Google Pixel 7a hands-on shows off the display upgrade you’ve been asking for
TheGoogle Pixel 6ais by far thebest mid-rangerto come out of Google’s stable to date, winning itAndroid Police’s budget phone of the year awardrecently. But the company is planning to up its game with the 6a’s successor due sometime later this year. While we wait for the company to make everything about its upcoming mid-ranger official, thePixel 7ahas already appeared in a hands-on video, showing off that one feature we all missed on the Pixel 6a.
Even though the Pixel 7a is still a few months away from its tentative launch timeline,a few leaked renders gave us an early look at itback in November. The budget phone’s design shared a lot of similarities with the pricierPixel 7andPixel 7 Pro, especially from the back, thanks to the new metal visor with a cutout for the dual cameras. But it didn’t look quite different to the Pixel 6a from the front.
In thisnewly leaked video, someone got their hands on what looks like the Pixel 7a in its black colorway. You can see the phone from all its sides, and the design here corroborates what we saw in the previous leak. It even says that it is, indeed, a Pixel 7a in the phone’s settings menu.
But that’s still not the most important part of the leak. The user in the video navigates to the phone’s display settings, showing the option to switch the refresh rate to 90Hz. The Pixel 6a has been much criticized for sticking with a standard 60Hz display —even though we think it’s not that big of a deal— while the competition moved to higher refresh rates long ago (or what feels like long ago). So, it’s nice to see a sign that Google’s upcoming budget phone catching up in the display department. It’s a blurry, pixelated sign of slightly dubious origin, but there’s enough credibility there to give it the edge.
From what we already know about the Pixel 7a, Google is planning even more upgrades for the 2023 baby Pixel.One big change will likely appear in its cameraas the phone will adopt thePixel 6’s primary camera sensor – a big departure from Google’s tried and true IMX363 sensor. The Pixel 7a is also expected to get wireless charging, a first for the series.
While these are indeed some welcome changes, there’s an indication that the phone won’t be as affordable as recent Pixel A-series models. We will surely hear more on that around this year’s Google I/O, where the company usually unveils its budget Pixel model.
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