Google Pixel 3A: Price, release date, features, differences and everything else you need to know about the new cheaper Android phone

The phone includes most of the same features as its premium sibling, including its much-celebrated camera – at nearly half the price

Google has unveiled the Pixel 3a and 3a XL, its brand new, cheaper phones.

It follows the Pixel 3's release late last year, and is intended as a way for people to get their hands on much of the same technology at a vastly reduced price.

But despite that much lower cost, the new phones still retains much of the same technology that made the Pixel 3 so beloved by critics. Here's exactly what has changed, what stayed the same, what the specs are – and how much it will actually cost.

Price

The new phones' key selling point – and the main thing that sets it apart from the Pixel 3 – is the price.

The 3a starts at £399 and the 3a XL starts at £469. That's nearly half the price of their bigger siblings: the 3 starts at £739 and the 3 XL costs at least £869.

Those same price differences will be reflected across different markets and on pay monthly plans, too.

Release date

The phone is available to buy immediately, and is being sold in the UK by Google itself as well as other retailers including EE and Argos.

What's changed from the Pixel 3?

The first thing to mention is that there's nothing new in the Pixel 3a that wasn't there in the Pixel 3. The only extra thing it has is the return of the headphone jack, which disappeared on the Pixel 3.

So the only real advantage the new phone has over the old one is the price – though that of course is fairly significant.

There are some features slashed from the Pixel 3 to get to that cheaper price, and some specs have been downgraded.

In full, they are: a slightly slower processor, the removal of the selfie cam that allows you to zoom out extra wide and get everyone into a picture, the lack of wireless charging, slightly less high-powered speakers, and no water resistance.

The screen sizes are also slightly different. The display on the 3a XL is smaller than its more premium counterpart at 6-inches – and is a slightly lower definition – and the display on the standard 3a is a little bigger than the Pixel 3 at 5.6-inches.

You also miss out on the option to upgrade your storage. The Pixel 3 range allows people to buy up to 128GB of space – but the 3a is stuck at 64GB.

What stays the same?

Everything else – from the display to the memory – is unchanged.

Even the external design is so similar that you can only spot it from the minor tweaks on the outside, like the added headphone jack and the lack of lens for the selfie camera.

So what are the specs?

For your (reduced) money, you get a whole host of decent if downgraded specs. The screens are both FHD+ OLED displays, the phones have Qualcomm Snapdragon 670 processors, they have 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. On the back is a 12 megapixel dual-pixel camera, just like on the Pixel 3.

What else do you get for your money?

As well as all of the specs, Google has promised that the 3a and 3a XL will receive three years of security and operating system upgrades. That's intended as a way of stressing that this phone won't be left out in the cold despite its cheaper price and the fact that its processors could become too slow for new updates more quickly.