Weekend discussion: Are you going to buy Google’s Pixel 9a?

Although it might seem a little out of place considering the sheer amount of foldables, flagships, and other devices this job allows me to get my hands on every year, the Pixel 9a is one of my most anticipated phones of 2025. I really appreciated the Pixel 8a when I reviewed it last year, and the handful of times I’ve revisited that device — up to and including this week — have only made that fondness grow. There’s a lot to love about how Google manages its midrange lineup, and I think with the Pixel 8a, the company finally found its perfect balance.

On paper, the Pixel 9a seems to make an already great experience even better. I’ve seen some distaste towards the new non-camera bar look online, and I get the knee jerk reaction — the camera bar absolutely helps Google stand out amongst an ever-similar crowd. But with Apple seemingly set to ape Google’s design language for itself with the iPhone 17 series this year, I appreciate how the Pixel 9a seems focused on finding a new way forward for the future for this lineup.

Or, maybe, this look is a one-off. Google did tell a group of journalists prior to launch that this new design wasn’t implemented on purpose. Instead, the Pixel 9a’s designers and engineers found that they had enough space within the chassis to embed the new 48MP sensor without much of a bump, and therefore chose to go in that new direction. The mainline Pixel series, of course, uses far larger sensors built into one of the largest camera bumps you’ll find on any modern smartphone, and I wouldn’t expect that to change anytime soon. Hell, our first Pixel 10 leaks basically prove that.

Not that the Pixel 9a’s design is a total home run, of course. I’ll leave my final judgement for whenever I get my hands on it, but in the photos captured by AP’s Stephen Radochia prior to this week’s announcement, I was really struck by how the flat frame ended up accentuating the relatively thick bezels around the frame. Despite fixing one of my least favorite aspects of the Pixel 8a’s look — the asymmetrical bottom bezel — the entire phone ends up looking more dated in these hands-on photos.

Still, it might not matter. Bezels tend to fade into the background for me, no matter how minimalist or chunky they end up appearing. The real concern, for me, is this week’s mysterious delay. Even from a journalist’s perspective, this was a last minute delay, with the phone originally being planned to go up for pre-order immediately ahead of a March 26th launch. Google has attributed this to “component quality issue that’s affecting a small number of Pixel 9a devices,” and aside from a move to April for its launch, has left everything else unsaid.

Frankly, this is weird! We’ve certainly heard of last minute smartphone delays before; I still remember when the OnePlus Open was originally set to launch in August of 2023, before a swap in display manufacturer kicked that particular can to October. But this one was particularly rough, and combined with a few other elements — the downgraded modem and potential RAM limitations when it comes to using Gemini — I certainly have an eyebrow raised in this phone’s particular direction.

But hey, who knows. Maybe my skepticism is entirely unearned for a phone that is arriving at a pretty good time for Pixel fans. The Pixel 9 series has proven to be rock solid post-launch; a handful of bugs aside, the disaster that was the Pixel 6 series seems like a lifetime ago. And compared to the unfinished state of Google’s biggest smartphone rival, the Pixel 9a is lined up to be a hit, so long as those “component quality issues” don’t actually affect anyone’s experience.

With all of this Pixel 9a noise floating out there, are you planning on buying one? Maybe your wallet is just itching for Google to turn on pre-orders, or maybe you’re waiting for reviews from publications like this one (or, you know, others — I won’t take it personally). Maybe you’d consider it the next time you need a new phone, or maybe you’re perfectly happy with whatever device you’re reading this on. Either way, let us know in the poll below, and feel free to expand on it in the comments.