As we approached the middle of the year, rumors started to revolve around the next Google Pixel smartphone, supposedly the “Pixel 5a”. Here’s what we learned about the next Google phone with Android 12 Preview builds.
The Developer Preview and Beta versions of Android have long been a source of information about what’s to come for Google’s Pixel phones, from the next models to the features of the next quarterly Pixel Feature Drop. As expected, the Android 12 Developer Preview builds were no different, providing a treasure trove of new details, including some rumors about the upcoming Pixel smartphones, such as the Pixel 5a.
Here, we’ve gathered some of the minor news about the next Pixel smartphone, as discovered in the Android 12 Developer Preview, and we’ll keep this space up to date as more details come up.
Google “Pixel 5a”
At the outset, the biggest news of the Android 12 developer viewing period is that the next Google phone in the middle of the year will in fact be called “Pixel 5a”. The information comes from a renowned Google camera modder and member of the Android community cstark27 (H / T Mishaal Rahman) and verified by our own Dylan Roussel.
Pixel 5a: GR0M2
Pixel 4a (5G): G025I
Pixel 5: GTT9Q8
The nickname “Pixel 5a” was guessed and even mentioned at one point, almost a year ago, in the Android Open Source Project. This new mention of the name in the Android 12 Developer Preview gives us renewed confidence in the Google brand for its next Pixel device.
Model number
In addition to confirming the name “Pixel 5a”, the same source provides a model number for the device, “GR0M2”. As far as we can determine, this will be the “international” model number for the Pixel 5a – not the number we will see on the boxes in the United States – as it appears alongside two other international model numbers.
As a note about this model number, not directly related to Android 12, it was discovered by Mukul Sharma that this model number GR0M2 of the Pixel 5a has recently passed the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), a regulatory agency similar to the FCC in the USA. This approval puts the Pixel 5a one step closer to launch. For comparison, Pixel 4a received BIS approval about two months before it arrived in the US and four months before it launched in India.
Code name
Although the internal document that was leaked last year referred to the Pixel 5a codenamed “Barbette”, our Dylan Roussel discovered in the first version of Android 12 Developer Preview that the correct codename is “Barbet”. Notably, unlike “barbette”, “barbet” is a type of fish that fits the theme of Pixel’s codenames better.
This codename “barbet” corrected for Pixel 5a was confirmed by our team’s investigation of APK Insight from version 8.2 of the Google Camera app.
Dylan Roussel contributed to this article
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