough to sway you into buying, especially if you were planning on buying a Pixel Watch 5 and other Google accessories anyway.
But if all you're interested in is the new phone, then you are better off waiting. A little bit of patience could save you a few hundred dollars compared to buying the phone outright, especially if you weren't planning on trading in your old device — or it's in such bad condition you wouldn't get much for it. Because, odds are, in a couple of months we'll have seen the first Pixel 11 deals already, and you might be kicking yourself for paying the newly released prices right away.
And if the prices somehow don't go down in the next few months, it's not like you lost out on anything by waiting.
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