As a part of yesterday’s February Pixel update, Google sent new updates to two devices that reached end of life last year. The Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a 5G both have updates available for those of you hanging on, even as support was supposed to have stopped.
The new builds for the Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a 5G are UP1A.231105.001.B2. Their previous builds were UP1A.231105.001, so you can see we upgraded with a “B2” on the end. These should just fix bugs and not provide anything else, even the new February patch. This update should leave both on their previous security patch from November, as security patch support ended in November for these two Pixel phones.
I’ve got to admit that these updates certainly surprised me. We typically see Google issue final updates to phones after their official support window has ended to tidy up bugs. However, both of these phones were last updated in November 2023, so they took 3 months to send out this final build. Kind of wild.
You can check for the update now by heading into Settings>System>System update.
And once you have updated, you really should look at upgrading to a new device that is still seeing updates, especially those security patches. If a Google Pixel is something you’d like to keep using, know that Google discounted all of its newest phones this week again. The Pixel 8 Pro is once again $200 off and starting at $799.