Google Pixel 9a benchmark link teases the performance of the upcoming mid-ranger

• Benchmarks for the Pixel 9a have appeared online
• Some – but not all – of the scores match the Pixel 9
• The handset could be launching sometime this month

If the rumors we've heard so far turn out to be accurate, we could be seeing the official launch of the Google Pixel 9a as early as next week – and fresh benchmarks that have appeared online give us some idea of the kind of performance we can expect from it.

These benchmarks come from tipster @KaroulSahil (via Notebookcheck), and are presumably from a device that's being tested somewhere, ahead of the full reveal. The stats include an AnTuTu score of 1,049,844, and Geekbench scores of 1,530 (single-core) and 3,344 (multi-core).

While that AnTuTu score is along the same lines as the existing Google Pixel 9 phones – which you would expect, given that the Pixel 9a is predicted to be running the same Tensor G4 processor inside – the Geekbench scores are some way short of the flagship phones that Google unveiled last August.

There could be a few reasons for this, with the primary one most likely to be that this is a Pixel 9a running pre-launch software that hasn't been properly optimized yet. There might be a few hardware tweaks that still need to be made too.

The price is right?

Given the history of this mid-range phone series – see our Google Pixel 8a review, for example – it's unlikely that we're going to be too surprised by what the Pixel 9a has to offer in terms of performance, when it finally shows up.

Typically with these phones, the internal specs have been comparable to the flagship models that came before them, while cost savings have been made in the design and materials. That makes them a more affordable choice if you don't want the most expensive Pixel phones Google has to offer.

As always, pricing is going to be crucial. The Pixel 8a launched for a starting price of $499 / £499 / AU$849, and it looks as though the 128GB model of the Google Pixel 9a is going to match that. However, we have also heard that the variant with 256GB of storage is going to cost a little more than its predecessor.

It seems there's a surprising design decision on the way that we're going to have to come to terms with: Google is apparently getting rid of the classic Pixel camera bump, so it will have a flatter back than the phones that came before it.

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