I'm looking at option 3 as the logical choice. I admit I don't know, but you really think the added cost of the fingerprint sensor is significant on an $800 ph

I'm looking at option 3 as the logical choice. I admit I don't know, but you really think the added cost of the fingerprint sensor is significant on an $800 phone that's really meant as a flagship device to help keep Android relevant against iOS? Also while HN is certainly not the market at large, there's been more pushback for thicker phones with larger batteries, so the added thickness could be seen as a benefit. I don't know how Google weighed it or how they chose their priorities so I can't say whether or not they made the right call at the time (hindsight is 20/20). But based on your list, option 3 is the obvious choice to me. There's also the question of how long they had from the hardware cutoff date to the software cutoff date - I'd guess many months. Why not allocate more resources to help with the facial recognition software? That project by itself for a company at Google's scale should not take that long. Like I said, this is no longer cutting-edge tech. I guess we have to agree to disagree, but I think Google really fucked up the Pixel 4 and I bet it was a Product Manager who is responsible.