The Google Pixel 8a is on its way, and it has some serious shoes to fill after the impressive mid-range offering that was the Pixel 7a. Should the next phone in Google's Pixel A-series once again strike a solid balance between performance, practicality, and price, then we could find the Pixel cemented to the top of our selection of the best smartphones for yet another year.
Thankfully, we already know quite a bit about the Pixel 8a from a string of early tips and leaks surrounding Google's handset, and we want you to know all about it. From pricing speculation to release date likelihood, here's everything we know about the Google Pixel 8 (so far).
Latest news: Updated 04/08/24
- Pixel 8a leak details Google's mid-range smartphone: More details on Google's upcoming smartphone suggest camera and battery life improvements with a 120Hz refresh rate.
- Don't buy the Google Pixel 8, leaked specs show Pixel 8a is what you want: Early specs leak of the Pixel 8a suggest you should hold off on those Pixel 8 purchases.
Google Pixel 8a: Rumored release date and price
The Pixel 7a received a bump in price on release, and it not only threatened the budget champion status of Google's A-series but also led to the irrelevancy of the Pixel 7 by price. We've been hoping Google won't increase the price of the Pixel 8a in the same way, but it would seem our hopes have been dashed.
An early pricing leak from a German retailer suggests that the Pixel 8a will launch in Europe for around 570 euros for the 128GB model, potentially rising to 630 euros for the 256GB variant. That could translate to around $550 stateside, which is starting to fly in the face of the Pixel's affordability and invite devices like the OnePlus 12R or even the potential release of the iPhone SE 4 to swoop in and pose a challenge for the A-series' budget-friendly crown.
As for when we can expect to see the Pixel 8a release, likely, Google will officially unveil the Pixel 8a at this year's I/O event scheduled for May 14, 2024. After which, the Pixel A-series has somewhat of a nomadic release window, which can land anywhere from a week after the I/O event all the way into August.
We would, however, heavily speculate that Google will want to capitalize on the buzz of the Pixel 8a's announcement by releasing it sooner rather than later. We are also led to believe that when the phone does become available for purchase, it will be available in Obsidian, Porcelain, Bay, and Mint colorways. There's no word yet on any exclusive Google Store color options like last year's Coral option, though.
Google Pixel 8a: Early specifications
Google Pixel 8a: Design leaks
For the last few years, it feels like Google has done an excellent job at carving out a unique silhouette and design template for its Pixel phones to follow. From its device's iconic camera bar to the soft curve around the edges and the gentle bevel of its display, you know you're looking at a Pixel phone when you see one.
That being said, with all of that hard graft into carving out an identity in the smartphone market, it would appear that Google is ready to toss everything out and reinvent the Pixel phone by introducing a radical redesign from the Pixel 9 onward — adopting a more modern, flat-rimmed, and angular design that even swaps the camera bar for a regular camera island.
Thankfully, for fans of the current Pixel style, leaked rendered images of the Pixel 8a reveal that this device is sticking true to the style we've grown accustomed to. However, it is likely a swan song for this design as a whole unless Google plans to retain this look for its A-series devices to differentiate them from its mainline offerings.
So, what can we tell from the leaked renders so far? The Pixel 8a appears to inherit the softer angles of Google's Pixel 8-series devices, with much rounder corners than the fairly tight handbrake turns of the Pixel 7-series. We're still afforded the chic camera bar which houses a similar setup to the Google Pixel 7a with a 64MP main lens and a 13MP ultrawide sensor, though it does appear marginally smaller, thinner, and less wide than that device, reportedly measuring 5.98 x 2.85 x 0.35 inches in size.
The front display is shielded by a 2.5D curved glass top, which covers a 6.1-inch OLED panel that has been said to adopt a 90Hz refresh rate and a 1080 x 2400-pixel resolution. However, a recent leak suggests that the Pixel 8a will actually feature a 120Hz refresh rate for buttery smooth scrolling and animations at an improved brightness of 1,400 nits (likely offset by a battery life boost to 4,500mAh). Also present is the punch hole seflie camera (reportedly housing a 13MP sensor), and an under-display fingerprint reader for security.
Google Pixel 8a: Performance predictions
The Google Pixel 8a will likely feature Google's latest Tensor G3 chipset which, while far from the most powerful of mobile processors there is, lends a considerable level of performance to the smartphone, and is the very same found in the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro.
It's also the same chipset that allows for those Pixel devices to run some of Google's more advanced AI models on-device, and it may be the case that the Pixel 8a is capable of the same AI grandstanding as its pricier counterparts.
In August 2023, Geekbench results for a smartphone using the codename "Google Akita" surfaced online showcasing benchmark results for a nine-core CPU featuring a Mali-G715 GPU alongside 8GB of RAM.
This is believed to be the current configuration for the Pixel 8a with the Tensor G3 chipset running slightly underclocked from its more potent Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro siblings. The benchmarks indicate a single-core performance metric of 1,218 and a multi-core score of 3,175.
While that doesn't appear to be a great advancement over similar Geekbench 5 scores for the Pixel 7a, one of the more interesting qualities of Google's smartphones is that the numbers on paper rarely seem to accurately reflect the in-hand results of its performance. But to judge that, we'll need to wait until we get our hands on the Pixel 8a ourselves to be certain.
Google's Pixel 8a is likely to launch running Android 14, though it will no doubt be among the first devices to receive the Android 15 upgrade later on in the year. To see which other phones will be joining the Pixel 8a in its adoption of Google's future OS, check out our comprehensive list of smartphones expected to receive the Android 15 update.
