It’s Pixel season, with a new Pixel launched, and more coming soon, but hey, it’s never too late to look at what’s happening next. A leaked internal document shows Google is working on next years Pixel 5a, as well as a new foldable Pixel, and two more Pixel devices.
The document via 9to5Google, shows mention of all the previous Pixel phones (minus the original apparently), an goes on to mention the Pixel 5a (“barbette”), as well as three more devices listing codenames “raven,” “oriole,” and “passport”.
The document lists launch time-frames as Q4 2021, which puts Raven and Oriole (bird names) as likely suspects for the Pixel 6 (and maybe an XL next year?), with Passport likely the foldable Pixel.
It’s interesting to note the codenames aren’t fish related – Traditionally Google has named their hardware after fish, though the document apparently acknowledges that these codenames differ to those used in AOSP.
Google has previously been caught looking at foldables, however Mario Queiroz, former GM, Vice President Product Management at Google looking after the Pixel division played it off as the company simply “prototyping the technology”.
Google has gone from the traditional Flagship in two sizes, and mid-range phone in two sizes to a three phone strategy this year. From the looks of this we’re looking at a four phone strategy for next year, but at this early stage anything can happen.
