Pixel 5s leaks in new photos and video — is it another Pixel 5 model?

(Image credit: Google)

We know quite a bit about the Pixel 5 already with Google announcing that the smartphone would be arriving later this fall and a recent rumor suggesting it may actually arrive this month

With that said, we don't have clear pictures of the unreleased flagship, at least, we didn't until now. Photos and a video posted to Twitter by tech radio host Jose Antonio Ponton show what certainly appears to be a near-final Pixel 5 prototype (via ExtremeTech).

Ponton first posted photos of the rear of the prototype, giving us a look at certification stickers and markings on the device to identify it during testing. He also posted the "About" screen which contained an interesting detail: the phone is identified under the device name "Pixel 5s" rather than Pixel 5. 

Don't get too excited, it isn't likely a supercharged version of the Pixel 5 as was later confirmed in the video. Instead, it is likely the version that supports mmWave 5G as well as sub-6Hz, rather than sub-6 alone. We had already seen that there would be four distinct models of the Pixel 4a 5G and Pixel 5, but hadn't seen the "s" used to identify them previously.

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Turning to the video, it was unfortunately made private shortly after it was posted, but it did confirm some of the rumored specs including the wide-angle lens that has replaced the telephoto on the Pixel 4 along with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 chipset, 8GB of RAM and at least this model featured 128GB of storage.

Again, with the expectation that we see the Pixel 5 released by the end of the month, we don't have much longer to wait to see if Google's flagship that isn't really a flagship can hold up to the competition this year.

Sean Riley

Sean Riley has been covering tech professionally for over a decade now. Most of that time was as a freelancer covering varied topics including phones, wearables, tablets, smart home devices, laptops, AR, VR, mobile payments, fintech, and more.  Sean is the resident mobile expert at Laptop Mag, specializing in phones and wearables, you'll find plenty of news, reviews, how-to, and opinion pieces on these subjects from him here. But Laptop Mag has also proven a perfect fit for that broad range of interests with reviews and news on the latest laptops, VR games, and computer accessories along with coverage on everything from NFTs to cybersecurity and more.