As we gradually approached the center of the year, rumors began to circulate about the next Google Pixel phone, presumably the ‘Pixel 5a’. Here’s what we learned about Google’s next phone from the Android 12 Preview builds.
Android’s developer preview and beta releases have long been a source of information on what’s coming next for Google’s Pixel phones, from upcoming models to features of the next quarterly Pixel Feature Drop. As you would expect, the Android 12 developer preview builds were no different, and it offers a lot of new details, including some goodies about the next Pixel phones, such as the Pixel 5a.
Here we have summarized some minor news about the next Pixel phone as discovered by the Android 12 developer preview, and we will keep this space informed as more details come to light.
Google “Pixel 5a”
The biggest news from the Android 12 Developer Preview period is that Google’s next mid-year phone will indeed be called the “Pixel 5a”. The information comes from the well-known Google Camera mud 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 ‘Pixel 5a’ moniker has long been speculated and even mentioned at some 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 a new confidence in Google’s brand of their next Pixel device.
Model number
In addition to confirming the “Pixel 5a” name, the same source provides a model number for the device, “GR0M2.” From what we can determine, this is going to be the ‘international’ model number for the Pixel 5a – not the number we’ll see on subjects in the United States – as it’s appearing alongside two other international model numbers.
As a side note to this model number, which is not directly related to Android 12, it was discovered by Mukul Sharma that this GR0M2 model number of the Pixel 5a was recently issued by 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 release. By comparison, the Pixel 4a received BIS approval about two months before it arrived in the US and four months before its launch in India.
Code name
While the leaked internal document we reported on last year refers to the Pixel 5a codenamed “Barbette”, we discover Dylan Roussel in the first version of the developer preview for Android 12 that the real code is “Barbet”. Unlike ‘barbette’, ‘barbet’ is a type of fish that better fits the theme of Pixel code.
This corrected “barbet” code name for the Pixel 5a has meanwhile been confirmed by our APK Insight team’s investigation into version 8.2 of the Google Camera app.
Dylan Roussel contributed to this article
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