That’s a major bit of news, as the regular Pixel 6 doesn’t support mmWave 5G; only the Pixel 6 Pro does. If this phone does hit the market, we expect it to be one of the cheapest phones to support that flavor of 5G. A lot of phones support sub-6 5G which is still fast, but it’s not lightning-quick like mmWave 5G.
There are other Pixel 6a variants that don’t use mmWave 5G
There were several Pixel 6a models to pass through the FCC. According to Android Police, there were four model numbers for the phones discovered, and only one of them supports mmWave 5G (the one just mentioned). This one has the model number G1AXG. There are three others, and these bear the model numbers GB62Z, GX7AS, and GB17L. These all support only sub-6 5G. These model numbers were previously believed to be model numbers including the Pixel 7 phones and the Pixel NotePad. Since these phones could all be Pixel 6a devices, this brings up a few questions. Could there be a more expensive Pixel 6a model? This one might cost just a bit more and have some extra features compared to the regular Pixel 6a. Either that or it could just have the mmWave and cost a little bit more. Another possibility is that the mmWave variant could be exclusive to one carrier. This could actually make some sense. There are four models; one could be unlocked, and the other three could be for the three main US carriers with one of them being the mmWave variant. Not to point fingers, but Google and T-Mobile did enter a really big partnership last year. Also, it’s still developing because T-Mobile customers can get unlimited Google Photos storage. It’s possible that the mmWave variant will be exclusive to T-Mobile. We can’t say for sure, as this is still really early in the cycle. Only time will tell. Google could possibly talk about the Pixel 6a during its next Google I/O conference. It’s less than a month away, so that’s something to look forward to.
