Google Bard can help with your web searches, compare different things, and help you plan your upcoming events. It seems that spilling details about upcoming Google product launches is also part of the chatbot’s bag of tricks.
according to Japanese site (Opens in a new tab), a Reddit user asked Google Bard when the Pixel 7a – Google’s upcoming budget phone – will be available. The chatbot responded that pre-orders for the Pixel 6a would begin on July 20th, with the phone officially going on sale a month later on August 24th.
Now the last thing you should do in life is put your full faith in newly launched chatbots, especially when Google warned that Bard wouldn’t always have accurate answers in these early stages. “Things will go wrong,” the CEO said Sundar Pichai told Googlers (Opens in a new tab) The Bard’s public testing kicked off this week.
However, this is a very specific answer about Google’s Pixel 7a launch plans from the chatbot. It also goes against widespread expectations for the Pixel 7a release date.
Wait, what about Google I/O?
Most people are expecting to get a preview of the Pixel 7a at Google I/O 2023, which is scheduled for May 10th. A full release of the phone will happen later in the summer.
This is the pattern Google followed with the Pixel 6a last year, previewing the phone at Google I/O in May and then launching it on July 28 after a week of pre-orders for the phone.
Google Bard’s reported response indicates a month-long pre-order process, followed by a launch in late August. Some sites reporting rumored dates suggest a launch in late August could align with Android 14, which is scheduled to be released around that time. But it’s worth noting that Google wasn’t really in mind for the previous Pixel A series phones, which were released independently of Android updates.
For what it’s worth, we asked the Google Bard the same question about the Pixel 7a’s arrival and got an even more ambiguous response. “The Pixel 7a is expected to be released in the first half of 2023,” Google Bard told us. Based on the release dates of previous Pixel A-series phones, it is likely to be announced in May 2023 and released in July 2023. Another Tom’s Guide employee posted the same query and got a wider range of possible release dates, running from June to August.
What we learned from this is that whatever strengths Google Bard has, the reliable leak of smartphone details probably isn’t one of them.
What do you expect from the Pixel 7a
When it arrives, the Pixel 7a is expected to feature the same Tensor G2 chipset that Google introduced with the Pixel 7 series last fall. Hopefully Google will have a line with a starting price of $449 for the Pixel 6a, but the Pixel 7a’s features are rumored to include a 90Hz display and possible camera upgrades.
That could mean a price hike, though we’d certainly expect the Pixel 7a to cost under $500, not to bump into the Pixel 7’s $599 starting price. The Pixel 6a is currently our best cheap phone under $500.
As for the predictive capabilities of the Google Bard, consider the Pixel 7a launch predictions as part of the bumpy early stages that also saw the chatbot compose phishing emails and admit to stealing content. Our initial impression of Google Bard is that the chatbot has a lot of promise, but it still has a long way to go before it can become a competitor to ChatGPT, just be it a reliable and accessible search tool.
