No, Google may actually launch more than just one mid-range Pixel phone this year. Newly spotted codenames of some unannounced Google phones suggest that the company has as many as three pocket-friendly Pixel devices in the works, two of them with 5G support. A report earlier this month had suggested that we’d get just the Pixel 4a this year, with no XL variant.
The latest information comes courtesy of XDA Developers‘ Mishaal Rahman who pored over on a tip from @akes29 to find the clues hiding within several Android codebases, namely the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), the latest Pixel 4 firmware dump from this month, and the latest versions of some Google applications.
He found codenames for possibly three new Pixel phones: sunfish, redfin, and bramble. For the uninitiated, Google likes fish names as codenames for its Pixel phones.
A mid-range Pixel phone with 5G support
The first of the trio, sunfish is likely the regular Pixel 4a whose renders started surfacing late in December last year. Sunfish runs on the Snapdragon 730 chipset, which means it won’t carry 5G support.
To recall, the Pixel 3a and 3a XL are powered by the Snapdragon 670 SoC and the Snapdragon 730 is the logical successor to it.
There are two builds for Sunfish in development, one based on Android 10 and another based on Android 11. Apart from AOSP, this codename was also spotted in a string in the Google app alongside other Pixel devices. Unfortunately, this doesn’t reveal anything else about the phone.
Redfin is being developed on the Snapdragon 765 chipset, which does offer 5G support. This is an ODM (original design manufacturer) device. FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of Foxconn, is developing it. The device runs Android 10 on top.
The last of the bunch is bramble which also features the 5G-integrated Snapdragon 765 chipset. This codename appeared in AOSP multiple times. While there’s no evidence on who’s developing it, XDA confirms that both Android 10 and Android 11 variants are in development.
However, before one gets too excited, it is worth mentioning here that these codenames don’t necessarily refer to actual devices.
These could simply be development boards for internal testing. It is unlikely that Google will launch three mid-range Pixel phones this year.
Two seems logical though, a smaller 4G-only Pixel 4a and a slightly bigger and expensive XL model with 5G support.
In such a case, one of redfin or bramble is likely a development board. We should be seeing more about Google’s upcoming mid-rangers in the coming weeks and months.