Google Pixel 9a: five of the biggest upgrades

The Google Pixel 9a is official, and it's an upgrade on the 8a in numerous ways.

Mar 19, 2025 - 15:27

Google Pixel 9a: five of the biggest upgrades

If you’ve been keeping up to date with tech news then the Google Pixel 9a won’t hold too many surprises, as ahead of launch it leaked in even more detail than most phones. But it has officially arrived now, so all the specs and details have been confirmed.

And while there isn’t much in the way of surprises, there is still a lot to like here, with the Google Pixel 9a being an upgrade on the Pixel 8a in a number of ways.

If you’re interested in buying this new mid-ranger, you can pre-order it now at a starting price of $499 / £499, and it will ship on March 26. But before you press that buy button, here are the five biggest upgrades you can look forward to, along with a look at all the key specs.

Google Pixel 9a specs

Above, you can see a brief overview of the Google Pixel 9a's specs, but below, we'll look in more detail at the five major ways this is an improvement on the Pixel 8a.

1. A much bigger battery

Batteries can sometimes feel neglected in modern smartphones, or even slimmed down to allow for a thinner handset, but that’s not the case here, as the Google Pixel 9a has a 5,100mAh battery.

That’s far bigger than the Pixel 8a’s 4,492mAh one, and also has the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro beat, as they both have 4,700mAh ones. In fact, it’s even marginally larger than the 5,060mAh battery in the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL.

So this should be one long-lasting phone, with Google claiming it has a battery life that’s upwards of 30 hours, or up to 100 hours when using Extreme Battery Saver mode. The Pixel 9a also supports 23W wired charging and 7.5W wireless charging, with the first of those figures also being an upgrade on the 18W of the Pixel 8a.

2. A smarter, more powerful chipset

The Google Pixel 9a comes equipped with Google’s latest chipset – the Tensor G4. This is the same chipset as you’ll find in the rest of the Pixel 9 series, and it’s an upgrade on the Tensor G3 found in the Pixel 8a.

This is Google’s fastest, most efficient chipset yet, and coupled with 8GB of RAM it should allow for smoother, slicker performance whether using AI (more on which below), playing games, or using apps.

While this doesn’t have the raw power of something like the Snapdragon 8 Elite, it’s nice to see Google continue to put its best chips in even its mid-range phones.

3. A bold new design

The Google Pixel 9a’s design is likely to prove divisive, but it’s certainly different – both to the Pixel 8a’s appearance and – oddly – to the rest of the Pixel 9 line.

It doesn’t have a raised camera bar, with the lenses instead sitting flush with the back of the phone. It’s a camera design that Google claims is “inspired by nature and water droplets,” and it makes a big difference to the overall look of the phone.

The Pixel 9a also has a new scratch-resistant 6.3-inch Actua display, with a 1080 x 2420 resolution, a 60-120Hz refresh rate, and a peak brightness of 2,700 nits, making it 35% brighter than the Pixel 8a.

And that scratch resistance isn't the only aspect of the Pixel 9a’s design that’s durable, as it also has an IP68 rating (up from IP67 on the Pixel 8a), meaning it’s water resistant and dust proof.

And it’s available in four shades – Peony (pink), Iris (blue), Porcelain (white), and Obsidian (black).

4. A “best-in-class” camera

Google has described the Pixel 9a’s camera as “best-in-class”, and while you might want to wait for our full Pixel 9a review to see how accurate that is, aspects of it certainly sound like upgrades on the Pixel 8a’s.

The Google Pixel 9a has a dual-lens camera, with a new 48MP f/1.7 wide camera and a 13MP f/2.2 ultra-wide one (with a 120-degree field of view). There’s also a 13MP f/2.2 front-facing camera, and the Pixel 9a offers Macro Focus for the first time on an A-series phone, so you can capture tiny details in both photos and videos.

The Pixel 9a’s camera also benefits from all sorts of AI and computational photography features, such as Add Me, which lets you combine two group shots into one, so even the photographer can be included, and Best Take, which blends facial expressions from multiple group photos into one, so everyone looks their best.

There’s also Magic Editor, which can make massive changes to your photos, including reframing them, expanding them to get more of the scene, and adding new details – while with Magic Eraser you can remove things you don’t want in the photo.

5. A wealth of AI features

As well as the numerous photography-focused AI features on the Google Pixel 9a, this inherits the other AI tools from the Pixel 9 series too.

These include the likes of Google Gemini built into the phone, giving you access to a powerful personal assistant.

There’s also Gemini Live, which allows you to have more natural, free-flowing conversations with the assistant, and Circle to Search, allowing you to search for whatever’s on your screen.

In fact, there are even potentially life – or phone – saving features like Car Crash Detection and Theft Detection.

And as smart as the Pixel 9a is now, it could one day be far smarter still, as Google has promised seven years of operating system updates, security updates, and Pixel Drops.