Google has announced the Pixel 9a, the latest in the company’s A-series mid-range Android smartphone line up. The £499 handset will be sold alongside the £799 Pixel 9 and £999 Pixel 9 Pro, though has many of the same software features as its pricer siblings.
That price undercuts Apple’s latest mid-range and cheapest iPhone, the £599 iPhone 16e, after the firm scrapped its £429 iPhone SE.
The Pixel 9a looks quite similar to the other Pixel 9 phones that launched in 2024. The phone sports flat edges, eschewing the curved sides of the Pixel 8a we favourably reviewed last year.
The 9a has the same Tensor G4 chipset as the other Pixel 9 series devices, a 6.3-inch OLED screen with 120Hz refresh rate, dual cameras with a 48MP main and 13MP ultrawide, IP68 dust and water resistance, seven years of software updates till 2032 and, according to 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 stuck with a 60Hz display and only one 48MP camera lens.
The new Pixel will be available to preorder from from Google starting in April with 128GB storage. It’s available in four colours: iris, peony, porcelain, obsidian.
As with Google’s more expensive phones, the Pixel 9a is all about its software and, more specifically, its AI software tools. The phone runs Android 15, the latest version, and is stuffed to the gills with Pixel-exclusive features such as Magic Editor and Magic Eraser for photo editing, Call Screen to let AI answer spam calls for you, Pixel Studio to create images using AI, Google’s Circle to Search to Google anything on your screen, as well as the Google Gemini app.
Gemini has replaced Google Assistant on Pixel (and other Android) phones, and aims to link together all the data from your various Google accounts to become smarter and more useful.
I’m a simple man and prefer to ignore most of these AI features. The thing I like best about Pixel phones is their clean look and software, which you can keep relatively stripped back if you want to. But all these new-fangled smarts are there if you want them to be on the Pixel 9a, including Car Crash Detection and Theft Detection, which are handy, plus the Pixel-only free Google VPN service for more secure public Wi-Fi browsing.
The Pixel 9a looks like a good value at £499, although there are cheaper options available if you want to spend less than that on your next Android smartphone. The Pixel 8a can be found for £349 and has many of the same software perks and just as compact a design (as compact as a large-screen phone can get in 2025, anyway).
The new Google phone is still undercut by the impressive Nothing Phone 3a though. Despite being a large device, it costs just £329 and has triple cameras compared to the Pixel 9a’s two and sports Nothing’s minimalist Android software. If you can get by without all the AI smarts a Pixel offers, you don’t need to spend as much to get a solid phone these days.
