Google's next major Pixel phone has already leaked in Russia, and we just got our best look at it so far

Telegram/ Канал Лучкова

Google's Pixel 3 showed up on Telegram, the messaging service, in an unboxing posted earlier this month.

• Google's upcoming smartphone, the Pixel 3, remains unannounced. It's expected to debut on October 4.
• In the meantime, the phone has repeatedly shown up in leaks.
• The latest leak comes from Russia, where one blog already got its hands on what looks to be a final version of the Pixel 3 XL.

Google's next smartphone is nearly here - at least that's our best guess based on extensive leaks about the upcoming iPhone rival.

We already know that the phone has a notch, similar to the iPhone X, and otherwise looks very similar to the Pixel 2 before it:

XDA-Developers/dr.guru

We know that there's still no headphone jack, and the fingerprint scanner is still on the back of the phone. We know that the specs are an expected bump over last year's Pixel, but not a huge jump. We know that there's a standard Pixel 3 and an "XL" version, that's larger.

We even know the date it's supposed to launch: Google itself outed the Pixel 3's launch date as October 4. And this week, we got an even closer look at the Pixel 3 XL through a Russian blog named Rozetked.

The site claims to have a final version of the Pixel 3 XL, which it's putting through the paces.

There's not a lot of new info that we didn't already know, but we did get a look at some sample photos that the Pixel 3 XL is capable of producing - like this one:

And this one:

These are especially important in the case of the Pixel line given the incredibly high bar set by previous Pixel phones - the Pixel 2 still has the best camera available in any current smartphone, including the iPhone X.

The Pixel 3 is expected to improve upon the Pixel line's best feature. All we know about the phone's camera thus far is that it's likely to be a single lens setup rather than the once rumored dual-lens camera. 

Unfortunately, we won't know specifics about the Pixel 3 until Google announces them. For now, we've got this gentleman's Instagram feed and these beautiful new photos of the Pixel 3 XL to gawk at.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Get the latest Google stock price here.