Quick show of hands, who here is familiar with Boom Mobile (or rather, boom! MOBILE)? Nobody? No one at all? That’s perfectly understandable, as we’re talking about a little-known Oklahoma-based MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) with a measly 1,700 or so Facebook followers and no active official Twitter handle.
Then again, you’d expect the tiny prepaid carrier, which collaborates with both Verizon and AT&T for wireless service providing purposes, to know what phones will and will not work on its network. And Boom Mobile fully expects a (not so) mysterious Google G025E device to join a relatively long list of 5G-compatible products in the near future (as noticed by the folks over at XDA Developers).
We’re pretty sure this is not a 5G-capable Pixel 5 or 5 XL variant, mind you, as the mid-range Pixel 4a has been repeatedly linked to several G025x model numbers in the recent past.
Of course, nothing is carved in stone until
Google confirms it, and there’s still way too much confusion hovering over the 2020 Pixel lineup to take the existence of a 4a 5G for granted. But the evidence is piling up, and we have no reason to believe this device will have the same fate as the Pixel 4a XL.
How might the Pixel 4a 5G differ from its brother and cousins?
One typically reliable leaker, for instance,
recently hinted at the existence of a single Pixel 5 model and both 4G LTE-limited and 5G-enabled 5 XL variants in addition to the already “confirmed” single Pixel 4a version, mentioning nothing about a prospective 4a device with 5G speeds.
No Pixel 4a 5G in this recently rumored lineup
If the Pixel 4a 5G is indeed real, we can definitely expect it to replace the Snapdragon 730 processor under the hood of its 4G sibling with a 5G-capable Snapdragon 765 SoC, which incidentally could power the
Pixel 5 and
5 XL as well.
The Pixel 4a 5G should also upgrade the modest 3,100mAh or so battery capacity of the LTE version, although for the time being, we don’t have any firm speculation to share on that front… or any other prospective improvements for that matter. The “regular”
Pixel 4a, mind you, is widely expected to come with a modern 5.8-inch hole punch display, as well as a single 12MP rear-facing camera, 6 gigs of RAM, and 64 gigs of internal storage space at a starting price of less than $400.
That makes us hopeful the Pixel 4a 5G could cost no more than 500 bucks in its entry-level configuration, which would make it pretty competitive against the likes of Samsung’s
Galaxy A71 5G, the LG
Velvet, or Motorola Edge.
Compared to the Pixel 5, this budget-friendly bad boy should adopt a lower-quality plastic build and deliver an inferior imaging experience. That’s… actually starting to make sense, but alas, nothing is certain just yet.