For the second time in two weeks, Google’s website has seemingly confirmed the name of a new product — in this case, the long-rumored upcoming “lite” version of the company’s Pixel 3. It looks like the new phone will officially be called the “Pixel 3a,” according to screenshots we just captured of this Google Store page:
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While Google has already taken down the page showing the “new” phone, the damage (if you can call additional hype for a thoroughly leaked product “damage”) appears to be done. In fact, 9to5Google reports that the website also displayed references to the previously-leaked Nest Hub Max, as well as a Nest Hub, before it was taken down. (In our case, thanks go to astute Verge reader Aadithya G. who pointed us to the Google Store URL.)
Neither the actual Pixel 3a product page, nor a new “Pixel Compare” page, were live as of when we checked, so this leak has only really confirmed the name of the phone for now.
That said, the name was practically the only detail about these phones that needed any sort of official confirmation — earlier today, a Redditor unearthed a trove of data from Google’s own Play Console featuring practically the entire spec sheets of the two new phones, codenamed “bonito” and “sargo.” They’re expected to come in 5.6-inch and 6.0-inch sizes, with 1080p OLED displays, Snapdragon 670 processors, 12-megapixel rear cameras — and possibly the return of the 3.5mm headphone jack in at least one of the two phones, according to photos that leaked at Russian tech blog Rozetked last November. The name “Pixel 3a XL” previously appeared in Android Q’s beta code, as spotted by XDA-developers.
The most interesting detail that leaked this morning was that the phones were listed as “midyear experiences,” suggesting we wouldn’t have to wait until Google’s traditional October launch window for Pixel devices, but might see them as soon as this summer, even possibly at Google’s I/O developer conference in May.
The fact that Google’s already changing up its product pages — typically one of the last steps before a launch — also suggest that an announcement might be imminent.
