Google Pixel 9a benchmarks leaked — and the scores are underwhelming

Rumor has it the Pixel 9a could be a matter of days from arriving, with Google set to eschew its habit of releasing ‘a’ handsets at its May I/O events.

Now there’s more evidence to back this up as two sets of benchmarks have emerged with somebody seemingly testing the mid-range phone’s abilities ahead of its official release.

On X, the YouTuber Sahil Karoul published benchmarks of the Pixel 9a in both AnTuTu and Geekbench. The former’s score of 1,049,844 is about what we’d expect for a Tensor G4-powered device, which is to say, about the same as a regular Pixel 9 handset.

However, the Geekbench scores of 1,530 for single-core performance and 3,344 for multi-core are distinctly underwhelming.

To put that into perspective, those are worse scores than those achieved by the Pixel 8a, which averages 1,594 and 4,171 on the site. By contrast, the Pixel 9 scored 1,758 and 4,594 in our own review tests, and that’s similar to what we’d expect from the Pixel 9a, considering it’s tipped to use the same processor.

While Google may be breaking the habit of the last few generations and giving the ‘a’ model a weaker chip than the regular phones, a more likely explanation is that these results are an anomaly.

Geekbench does turn up some strange readings occasionally, especially on pre-release handsets where the software is yet to be optimized to the nth degree. That’s more than likely what’s happened here — especially with AnTuTu results being more in line with what we’d expect.

No surprises left?

The Pixel 9a may be the most-leaked handheld in recent times, with pretty much every detail of it already revealed in some capacity, right down to the colors available at launch. It’s even made an appearance at a lucha libre wrestling event, with its fresh-looking camera bump.

It’s tipped to come with the same Tensor G4 processor, 6.3-inch 120Hz OLED screen and 128GB/256GB storage configurations as the regular Pixel 9.

But with the Pixel 9a expected to maintain the same $499 starting price as its predecessor, cuts have to be found to undercut the $799 Pixel 9. It’s therefore expected to have 8GB RAM rather than 12GB, and somewhat reduced camera specs: a 48MP and 13MP dual array, compared to the pricier phone’s 50MP/48MP setup.

We should find out very soon if all of these leaks are correct, with rumors of a launch planned for this week.

Back in January, we heard that pre-orders were set to begin on Wednesday, March 19, so that will either be proven correct or incorrect very soon indeed.

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