Google’s Pixel 9a With No Camera Bar Could Be as Flat as a Pancake

The Google Pixel 8a was all the best things about the Pixel 8 shoved into a far cheaper package. It even looked like a Pixel 8, with a reduced camera bar housing less-capable sensors. Google’s next phone, supposedly the Pixel 9a, could be the most significant departure from Google’s design language since the Pixel 6. Simply put, the next Pixel 9a phone could lie perfectly flat against your desk.

OnLeaks, a regular render leaker that bought us accurate first glimpses of devices like the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and the Pixel 8, shared yet another early glimpse of Google’s next phone via Android Headlines. First and foremost, the renders show there’s no camera bar at all. There’s no camera bump, either. Instead, it’s a flat panel back with twin inset lenses and a flash in what appears to be a small housing. At most, there could be a small bump where the lens array meets the back panel.

The Pixel 9 models went from a bar to a pill-shaped cutout for its cameras. Each camera pill was the same size, but the sensor cutouts were smaller or larger based on whether you opted for the regular or the Pro version. The Pixel 9a essentially looks like the base Pixel 9 but without the extended section for the lenses.

It’s a fair guess that this phone will ship with Android 15, something the Pixel 9 series originally didn’t. The Pixel 8a also shipped with a promised seven years of updates, which could continue with the sequel budget-end phone, according to Android Headlines. If the next phone also updates the 8a’s original 64 MP wide-angle and a 13 MP ultrawide to something close to the Pixel 9, it would make an already solid, somewhat cheaper phone even better.

We can glean a few details from a batch of renders, but Android Headlines pointed out we could see the same 6.1-inch screen as the Pixel 8a. Since the last cheaper-end phone used the same Tensor G3 chip as the Pixel 8, it would only make sense if Google keeps the trend going with a Tensor G4 on the 9a. The last phone had 8 GB of RAM, which seems to be the minimum for handling AI-based tasks. If Google wants to keep promoting Gemini on mobile, it will need to keep that consistent, too.

Google first announced the Pixel 8a during this year’s I/O developer conference in May. Google might make the same move at I/O in 2025. If they keep up with the base $500 price tag, it will remain a solid option for those who don’t mind lacking storage.