I currently have a Pixel 5a. I got it via the Google Fi "Subscribe and Save" option, which works out to a pretty decent discount from the retail price on top of paying it in installments over 2 years.
I don't know how many of these subscriptions Google is selling, but it will be interesting to see what happens in when a bunch of Google Fi customers start becoming eligible for their upgrade to a new phone subscription around November 2023.
Will customers upgrade immediately to the then presumably extant 'Pixel 7a', or wait?
If customers wait for the next (hypothetically, a 'Pixel 8a') model to come out, will that actually be offered as an upgrade, or will the upgrade offer stick to the older model for a while?
Because of these unknowns, the calculation the customers have to make is interesting: On the one hand, the 5a should still have almost another year of updates, so not upgrading immediately is viable and saves money, and if you wait your upgrade may be to a newer phone.
But, if the '7a' remains the upgrade offer for a while even after the '8a' comes out, what is gained from maxing out the life of the 5a phone at the tail end is lost from shortening the life of the '8a' upgrade from the head end.
I don't know how many of these subscriptions Google is selling, but it will be interesting to see what happens in when a bunch of Google Fi customers start becoming eligible for their upgrade to a new phone subscription around November 2023.
Will customers upgrade immediately to the then presumably extant 'Pixel 7a', or wait?
If customers wait for the next (hypothetically, a 'Pixel 8a') model to come out, will that actually be offered as an upgrade, or will the upgrade offer stick to the older model for a while?
Because of these unknowns, the calculation the customers have to make is interesting: On the one hand, the 5a should still have almost another year of updates, so not upgrading immediately is viable and saves money, and if you wait your upgrade may be to a newer phone.
But, if the '7a' remains the upgrade offer for a while even after the '8a' comes out, what is gained from maxing out the life of the 5a phone at the tail end is lost from shortening the life of the '8a' upgrade from the head end.