Leaked Pixel 4a image reveals it's going to be packing faster storage

If Google follows the expected path, the next phone we see from it should be the Pixel 4a around May time. Another leaked image has appeared online, purportedly showing off some of the mid-range handset's specs via a bootloader screen.

The picture, posted at XDA Developers, shows that the Pixel 4a is indeed going to come with 6GB of RAM – that's on a par with the 6GB inside the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, and up from the 4GB inside the Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL.

We previously heard about the 6GB of RAM thanks to a hands-on video posted by the same source, and that video also referred to 64GB of internal storage, which is again shown in this new image.

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What the bootloader picture reveals for the first time is that the 64GB of storage will be using an upgraded UFS 2.1 flash storage chip: that means the storage chip speed matches the Pixel 4 phones and is a step up from the Pixel 3a phones.

Expected upgrades

The speed of your phone storage matters more than you might think, with your handset constantly having to load up apps and files from its internal memory. The Pixel 4a should in theory be noticeably snappier than the Pixel 3a as a result.

However, this is all still unconfirmed – the Pixel 4a shown in this leaked image is believed to be a prototype, and the specific details of the phone might change between now and the launch date.

Still, it is encouraging to see that the Pixel 4a is likely to come with a few internal upgrades over its Pixel 3a predecessor. Based on what we know so far, the Pixel 4a will go on sale for the same original $399 price as the Pixel 3a in the US.

We don't yet know if the Pixel 4a will be available in a 128GB model as well as a 64GB version though, and it would appear that Google has ditched the idea of putting out a larger XL model this time around.