Pixel 6a gets new fingerprint sensor, wider rollout in 14 countries

The Pixel 6a promises to be one of the most promising smartphones of the year. With a flagship class system on a chip and a $450 price tag, it looks like Google is making a trustworthy iPhone SE. After Thursday’s announcement, a few more details emerged that didn’t make it into the main report.

First, the Pixel 6a will be Google’s widest smartphone launch ever, by a small margin. Remember, the Pixel 5a was the smallest launch in Google’s history, launching in just two countries, the US and Japan. The Google Device Accessibility Support page was updated Thursday, with the Pixel 6a back to the usual 13 Pixel launch countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and USA.

But wait! What’s more: Google also says that the Pixel 6a will go on sale in India later this year, meaning 14 countries. This is a new record for relatively small (Apple and Samsung are shipped to more than 100 countries) Google phone hardware. India is an odd choice as it is one of the most competitive smartphone markets in the world. Google will have to cut the price of the Pixel 6a significantly to be competitive. We don’t know the price in India yet, but check out the responses to this tweet announcement, which is full of Indian consumers already pulling the phone for its $450 suggested price and “only”60Hz. It will be an uphill battle.

The second piece of news comes from Android Central, which received confirmation from Google that the Pixel 6a won’t use the same fingerprint sensor as the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro. Some people have had big problems with the Pixel 6’s fingerprint sensor, calling it slow and unreliable (although our model’s version looks ok), and Google has released a few patches that try to address the complaints. There is hope that the new fingerprint reader is faster and more reliable.

All in all, it looks like Google is doing the right thing with this phone. The final verdict will come when the phone launches in July.