As expected, Google is working on a Pixel 6A phone — including many of the Pixel 6’s highlight features like the Tensor chip at a lower $449 price — but it will be a few months before it goes on sale. At Google I/O on Wednesday, the tech giant revealed the new phone alongside a look at the future of Android 13, its long-awaited Pixel Watch, new Pixel Buds Pro earbuds, a tease of a Pixel Tablet in 2023 and a first look at the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro phones due in the fall.
Coming July 28, the new 6.1-inch Pixel will serve as a successor to last year’s Pixel 5A. As rumored, it will feature a design similar to last year’s Pixel 6 line, including a camera bar in the middle of the back of the phone for its 12-megapixel ultrawide and main cameras.
Google’s custom Tensor chip will power the phone alongside 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Google says the 6A will be capable of the same tricks the Pixel 6 offers, including camera features like Night Sight, Real Tone and Magic Eraser — with the last of these getting an improvement that will allow you to “change the color of distracting objects in your photo.”
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The phone will support 5G and all three major US wireless carriers will offer the phone, though Verizon’s version will run $500 since it supports millimeter-wave 5G. Google is promising roughly three years of Android software updates and five years of security updates. The company says the 6A will be “among the first Android devices to receive the upcoming Android 13” update later this year.
Like the Pixel 6, the 6A will have an under-display fingerprint sensor. While the 5A had a headphone jack, the 6A will not. Like the Pixel 5A, the new phone will be IP67-rated for water and dust resitstance, and will not support wireless charging.
“[The] Pixel 6A is about maximizing the user value,” Google said in a statement to CNET. “To maintain a $449 starting price point we needed to make some trade-offs, one of which was the exclusion of wireless charging.”
The new phone will come in charcoal, chalk and sage colors. Preorders start on July 21.
