Last week, we shared evidence of some Pixel 4 price leaks, as well as corroboration of color names, further evidence of the 2nd generation Nest Mini, and more. The headline of that article specifically called out these prices as unreliable, and that’s because they are. Here’s why you should take the Pixel 4 price leaks like this with a huge grain of salt…
What were the Pixel 4 price leaks?
First of all, here’s what we’re working with. Here are the supposed prices for the four models of Pixel 4 that showed up on Irish retailer Elara’s website:
- Google Pixel 4 64 GB €819.98 (“on sale” from €922.97)
- Google Pixel 4 128 GB €942.18 (“on sale” from €1,059.95)
- Google Pixel 4 XL 64 GB €1,009.98 (“on sale” from €1,136.06)
- Google Pixel 4 XL 128 GB €1,126.68 (“on sale” from €1,267.52)
They might be placeholders
The most obvious reason to be skeptical is that this one single Irish retailer can’t be trusted for pricing info any more than any other random retailer can be trusted for pre-launch pricing information. There’s very little reason to believe that this pricing, even in its native currency, is representative of the pricing the devices will have when they launch.
If further information comes to light via other retailers, then we can begin to maybe piece together some potential prices. But a sample size of one isn’t exactly great for this kind of speculation — sites like Elara have been known to put random placeholder prices online while they wait for official pricing from their suppliers (in this case, Google). Pricing is typically finalized very late.
Pixel 4 prices are “discounted?”
Another obvious reason to treat these prices with skepticism is that the retailer itself in this case doesn’t even know how to price them. All four models are “on sale” at Elara, currently sitting at about €100 off from their normal prices. Therefore, we don’t have any way of knowing what the “actual” prices are, assuming they aren’t just placeholders, as mentioned above.
Are these devices meant to be priced at €819.98, or are they actually €922.97? It’s impossible to know what a “sale” is supposed to mean on Elara’s site, especially when the devices themselves haven’t even launched yet. All the coverage I’ve seen of these prices around the web have assumed the lower prices are the “real” prices, but there’s no evidence that’s true.
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