The Pixel 5a, also known as the Pixel 5a with 5G, is an Android

smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...

designed, developed, and marketed by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

as part of the

Google Pixel Google Pixel is a brand of portable Consumer electronics, consumer electronic devices developed by Google that run either ChromeOS or the Pixel version of the Android (operating system), Android operating system. The main line of Pixel products ...

product line. It serves as a mid-range variant of the Pixel 5. It was officially announced on August 17, 2021 via a press release and released on August 26. It is also the only Pixel ''-a'' phone to not be available in Europe.

Specifications

Design and hardware

The Pixel 5a is built with an aluminum body and

Gorilla Glass Gorilla Glass is a brand of chemically strengthened glass developed and manufactured by Corning Inc. Currently in its ninth generation, it is designed to be thin, light, and damage-resistant. Its surface strength and crack-resistance are achieve ...

3 for the screen. The device is available in a single color, Mostly Black. The housing has a thick coating of plastic, while the power button is textured. The back houses a capacitive fingerprint sensor centered below the camera lens. It has stereo loudspeakers, one located on the bottom edge and the other doubling as the earpiece, and a 3.5mm

headphone jack A phone connector is a family of cylindrically-shaped electrical connectors primarily for analog audio signals. Invented in the late 19th century for tele''phone'' switchboards, the phone connector remains in use for interfacing wired a ...

. A

USB-C USB-C, or USB Type-C, is a 24-pin reversible Electrical connector, connector (not a Communication protocol, protocol) that supersedes previous USB hardware#Connectors, USB connectors (also supersedes Mini DisplayPort and Lightning (connector) ...

port is used for charging and connecting other accessories. The Pixel 5a uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G system-on-chip (consisting of eight Kryo 475 cores, an Adreno 620 GPU and a Hexagon 696 DSP), with 6 GB of

LPDDR Low-Power Double Data Rate (LPDDR), also known as LPDDR SDRAM, is a type of synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) that Low-power electronics, consumes less power than other random access memory designs and is thus targeted for mobile c ...

4X RAM and 128 GB of non-expandable UFS 2.1 internal storage. The Snapdragon 765G allows for standard 5G connectivity, however only "sub-6" networks are supported. The Pixel 5a has a 4680mAh battery, and is capable of fast charging at up to 18W. It has an

IP67 The IP code or International Protection code indicates how well a device is protected against water and dust. It is defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) under the international standard IEC 60529 which classifies ...

water protection rating, an upgrade over its predecessor which lacked water protection. The Pixel 5a features a 6.34-inch (161mm)

1080p 1080p (1920 × 1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the sc ...

OLED An organic light-emitting diode (OLED), also known as organic electroluminescent (organic EL) diode, is a type of light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is an organic compound film that emits light in respon ...

display with HDR support. The display has a 20:9

aspect ratio The aspect ratio of a geometry, geometric shape is the ratio of its sizes in different dimensions. For example, the aspect ratio of a rectangle is the ratio of its longer side to its shorter side—the ratio of width to height, when the rectangl ...

, and a circular cutout in the upper left hand corner for the front-facing camera. The Pixel 5a includes dual rear-facing cameras located within a raised square module. The wide 28 mm 77 °F/1.7 lens has the Sony Exmor IMX363 12.2-megapixel sensor, while the ultrawide 107 °F/2.2 lens has a 16-megapixel sensor; the front-facing camera uses an 8-megapixel sensor. It is capable of recording 4K video at 30 or 60fps.

Software

The Pixel 5a shipped with

Android 11 Android 11 is the eleventh major release and 18th version of Android, the mobile operating system developed by the Open Handset Alliance led by Google. It was released on September 8, 2020. The first phone launched in Europe with Android 11 ...

and Google Camera 8.2 at launch, with features such as Call Screen and a Personal Safety app. It is expected to receive 3 years of major OS upgrades with support extending until August 2024. It is the first Pixel phone not to ship with unlimited storage in high definition on

Google Photos Google Photos is a photo sharing and Cloud storage, storage service developed by Google. It was announced in May 2015 and spun off from Google+, the company's former Social networking service, social network. Google Photos shares the 15 gigab ...

. In October 2021, the Pixel 5a was updated to

Android 12 Android 12 is the Android version history, twelfth major release and 19th version of Android (operating system), Android, the mobile operating system developed by the Open Handset Alliance led by Google. The first beta was released on May 18, ...

, in August 2022, the Pixel 5a was updated to

Android 13 Android 13 is the Android version history, thirteenth major release and the 20th version of Android (operating system), Android, the mobile operating system developed by the Open Handset Alliance led by Google. It was released to the public and ...

, and in October 2023, the Pixel 5a was updated to

Android 14 Android 14 is the Android version history, fourteenth major release and the 21st version of Android (operating system), Android, the mobile operating system developed by the Open Handset Alliance led by Google. Both the Google & Paranoid Android ...

Known issues

* The Pixel 5a overheats when recording 4K 60 fps videos. It can only record 4 minutes of 4K video (or 30 minutes of 1080p video) before it shuts down. Google continues to investigate the overheating issue. * There are touchscreen issues with the bottom half of the display. Google is investigating them. * The Pixel 5a is acknowledged to have a high incidence rate of motherboard failures, causing power issues resulting in a blank or black screen. As a response, Google Pixel implemented an extended 2 year repair warranty for this problem in the 5a beyond the standard 1 year Google Hardware Warranty.

References

External links

* {{Google LLC Android (operating system) devices Discontinued smartphones Google hardware Google Pixel Mobile phones introduced in 2021 Mobile phones with 4K video recording Mobile phones with multiple rear cameras