What to know

  • Google unintentionally confirms the Pixel 8a before the official launch.
  • Google’s defense for removing the Battery Information page on the Android 14 QPR program is what gave it away.
  • Besides the unintentional leak for Pixel 8a, the removal of the ‘Battery Information’ page is upsetting for Pixel users. 

There’s hardly been a Google product launch that’s come as a complete surprise. And such is the case for Pixel 8a as well which Google has managed to confirm unintentionally even though there’s been no official word on it.  

Google (unintentionally) confirms Pixel 8a

The confirmation of Pixel 8a, however, came via an unlikely route – A Google executive’s response to a bug report submitted by a Pixel user. 

Users enrolled in the Android 14 QPR program noticed an interesting new ‘Battery Information’ page in the About Phone section that detailed battery statistics such as manufacture date and charging cycles.

Image: Ismail Akram (X)

But it wasn’t until this Battery Information page was removed as per the March update, and users reported this as a bug, that Google responded by saying that the removal was deliberate and inadvertently revealed that “we only enable this page on Pixel 8a and beyond”. 

The reveal more or less confirms the existence of Pixel 8a and feeds into all the other leaks and expectations surrounding the latest addition to the Pixel A series. These include a price hike over last year’s Pixel 7a, more storage, and the same processor and design as the Pixel 8. 

Apart from the leak, there are very valid concerns about Google reserving basic information pages for only its newer phones, effectively shortchanging all users who’ve only just recently bought a Pixel device. This might generate some ire in the community but it’s not unwarranted.