Google Pixel 4a Review - 2 Months Later By Victor Kamanga

Last year, google introduced the Pixel 3a, which was a game changer for the price. Unlike the majority of affordable devices in the market, the Pixel 3a guaranteed consistent software updates and arguably the best camera system on any budget android device. At the time with the Pixel 4a at a more affordable price tag of 350, google aims to deliver a simple android phone with flagship features at an affordable price tag. Does it deliver, I actually kind of like the design of the Pixel 4a, even though it's on the basic side of things like very basic, you literally just get this device in just one option: one colorway that matte black finish that you see here. I do appreciate that they went with this matte black finish over some weird colorway, because we would just have to be stuck with that. There's only one storage solution: 120, gigabytes of storage, no expandability, I think 120 gigabytes of storage- is great for anybody's, looking for an affordable, android device and lastly, you get it in just this one size with that 5.8-inch screen, which I think is a great size for a compact device. I actually appreciate how comfortable it is to hold this device with just one hand, you know, phones should be comfortable to hold with just one hand, but nowadays, we have just a bunch of awkwardly shaped phones from the foldable ones, so the tall ones, if you're getting a phone call which phones are made for you should be able too just to swipe and answer the call and boom not, not like swipe and answer the call, but you guys get what I'm saying here.

I really do appreciate the compact size of the Pixel 4a. Now taking a look around this device on the top, we do have a headphone jack port, which is always a great addition. I can't quite understand why companies don't include headphone jacks on their phones. I've said this in multiple videos in the past, but I just have to mention it because it kind of aggravates me headphones are very relevant in 2020. Furthermore, I do understand that everybody's trying to go wireless or whatever, but it's a simple and cheap feature to include like this, is a 350 phone, and you have phones that cost nearly three times the price of this one, and you can't even have a headphone jack like I, I guess we're going wireless.

So let me stop complaining. Looking at the bottom of the device, you do have an USB charging port which is compatible with fast charging. That is always a nice addition, there's also a speaker, and it works in conjunction with that earpiece. To give you a stereo experience, it actually sounds perfect. I would have to say it sounds just as good as most um flagship devices that have a similar stereotype of experience, where they're using the earpiece and the bottom of the speaker to give you that experience.

So it does sound, perfect for a cheap device like it doesn't sound like a cheap speaker system at all. It's its pretty good. So thank you, google, for that. I actually do tend to listen to music sometimes on the on-board speakers. Even though I do have earphones onto the right-hand side of this device, we do have volume rockers and that signature colored power button that Google likes to include in some of their devices.

It looks spotless here. I actually do prefer having the volume rockers and the power button on two different side of the devices, because sometimes I'll be watching like a movie or a show on Netflix, and I'll try to turn up the volume. And yes, I'm that person who accidentally blocks the phone. I will say I didn't have that issue with this phone, maybe because the power button is super bright, and it just stands out or maybe google just did a really great job at just separating the two. But I have to say that these are definitely some of the most tactile buttons.

I've used on any phones, they're super click, and they just feel perfect to press and on the back of this device we do have a square camera cutout, which just features one camera and flash. I don't know why it's square, they could have just put the camera there in the flash below it, but I guess that's just the design language of this phone, and then we also have a fingerprint scanner which works really well and accurate okay. So if you guys haven't noticed already, I did crack my Pixel 4a being very careless, so when I was actually shooting the 24 hours later, video um, I was getting this beautiful b-roll on top of this parking deck, and I was trying to get one of those shots where you kind of have your phone kind of like laying on something. So it gives the illusion, like it's standing by itself and yeah it tipped over and cracked and yeah. It's been it's very tragic, so my experience on the durability and build quality of this device is going to be based on that and just using it on a day to day.

So I have to say this device is definitely not the most durable device simply because it's built out of plastic, even when I dropped it. I got a bunch of scuffs around the device, even though it laid flat on the screen. I guess it fumbled a couple of times, but it's not the most durable. It is using gorilla glass 3, which is definitely an older version of gorilla glass. So don't drop this phone you're, probably going to crack.

