Google Pixel 9A

 Google Pixel 9A renders Leaked with all its glory

Google’s first leak of the fall is here, with new renders of its upcoming Pixel 9A posted online for the world to see. As with the Pixel 8A leak earlier this year, we have acquired images of Google’s next budget A-series release. Google's Pixel 9 series may be quite crowded already, with the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro XL and Pixel 9 Pro Fold, but it's not complete. Not yet, anyway. There's one more member that needs to join, and that's the Pixel 9A. This will be the successor to the Pixel 8a which launched back in May, and today a bunch of CAD-based renders of the 9A are available for you to view.

The Pixel 9a is expected to launch in the spring, so there's still plenty of time to wait until its debut. While the overall design of the phone does scream "Pixel!", there is, as you have surely noticed, one thing that sets this one apart from all the others. The big change coming on the Pixel 9A, according to the leak, is that it won’t feature Google’s now-signature visor look for its camera housing. Instead, it seems like there are two cameras in a pill-shaped module which sits almost flush with the rear of the phone. A camera flash is set to the right, making it look like the rear of an iPhone 7 Plus but magnified. The rest of the body looks similar to other Pixel 9 devices, and current iPhones, with thin-looking bezels around the screen.

Flat-edged smartphone with two cameras on rear and a hole punch camera on front. There's barely any camera bump. There seems to only be a small raised ring around the oval-shaped glass housing, and that's it. It's funny how the other Pixel 9 models have one of the hugest camera humps in the industry, and the 9A goes with one of the most diminutive instead. Perhaps it's meant to signify its mid-range status, below the others in the pecking order? We'll probably never know what Google's intentions were. Anyway, the phone has significantly thicker bezels than the rest of its family, flat sides, a hole-punch in the top centre of the screen for the selfie camera, and not much else.

The Pixel 9A looks a lot like the Pixel 9, only with its sunglasses removed. Unlike all the other Pixel 9s, the 9A will launch running Android 15 from day one. Like the others, it too will receive seven years of software support from Google. It's expected to use the Tensor G4 chipset that's powering the rest of the Pixel 9 family, but paired with a downgraded modem in order to cut costs. It could be the last Google device to include a Samsung-based Tensor chip, with Google moving on to using TSMC for future processors in 2025. Google usually releases its A-series phones in the springtime, typically during Google I/O, so it might be a while before we get all the details.