Google announced that the Pixel 6a wouldn’t debut until later this summer, but that hasn’t stopped the leakers from teasing us. Over the weekend, Malaysian YouTuber, Fazli Halim, published an 11-minute long look at the upcoming Pixel 6a. The device featured in the reel matches the Pixel 6a previewed during the Google I/O 2022 opening keynote. It also aligns with the unlisted informational video Google Retail Training France published last month. (The video has since gone private.)
I tried desperately to translate the video from Malay with YouTube’s live captions, to no avail. But the video does offer a glimpse at the look and feel of the phone. The video starts with a full unboxing of the black-and-grey Pixel 6a — also known as “charcoal” on the official Google Store listing. The box looks the same as the one the Pixel 6/6 Pro came in and includes a USB-C to USB-C charging cable, along with an adaptor for transferring data between phones.
In the video, the Pixel 6a looks mid-range compared to the flagship Pixel 6. It appears slightly thicker, though it has a smaller 6.1-display compared to the Pixel 6’s 6.4-inch display. It also sports the same back-facing camera bar sticking out on the back, along with a flush rear-facing camera system.
The YouTube video lists the exact same camera specifications as the Google Store listing: a 12.2-MP dual-pixel wide camera with an f/1.7 aperture and 77-degree field of view, coupled with a 12-MP ultrawide camera with an f/2.2 aperture and 114-degree field of view. The front-facing camera is an 8-MP camera with an 84-degree field of view.
The rest of the video features a reprise of everything we already know. Halim shows us how the Pixel 6a works with Android 12’s Quick Settings panel pulled down, and also with the Home screen. We also get a quick look at the camera app and how quickly it snaps photos, but there’s nothing like using the device yourself. Perhaps the most telling part of the video is around the 8-minute mark, when Halim attempts to log in with a thumbprint, and it takes about two or three tries before the Pixel 6a successfully unlocks.
The Pixel 6a will officially launch on July 28 for $US450 ($625). It’s excepted to compete head-on with other mid-range smartphones, namely the iPhone SE for iOS-using folks and the Samsung Galaxy A53 for the rest of the Android-using brood.