You can buy a Pixel 4a now, but Google’s already teasing the Pixel 5

By Andy Boxall Published August 3, 2020

Google is going phone crazy for the remainder of 2020. It has announced the long-awaited Google Pixel 4a and teased a future 5G version of the phone, while also confirming the Pixel 5 will arrive in the fall. Having started off the year by discontinuing the Pixel 3a, this is great news for fans of smartphones that boast awesome cameras.

Pixel 4a Google

The Google Pixel 4a shares a similar look to the Pixel 4, with a square camera module in the top-left corner of the rear panel. The camera will be the big draw for many people, as the Pixel 4a has a single 12.2-megapixel sensor packed with all of Google’s excellent computational photography software, including Night Sight, astrophotography mode, and portrait mode.

Recommended Videos

Around the front is an 8-megapixel hole-punch selfie camera, meaning Google has done away with the large bezels featured on the Pixel 3a. The OLED screen measures 5.8-inches with a 2340 x 1080 pixel resolution, and it has neatly rounded corners that give the phone a modern, slick appearance.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Inside is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G processor with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage space, along with a 3,140mAh battery that Google promises will last a full day. Made from polycarbonate, the lightweight, 143-gram Pixel 4a has a fingerprint scanner on the back, a colorful power button on the side, and even a headphone jack on the top.

Android 10 will be installed complete with Google Assistant and other software features including Live Caption for real-time captioning for video and audio, and Recorder for transcriptions. Expect the Pixel 4a to be at the top of the list for Android 11 when it’s released later this year, and for major software updates afterwards too.

What the Pixel 4a doesn’t have is 5G, but Google has let us in on a secret about that: It will release a 5G version of the Pixel 4a later this year, along with a 5G Pixel 5 too. We knew a Pixel 5 would be coming, but it’s nice to hear from Google that it will arrive at some point in the fall.

The Pixel 4a will be available from Google’s online store soon for just $349, or 267 British pounds. That makes it cheaper than the $399 Apple iPhone SE 2020, as well as cheaper than the 379 pound OnePlus Nord. When the Pixel 4a 5G arrives, it will cost $499, but there’s no word on how much the Pixel 5 will cost, or the exact release dates of either phone.

Topics

Senior Mobile Writer

Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…

Mobile

You can now send higher-quality photos in RCS Google Messages chats. Here’s how

Google Messages app on a Pixel 8 Pro, showing an RCS Chat message thread.

Google Messages is one of the most popular messaging platforms on the planet — so popular, in fact, that companies like Samsung and Verizon are doing away with their in-house messaging apps in favor of it. More than 1 billion users engage with Google Messages monthly, and a large part of the experience is RCS. We've been eagerly looking forward to the introduction of quality control when sending photos, a feature first spotted earlier this month.

Now, Google Messages has begun rolling out the "original quality" media-sharing feature, as noted by Android Authority. For now, it's only available in the beta, but that's a firm sign that all users will be receiving it shortly.

Mobile

The future of the Google Pixel Tablet doesn’t look good

Google Pixel Tablet on its charging dock.

Google’s Pixel lineup has been pretty solid lately -- at least, for most of its hardware, anyway. But there’s one Google Pixel device that seems to have flopped so hard that it may end up being a one-off thing, and that’s the Pixel Tablet.

If you’re hoping to hear some news about a proper Pixel Tablet 2, we have some bad news. According to a recent report from Android Headlines, it seems that Google has already canceled plans for a Pixel Tablet 3. But wait! Another report on Android Authority claims that it was actually the Pixel Tablet 2 that was canned, not the Pixel Tablet 3. Considering that you can’t have a third iteration before having a second, I think it’s safe to say that whatever the next version was going to be, we’re not going to see it — at least not for a while.

Mobile

Here’s every Pixel phone that can download Android 16 Developer Preview 1

The Google Pixel 9 Pro XL next to the Google Pixel 8 Pro.

Even though Android 15 launched only recently, Google is already moving on to Android 16, which is much earlier than is typical. And if you have a Pixel device from the past couple of years, you can get the Android 16 Developer Preview 1 right now.

Typically, when Google releases a beta for Android, the Pixel lineup gets it first before any other phones. When Google announced Android 16 earlier today, we didn’t know exactly which Pixel models would be able to get the Developer Preview. But Google just revealed which models can run Android 16, and two of them are a bit surprising.