It has an eerily similar design, the same camera system, and even the same processor. After spending about a week with the Pixel 5a, however, none of those things really mattered. Google kept what worked about last year's handsets, upgraded a couple of key features, and lowered the price to just $449. And at first glance, it looks almost identical to last year's Pixel 4a 5G. The Pixel 5a (technically the 'Pixel 5a with 5G') was announced on August 17, 2021, with little more than a press release from Google. Related: Google Pixel Buds A-Series Review With so much R&D clearly going into the Pixel 6, surely that same attention was spent on this year's budget Pixel too - right? Last year's Pixel 5 had some folks worried that Google was ready to throw in the towel with its hardware division, but with what's been shown of the Pixel 6 series so far, it appears the exact opposite is happening. It's ushering in an all-new design, custom-made Google Tensor processor, and the first camera hardware upgrade in years. For its 2021 hardware strategy, Google's making some of its biggest moves yet with the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro.

Pixel 5a 5g review