Google’s Pixel 9a has a new launch date, and it’s right around the corner

Last week, Google finally unveiled the Pixel 9a, and regardless of how you feel about its camera bar-less design — I’m willing to withhold judgment until my review — it looks like a really promising $500 phone on paper. Unfortunately, Google’s launch plans seemed to fall apart at the last minute, with the original March 26th launch date getting pulled due to an unforeseen “component quality issue.” Whatever the problem was, it seems like the Pixel 9a is ready for showtime, and it’s coming sooner than you might think.

Google published an update to its Pixel 9a announcement post on the Pixel Phone Help threads, announcing new on-shelf dates for the phone. Although this is one of the company’s broadest smartphone launches yet, every region has one of three launch dates spread throughout April, and you can find yours below:

• April 10th: US, Canada and UK
• April 14th: Germany, Spain, Italy, Ireland, France, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, Poland, Czechia, Romania, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Finland
• April 16th: Australia, India, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia

Eagle-eyed Android Police readers might notice one country is still missing from this list. For now, Google simply says the phone is “coming soon” to Japan.

The Pixel 9a is coming, even if it’s a little later than expected

We’ll share our thoughts on it as soon as we can

The Pixel 9a listing on the Google Store still has a “Get Notified” button in place of the usual pre-order option, and the phrasing used in the updated community post suggests that isn’t changing any time soon. If you want a Pixel 9a, you’ll likely be waiting until they’re up for grabs in a couple of weeks.

In his earliest hands-on impressions, AP’s Stephen Radochia found the device to be a mature step forward for Google, complete with some excellent color options in Peony and Iris. However, the large bezels combined with the newly-flat frame left the Pixel 9a looking more dated than some of its competitors — namely, the iPhone 16e. We’ve also learned plenty about the device not included in the initial announcement last week, including that Google is utilizing a modified, weaker Gemini Nano LLM due to its relatively paltry 8GB of RAM.

If you’d rather not wait for the Pixel 9a — or, perhaps, you’ve been turned off by whatever caused this mysterious delay — the regular Pixel 9 remains a great choice. It’s routinely on sale, with the device dropping as low as $550 this week at Target (a sale that, unfortunately, seems to be sold out at the moment). Google’s A-series devices have a pretty stellar reputation overall, though. Hopefully, whatever caused that last-second component issue won’t affect the Pixel 9a once it’s in the hands of customers everywhere.