We’re just over a week away fromGoogle I/0 2023, where thePixel 7ais expected to be officially unveiled. Details about the midrange phone have been leaking for months, so we know a fair amount about it, including apotential price increase this year. But in the last week, the Pixel 7a has started showing upin retail packaging, and a few images posted on the web today have revealed details straight from the horse’s mouth.
TechDroider shared two photos of the Pixel 7a’s retail packagingon Twitter, and the back of the box caught our eyes. Several key attributes are revealed by the label on the packaging, if you zoom in and squint hard enough.
First, the label mentions a charging cable and Quick Switch Adapter for transferring data from your old phone, but does not mention a charging brick. This was to be expected after the Pixel 6a followed in Apple’s footsteps and didn’t include a charger last year. From what we can glean here, the contents of the box should be similar (if not identical) towhat shipped with the 6a last year: a USB-C cable, an adapter, a SIM ejector, and in some regions, a quick start guide.
Another disappointing revelation is the lack of 5G mmWave connectivity on the Google Store variant.This was also the case last year, when only the Verizon variant of the Pixel 6a included support for the fastest mobile connectivity standard for an extra $50 over base price. We expect a similar situation with the 7a where the Google Store and international variants support sub-6GHz 5G, but not mmWave.
The packaging also confirms that the Pixel 7a will have a Hearing Aid Compatibility Rating of M3/T4 for acoustic and induction hearing aids. This is the same rating as Apple’s iPhone 14, and Google has managed to hit this bar for all its phones since thePixel 6 Pro.
Another glimpse at the Pixel 7a’s retail packaging was shared with us by Android expertMishaal Rahman. A since-endedeBay listingoffered a higher resolution look at the back of the box that we can use to confirm two model numbers. While TechDroider’s images weren’t clear enough to fully discern, we can now tell that the black variant has a model number ofGWKK2and the white variant has a model number ofGWKK3. Counting theblue modeland thecoral colorway, and potentially a Verizon version with mmWave support, we could see up to five model numbers when all is said and done.
