Unannounced Google Pixel 2 by HTC with 3830mAh battery spotted in AOSP


Google Pixel 2 XL

Google introduced Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL earlier this month. Though initial reports said that there might be total three Pixel smartphones, Google only launched two variants of the new Pixel phone canceling the third Pixel device.

The three-pixel smartphones which were planned earlier are codenamed as walleye, muskie, and taimen with ‘walleye’ and ‘taimen’ being the Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. Though the reports about Muskie were dismissed later, this unannounced device today has started showing up in the in AOSP. The new device branch called ‘muskie‘ can now be found in the latest Android source drop, branch Android-8.0.0_r24, that was released along with the source code of the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL.

The “PRODUCT_MANUFACTURER” confirms that it indeed was a Google device and In the ‘init.common.usb.rc.’ file, there are enough references and evidence to prove that this Google phone was probably made by HTC. The init.common lines indicate how the battery driver behaves when the device is in a retail demo mode. The Kernel parameter path has ‘HTC’ written which indicates that the battery was manufactured by HTC.

The  power_profile.xml file shows that this HTC made Google phone had a battery capacity of 3830mAh which is larger than the 3,520 mAh battery of the Pixel 2 XL. It even had the same DPI as the Pixel 2 XL at 560. Most importantly, the unreleased Muskie also packed the Pixel Visual Core SoC (codename “easel” in AOSP) for image processing which is currently lying beneath the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL waiting for the activation during Android 8.1 update.

Going the findings and the code it shares with ‘walleye’ (Google Pixel 2 XL) from the AOSP, it looks like Muskie was initially supposed to be the Google Pixel 2 XL before Google bought LG into the picture for the current Pixel 2 XL.

Source 1,2 | Via