After months of waiting, Google has officially unveiled the Pixel 4a smartphone but you can’t get hold of one until October.
Despite numerous delays, we can reveal that the Pixel 4a won’t be in your pocket until 1 October and you can’t even pre-order it until 10 September. By the time the 4a arrives, we will be close to the flagship Pixel 5 arriving.
However, it might well be worth the wait if you’re looking for a good value-for-money smartphone upgrade as the Pixel 4a is priced at just £349.
Things are much better in the US where the phone has less competition and goes up for pre-order today, followed by shipping on 20 August. It’s US$349 across the pond.
That’s £50/$50 cheaper than its predecessor, the Pixel 3a, when it first went on sale. It also makes it cheaper than recent rivals like the £379 OnePlus Nord.
The phone will also appeal to those who don’t want a handset that’s big in size and screen. The Nord is 6.44in, for example.
Google has bumped the OLED display by 0.2in to 5.8in but this has largely been achieved by smaller bezels and a move to a punch-hole selfie camera.
There is no XL model this year and the Pixel 4a is only available in one colour – Just Black – at launch. It also doesn’t support 5G like some rumours suggested it would, although there will be a Pixel 4a (5G) later this year.
As well as a 3.5mm headphone jack, rear fingerprint scanner, and 128GB of storage, Google is touting the photography skills of the Pixel 4a via the single 12Mp camera.
It comes with Live HDR+, dual exposure controls, Night Sight with astrophotography and Super Res Zoom.
The phone also promises to last 24 hours and Adaptive Battery will, er, adapt to how you use your phone partly by reducing “power to the ones that you rarely use.”
As you would expect, the Pixel 4a comes with Android 10 and is protected with a Titan M chip. Google also promises at least three years of Android version updates.
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Author: Chris Martin, Reviews Editor
Tech Advisor's Reviews Editor, Chris has been reviewing all kinds of tech for over 10 years and specialises in audio. He also covers a range of topics including home entertainment, phones, laptops, tablets and more.