Brace yourselves: Google’s Pixel 4A is finally, probably coming Monday

With a rumored $349 price, OLED screen, Google’s great camera, and a good-enough processor, the upcoming Pixel 4A sounds like it’ll be a tough deal to beat for those who don’t need a premium phone. And it looks like the phone will finally be launching on August 3rd.

Google has officially confirmed that a new Pixel phone is coming this Monday, and while there’s a slight possibility it could be a different phone, Google itself had also leaked a picture of a phone last month that matches up with everything else we’d heard. Now, more renders of the phone have been leaked that appear to confirm a lot of the earlier rumors. Ishan Agarwal posted an image of the phone similar to ones we’ve seen previously and apparent confirmation of the phone’s specs.

Teases about the phone have been leaking for months, with specs, renders, camera samples, wallpapers, and even images of a prototype device making the rounds. Back in April, 9to5Google had a rundown of all the rumored specs for the Pixel 4A:

• 5.81-inch display (2340 x 1080 resolution)
• Snapdragon 730
• 64GB or 128GB storage
• 6GB RAM
• 3,080mAh battery
• 12.2-megapixel rear camera
• Same video recording capabilities as Pixel 4 (max of 4K at 30fps)
• 8-megapixel front-facing camera (hole-punch cutout)
• Headphone jack
• Rear-mounted fingerprint reader

Eagle-eyed readers will notice Argarwal’s tweet also references the previously-rumored 5G version of the 4A, expected this fall with a price tag of $499, along with a Pixel 5.

Agarwal also tweeted that the 4A will be available in the US, UK, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Japan, and Canada. His information jibes with earlier reported specs about its camera.

Twitter user TechDroider had a look at the box contents for the Pixel 4A:

For those awaiting the arrival of Google’s newest budget smartphone, it’s been quite the saga. Google canceled Google I/O 2020, which was set for May, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That would have been the expected time to unveil the Pixel 4A. And although it wasn’t necessarily expected, a slew of Android 11 announcements in June had no mention of the Pixel 4A either.

Last year’s Pixel 3A set the bar for sub-$400 phones, particularly when it came to camera performance; The Verge’s Dieter Bohn said in his review it was the best phone in its price range, with “a camera that’s among the best you can get on any smartphone.”

At the time of its release, Google spotlighted the camera’s low-light photography in ads comparing the Pixel 3A to Apple’s much more expensive iPhones.

But since then, Apple released its iPhone SE 2020 for just $399, featuring both the company’s best single-lens camera and its best processor too. The Verge’s review called the iPhone SE 2020 a good deal and a good smartphone, noting it’s likely to last longer than similar Google models, with video capability that “punches about its weight class.”