I am interested to see what market segment this is aimed at. Since you can get flagship chips on devices from OnePlus, it needs to be very aggressive on pricing and with some bonuses thrown in (unlimited Google Photos storage, maybe a free upgrade on Google One plans,etc)
Undoubtedly they’ll charge a massive premium on top of this for the ‘Pixel’ branding, despite the massive screen to body ratio downgrade over phones in this price bracket.
There is always an argument when discussing the cost of iPhone that the premium applied to the phones are to cover the years of support and software upgrades.
In terms of software support, the pixel is supported longer than any other Android phone. Perhaps this is where higher costs are justified.
It’s just a point I have heard before. In essence, I believe - like you - that flagship or mid range phones from the main brands are too expensive. I was really interested in the pixel 3 prior to release, but the cost of the XL was too high.
If like you say, this is 100-200 quid, it would be great. I just can’t see that this is likely unfortunately, as I feel this is going to be in the 400-500 bracket