Google's new phone makes one huge, unexpected change

After a good few rumours and leaks in the past few weeks, Google has finally unveiled the Pixel 9a properly, showing off its latest mid-range Android phone and letting us know its specs. While its Tensor G4 chipset is a welcome upgrade and there are other nice tweaks, one big element will surely get the most attention this time around – a new design on its rear.

Where there's previously been an ever-shallower camera band across the back of Pixel phones, including the last-gen Pixel 8a (our pick for the best budget phone available, by the way), this time around it's very different. Google has slimmed things down even further, removing the band altogether.

Now, the Pixel 9a simply has a two-lens camera array that bumps out by a tiny margin, in rounded glass. It makes the phone almost entirely flat on its back, and it should lay on a surface with almost no rocking, which is a pretty huge rarity in the world of modern smartphones.

The main 48MP lens should be improved compared to the Google Pixel 8a, and the 9a also has all the AI-powered photo-editing software that you can use on the more powerful Pixel 9 and 9 Pro, since it runs on the same chip as those phones. Its 6.3-inch Actua display gets a little upgrade to 2700 nits of peak brightness, too, and will be a 120Hz panel.

Presumably because of more efficiency with its chip, but also due to an expande 5100mAh cell and some downgrades compared to the 9 and 9 Pro, this will also be the best-performing Pixel phone from a battery standpoint. It'll last 30 hours in regular use, but can stretch to 100 hours with an extreme battery saving mode enabled.

The phone will also get seven years of security and OS updates and should be more durable than ever thanks to an IP68 water resistance rating, an improvement on the Pixel 8a's IP67.

The Pixel 9a will launch at some point in April, and will come at the exact same price as the Pixel 8a's launch – £499, $499 or €559. That makes it likely to immediately stand as a contender if you're looking for a mid-range phone that can rival flagships where features are concerned.