Google reveals Pixel 9a, with the largest battery ever in a Pixel

Google promises preorder details in the coming weeks.

Google has taken the wraps off the Pixel 9a today, a phone that has leaked about a thousand times in recent weeks, as is the Pixel tradition. Still, there are some things to know about this phone you can't glean from leaked renders or a YouTube unboxing. This phone maintains the same $499 price tag as last year's A-series phone, but it has a larger battery, a new camera, and a simpler design that ditches the camera bar of other recent Pixel phones.

The Pixel 9a has the same flat aluminum frame that has been in vogue on smartphones for the past few years. Unlike the more expensive Pixels, the back is plastic instead of Gorilla Glass. Google says it's made of 81 percent recycled material, and the aluminum is 100 percent recycled. Apparently, these percentages are a record for the Pixel series, if that's something that matters to you.

From the front, you can barely tell the Pixel 9a from its predecessor, although the display is a bit larger. Google's new phone has a 6.3-inch OLED display with slightly wider bezels than the flagship Pixels. As a result, it's a few millimeters larger in height and width compared to last year's model. Google maintained the same 8.9 mm thickness, though.

The display is once again covered with generations-old Gorilla Glass 3, but the phone has gotten a small upgrade from IP67 to IP68, making it slightly more resistant to water infiltration when submerged. The display supports a 120Hz refresh rate with a peak brightness of 2,700 nits, which is a reasonable increase over the 2,000 nits of peak brightness for last year's phone.

The phone comes in the traditional porcelain (white) and obsidian (black) colors, along with this year's signature colors of peony (pink) and iris (purple-ish blue). The base model has 128GB of storage for $499, but an upgrade to 256GB is available for $599.

Flatter but still Pixel-y

While older Pixel phones could look a bit busy with their multicolored backs and prominent camera bars, the lineup has been trending toward a streamlined look, and the Pixel 9a truly embraces that. Google says the Pixel 9a uses a thinner pOLED screen, which allowed engineers to save a precious few millimeters. With more room inside, Google was able to eliminate the camera bump entirely for a cleaner look.

The thinner display also left more room for the battery—Google probably could have made the phone body thinner and left the cameras to stick out, but instead, the 9a has the largest battery ever put in a Pixel. Yes, Google actually did the thing we always chastise OEMs for not doing.

Google's phones are not generally big in the battery department—they last a day on a charge, but this one will give you a little more breathing room. It's not the champ by a huge margin, but the 5,100 mAh battery is a big step up from the 8a's 4,492 mAh cell and squeaks past the Pixel 9 Pro XL at 5,060 mAh. Google says the phone is good for 30 or more hours of use per charge and 100 hours with battery-saver mode turned on. The phone also gets a mild charging upgrade, with a max wired speed of 23 W instead of the meager 18 W on last year's A-series phone.

Google has continued the tradition of slapping its flagship processor in budget phones. The 9a has a Tensor G4 processor, which is not necessarily a speed demon compared to the latest from Qualcomm or Apple. However, Google says it has optimized Tensor for specific tasks rather than benchmarks, and it's nice you get the same pretty fast hardware in a phone that costs hundreds of dollars less than the Pixel 9. This chip is paired with 8GB of RAM, a step down from the 12GB of RAM available in the more expensive Pixel 9 phones but the same as the 8a.

A new Pixel camera

Without a camera bar, the Pixel 9a doesn't have that "serious about cameras" vibe of past Pixel phones. However, Google is still serious about mobile photography. This is still a Pixel camera with all the clever functionality we've come to expect from Google.

Google has made some changes to the primary shooter. The Pixel 8a had a 64 MP camera, but the 9a has a 48 MP primary sensor (imaged binned to 12 MP). This sensor's specifications appear similar to the 48 MP camera in the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, but Google says it's a slightly different piece of hardware. It's smaller and lower resolution than last year's A-series phone, but that doesn't necessarily equate to lower image quality—the Pixel 9 Pro Fold offered better snapshots than the Pixel 8a, for example. Google does not list sensor models, so we'll have to wait to see how the camera performs in real life.

The primary shooter is joined by a 13 MP ultrawide that appears unchanged from last year's phone. There is no telephoto camera—you have to go all the way up to the Pixel 9 Pro to get that. However, the Pixel 9a can take advantage of Google's impressive "Super Res Zoom" image sharpening for up to 8x zoom on the main sensor. The selfie camera also remains unchanged at 13 MP.

On more expensive Pixel phones, you can take macro shots using the ultrawide lens, which has autofocus. The Pixel 9a doesn't have that, but it can take macro photos with a new AI-assisted feature called Macro Focus. This uses the primary sensor to create a sharper close-up shot. Again, we'll have to see how this performs in real life, as Google hasn't provided many specifics. The phone has other banner Pixel camera features, including Add Me, Night Sight, Face Unblur, astrophotography, and editing features like Best Take and Magic Editor.

Android, updates, and availability

The software experience should hew close to the more expensive Pixel 9 phones. The phone will launch with Android 15, and it's guaranteed seven years of OS updates. That will include an update to Android 16 in June, as well as regular Pixel Drop releases every few months with new features.

This phone has most of the features we've come to know on the flagship Pixels, like Call Screen, Recorder summaries, and Gemini Live. Google says this phone runs Gemini Nano, helping it process data more securely on your device instead of the cloud.

Google notes this is the only phone in its price range with Gemini Nano for local AI processing, but the list of supported features is lacking—we've asked Google for a full accounting of AI features and will report what we get. Gemini is still at the core of the experience, though. Google's flagship phones include a free year of Gemini Advanced, but there will be no such deal on the Pixel 9a.

If you're interested in the newest Pixel, you may have to wait a bit. Google hasn't nailed down an exact release date yet, saying only that the phone should be available in April. Preorder details will be made available soon.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of February): 874

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend