Google laid out a hardware plan for the next year at Google I/O, starting with a $449 phone and $199 earbuds.
Google announced the midrange Pixel 6a phone at its Google I/O conference today, along with $199 Pixel Buds Pro earbuds, and teases for the Pixel 7 phone, Pixel 7 Pro phone, and a new Pixel Tablet. This is a more aggressive plan than Google has had in years. The Pixel Tablet, coming in 2023, will be the first Android tablet branded by Google since 2014’s Nexus 9. Google then moved to putting Chrome OS on 2018’s Pixel Slate, before saying it would not make any more tablets in 2019. Google never before had an official watch, and the last Google Glass wearable came out in 2019. Pixel 6a Detailed
The first major product to hit the market will be the Pixel 6a. Pre-orders open on July 21 for the $449 phone, and it will hit shelves on July 28. The Pixel 6a will be followed by the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro this fall, Google said. (The Pixel 6 came out in October.)
The Pixel 6a will feature the same Google Tensor processor as the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, Google said, along with the flagship Night Sight, Magic Eraser, and Real Tone camera features. The Pixel’s speech-related features, Live Caption and Live Translate, will be here as well. The phone looks very similar to the latest Pixels, with the noticeable camera bar on the rear holding the main 12-megapixel camera and ultrawide camera. It comes in three colors, green, gray, and off-white. Like the existing Pixels, it has 5G, although Google didn’t say whether that includes millimeter-wave, but it apparently doesn’t, as Verizon followed up the announcement with a $499 Pixel 6a that does.
