A hugely dubious leak alleges the Pixel 4a will rock an old Exynos SoC

A device calling itself the "google Pixel 4a" has appeared on the Geekbench 5 website. Occurences such as these are often a useful insight into the possible specs of as-yet unreleased phones; however, that might not be the case on this occasion. In fact, this one is interesting due to the sheer size of a fake it is likely to be.

This phone is described as running Android 10, which, for Google's own in-house smartphone, is plausible. However, it starts to fall apart a little when it comes to the processor-related information. The listing asserts this successor to the Pixel 3a - part of a series that has used nothing but Qualcomm silicon since its first generation - runs on something called the "universal8895".

This matches information found in analogous Geekbench listings for the Galaxy S8: in other words, it refers to the Exynos 8895. The "Pixel 4a" apparently even has 4GB of RAM, as does the older Samsung flagship. Its chipset does admittedly run at the same approximate base clock as the 3a's Snapdragon 670 - all the same, it is quite an exercise in credulity to imagine Google might eschew this chipset's own successor in its brand-new mid-ranger.

On this note, another giant clue as to this new "leak's" authenticity is found in the same area of the Geekbench results page: the motherboard is also listed as the 8895, rather than a classic Pixel fish-themed code-name. (The 4a's own alias is currently thought to be "redfin", or possibly "bramble".) Therefore, this particular putative leak may have little validity, save perhaps as an example of how not to do one.