C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
TL;DR Google’s in-house Tensor chips are facing heavy criticism from fans for their subpar performance and poor battery life.
Readers feel that Google Pixels, which are priced as flagships, largely lack the performance to justify the price tag.
While some fans appreciate the AI features and software integration of the chip, many believe that its flaws outweigh its benefits.
The recently launched Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 looks promising on paper, and Qualcomm seems poised for another successful year, securing its place among top Android flagships once again. Despite its dominance, it’s looking unlikely that a Snapdragon SoC will make its way to a Google Pixel flagship anytime soon, and my colleague C. Scott Brown is actually glad that Pixels don’t use Snapdragon. Much like he predicted, this opinion was highly controversial, and it seems a lot of our readers are done forgiving Tensor for its mediocrity.
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A recurring frustration that we could sense across over 130 comments in that article is that Tensor seems to have lost the plot for performance big time, especially when compared to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon and Apple’s A-series chips. The original article argued that not everyone needs blazing-fast performance, but readers are quick to point out that several of Google’s inefficient and outdated decisions on the Tensor are holding back the Pixel lineup, especially in areas such as gaming, heat management, and long-term performance.
Adding fuel to the Tensor fire is the fact that Pixels are priced like flagships, and yet, they don’t come with flagship performance. A few loyal fans do praise the tight software integration and AI features enabled by in-house chips, but the overall reader sentiment is heavily negative, with many likening the Tensor to a budget chip sold at luxury prices.
Take, for instance, our reader kylesbeautydiary, who mentions that it would be one thing if Tensor chips could approach today’s flagship performance, but they say that they don’t even come close to last year’s mid-range Snapdragon phones. The reader agrees that performance metrics aren’t everything, but at the same time, they do reflect an impact on everyday usage.
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