Google launches Pixel 9a with price and specs the | Tech News

Google has introduced the Pixel 9a, the newest in the company’s A-series mid-range Android smartphone line up. The £499 handset shall be bought alongside the £799 Pixel 9 and £999 Pixel 9 Pro, although has many of the identical software program options as its pricer siblings.

That price undercuts Apple’s newest mid-range and least expensive iPhone, the £599 iPhone 16e, after the firm scrapped its £429 iPhone SE.

The Pixel 9a seems to be fairly much like the different Pixel 9 telephones that launched in 2024. The telephone sports activities flat edges, eschewing the curved sides of the Pixel 8a we favourably reviewed final yr.

The 9a has the identical Tensor G4 chipset as the different Pixel 9 sequence units, a 6.3-inch OLED screen with 120Hz refresh price, twin cameras with a 48MP most important and 13MP ultrawide, IP68 mud and water resistance, seven years of software program updates until 2032 and, in keeping with Google, more than 30 hours of battery life, which is the most of any Pixel.

Many of these specs trump the iPhone 16e, which is caught with a 60Hz show and just one 48MP digital camera lens.

The new Pixel shall be obtainable to preorder from from Google beginning in April with 128GB storage. It’s obtainable in 4 colors: iris, peony, porcelain, obsidian. 

As with Google’s more costly telephones, the Pixel 9a is all about its software program and, more particularly, its AI software program instruments. The telephone runs Android 15, the newest model, and is stuffed to the gills with Pixel-exclusive options reminiscent of Magic Editor and Magic Eraser for picture modifying, Call Screen to let AI reply spam requires you, Pixel Studio to create pictures utilizing AI, Google’s Circle to Search to Google something in your screen, in addition to the Google Gemini app.

Gemini has changed Google Assistant on Pixel (and different Android) telephones, and goals to hyperlink collectively all the information out of your varied Google accounts to turn out to be smarter and more helpful.

I’m a easy man and want to disregard most of these AI options. The factor I like best about Pixel telephones is their clean look and software program, which you’ll keep comparatively stripped back if you wish to. But all these new-fangled smarts are there if you need them to be on the Pixel 9a, together with Car Crash Detection and Theft Detection, that are useful, plus the Pixel-only free Google VPN service for more secure public Wi-Fi searching.

The Pixel 9a seems to be like a good worth at £499, though there are cheaper choices obtainable if you wish to spend much less than that in your subsequent Android smartphone. The Pixel 8a could be discovered for £349 and has many of the identical software program perks and simply as compact a design (as compact as a large-screen telephone can get in 2025, anyway).

The new Google telephone continues to be undercut by the spectacular Nothing Phone 3a although. Despite being a giant system, it prices simply £329 and has triple cameras in comparison with the Pixel 9a’s two and sports activities Nothing’s minimalist Android software program. If you will get by with out all the AI smarts a Pixel provides, you don’t need to spend as a lot to get a strong telephone today.