Google Canada outs the Pixel 4a ahead of rumoured July 21 launch

There has been a lot of talk about the Pixel 4a lately. Most recently, a rumour has been circulating about Google releasing a 5G version of the device, which appears to have a different chassis than that has been leaked several times over the last few months. Prior to that, the FCC and the NCC confirmed that there would be 5G connectivity, Wi-Fi 6 or Soli radar functionality on the Pixel 4a, but it would support 18 W fast charging.

Now, Google Canada has been caught displaying a marketing render of the Pixel 4a on its homepage. The subdivision has since removed the image, but a cached version can be viewed on the Wayback Machine. People also managed to grab a high-resolution copy of the render, including Stephen Hall of 9to5Google.

The render corroborates leaked designs of the Pixel 4a. From the image, we can glean that the Pixel 4a has a headphone jack, a capacitive fingerprint scanner, and a single front-facing camera contained by a punch-hole in the device's display. There is also a single rear-facing camera that Google has housed in a similar squircle camera array to the ones that the company used for the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL.

It would seem that this render is of the "Just Black" model that two French retailers published details about in June. The mint power button is a nice touch and is in-keeping with past Pixel smartphone releases. The same retailers listed a "Blue" model too, although there have been conflicting rumours about this colour option.

Another point of interest with the render is the date displayed on the lock screen image. Typically, Google uses a device's release date here, as it did with the Pixel 4 series. Hence, it seems that the company planned to release the Pixel 4a on May 12. The timing of the publication of this image raises questions about the release date of the Pixel 4a too. According to Jon Prosser, Google had planned to release the device on July 13. Evidently, that has not happened, but perhaps someone missed the change. According to one leaker who has a decent track record, Google may be planning to release the Pixel 4a on July 21.