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 have been outed for your viewing pleasure.
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.
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 power button in the wrong position (but that’s a given with Pixels), a hole-punch in the top center of the screen for the selfie camera, and not much else.
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.