It definitely put a case on this one. Speaking of that beautiful cracked display, at least it's not that bad, it's just a little hairline crack, but it's still a crack. Let's get right into that. This is a 5.8 inch OLED panel, which has a resolution of 1080 by 2340, and it has a pixel density of 443 PPI. It's definitely on the warmer side of things, which I guess is okay.

I do prefer cooler tone displays and I think that just looks a little more natural and I don't know I just prefer the cooler look than that warmer look, and it also has great contrast, and it gets pretty vibrant being that it's an OLED panel. I wish it did get a little brighter in my opinion, because using it outside, it is still usable. Don't get me wrong, but it's not as bright as maybe your flagship displays, but it is great for your day-to-day use for that average person who's looking for an affordable device. Anyway, I'm glad to see barely any bezels here, and we don't have this weird. Looking notch or anything like that, like we did with some of the last generation Google Pixel devices, let's talk specs in my opinion, specs do not matter at all.

It's not about the numbers, it's about how this phone performs on a day-to-day. So with that being said, let's get right into the numbers. The Google Pixel 4a is rocking a snapdragon 730 g, outscore, processor, arena, 618, GPU and six gigabytes of ram, and, as I mentioned earlier, it does have 128 gigabytes of storage with no expandability as far as benchmarks on geek bench you're going to get an average of 6426 and on an tutu. However, you want to say it you're going to get an average of 268 7714, but, like I said those numbers, don't really matter that much. Let's talk about how I was using this phone on a daily basis from a software experience perspective.

This does feel very snappy for the most part, sometimes you're going to get a little of jitter, which is kind of expected for with an affordable device. But it's nothing major to the point where I feel like this phone is going to slow down in the next, maybe like two years. In fact, you're going to get three years of software updates, so it's probably not going to slow down any time from now. Anything from navigating through different menus to opening up applications to multitasking was pretty smooth and straight to the point. I didn't really have any issues here now.

As far as gaming, things like subway, surfers or temple run. You're not gonna, have any issues here. It does pretty well for the most part, but when you're playing high intensive games like asphalt, 9, which I played a lot um, you are going to notice a little of frame drops here and there it's not that major to the point where it's kind of aggravating, but it's not gonna, be nearly as good as playing games on a flagship device. The reason a lot of people are going to pick the Google Pixel 4a over a lot of other budgets android devices is because of the amazing camera experience you get with this device. The 4a just has one camera system.

Unlike a lot of android devices releasing nowadays, it seems, like manufacturers, are just throwing a bunch of cameras on the back of their phones, but they still suck for some reason. Anyway. This has a 12.2 megapixel sensor, which has an f 1.7 aperture. It's capable of recording 4k videos at 30fps, and it can do slo-mo at fps at 1080p. This is essentially using the same camera system as the Google Pixel 4 we saw last year, which was one of the best cameras on any phone last year, and it's still one of the best cameras today, in my opinion, and for you selfie takers, this does have an 8 megapixel sensor in the front, which does have an f 2.0 aperture, and it's capable recording videos at 1080p at 30fps, with both these cameras you're going to get light, processing true to life colors that are very sharp. The HDR feature on both cameras.

Look really great, and you get a fire night mode on that back-facing camera. Here are a couple pictures that I took on both of these cameras, and it's just crazy to imagine that this is coming from a 350 phone, so navigating and taking pictures on the camera application on this phone is pretty easy and straight to the point all you do is swipe from left to right to access the different modes. You have night shift portrait camera you have video, then you have more where you can access features like panorama photo square lens and all that stuff. But it's pretty much straight to the point and I don't think anybody's going to be having a lot of issues navigating through this camera app. The battery life on this phone is actually perfect.

I'm averaging about five to six hours of on-screen with a full day of usage. At the end of the day, I'd say I'm averaging with about 20 left of battery life, which I think is solid for an affordable device. So to answer that question in the beginning of the video, yes, the Google Pixel 4a delivers at 350. This is clearly an easy device to recommend great camera, guaranteed updates up to three years and a wonderful software experience. Now there are some things that I'd like to see in the next iteration wireless charging should be a standard and high p rating would be nice, and please give us more color options, not everybody's basic in this world.

This has been Viktor Amanda with another everything technology. Video. Thank you for watching. I look forward to seeing all of you in the next one. You.

Source : Victor Kamanga