Google Pixel 4a Review: Fashionably late (but worth the wait!) By Android Central

This video is sponsored by tells mobile, so here it is Google Pixel 4a. It feels like I've been talking about this phone for an eternity already. We put out our first video on it in January, it's now august, but you know what all the delays and drama and weirdness surrounding the future of the pixel line doesn't really matter when the result is a phone. This good priced so competitively, I'm Alex from android central- and this is our review of the Pixel 4a arriving fashionably late. This fall for 349 of your favorite currency. Make sure you subscribe, so you don't miss our android 11 review coming soon, and we'll jump right in I'm going to get one major gripe out of the way right up front.

The Pixel 4a's design in just black, which is the only color announced right now, is fairly dull. It's comfortable to hold with a pleasant matte texture, but there's just not much to it. The design could have really benefited from the splash of color we've seen elsewhere in the pixel line, and it's just not there. That said, the ergonomics of sound the map plastic definitely feels like matte plastic, but that's kind of a trademark of the pixel a series anyway. The buttons for power and volume are also polycarbonate, though, with a reassuring stickiness to them.

You could call the whole package understated, however, especially in this black color. I definitely lean more towards boring, at least until there are some more colors available at the risk of stating the obvious. This definitely is a small phone and since there's no Pixel 4a XL this year. For the moment, the small pixel is your only option if you want a current, affordable google phone right now. With that said, let's move on and concentrate on the side of the phone you'll actually be looking at.

The 4a is the first pixel to adopt this hole. Punch screen design along with significantly smaller bezels than its predecessor, we'll be seeing more of both of those design traits in future pixels. If the rumors are to be believed, the 5.8-inch screen size combined with the taller aspect, ratio and dramatically smaller bezels means the Pixel 4a is actually smaller than the Pixel 3a. It's also shorter and lighter than the small pixel 4 from last year. The panel sports, a full HD plus resolution and in most of the key metrics, hold its own really well, it's not quite as crazy bright as a flagship screen in direct sunlight, but it's still perfectly legible, even on sunny days.

Colors are pleasing and vibrant, though out of the box, it's set to this natural color profile. If you want a bit more punch, you'll need to manually enable the boosted color mode, and yes, this is a 349 phone. So, of course the panel is 60 hertz, as opposed to the higher refresh rates we're starting to see in some mid-priced phones like the OnePlus word, going back to 60hz after using the 90hz. Word was a bit of an adjustment, but really after a day or so it looks perfectly fine one area where the Pixel 4a trumps. The word, though, is audio.

Not only does it pack a pretty loud and clear stereo speaker setup, combining the bottom firing loudspeaker with the earpiece tweeter, but the Pixel 4a retains the good old 3.5 millimeter headphone jack, which I don't particularly care about, but I know many people do inside the pixel.4A builds on the internals of the 3a in some really important areas. Of course, the CPU gets a bump up to a snapdragon 730, basically a small step down from the snapdragon 765 series that we've been seeing in some more expensive mid-ranges and also lacking the 5g radios of that chip. There's only one storage configuration of Pixel 4a available right now, with six gigs of ram and 128 gigs of storage 128 is still pretty much the sweet spot where most people won't need to worry about running out of storage, and it's also fun to remember that less than a year ago the pixel 4 debuted with half of that, so that extra space is definitely welcome in the 4a. Equally, six gigs of ram is perfectly fine for a phone at this level, and I've run into absolutely no multitasking issues. Even when using that memory, hungry, HDR plus camera there's also a 3 140 William hour battery inside a modest upgrade from the Pixel 3a and pixel 4 there.

For me, it's enough to get through an average full day and certainly the best longevity I've seen from a small pixel by a country mile. Only on rare occasions did it struggle to keep pace. With my usage that said, I've found higher than average battery door while streaming audio over Bluetooth on LTE and obviously that pixel camera processing is pretty power hungry too. It's easy to run the battery straight into the ground by lunchtime, if you're out, shooting photos and videos all morning. So by the time I was at the end of a regular 14 to 15-hour day with around four to four and a half hours of screen on time.

The phone was ready for a top-up and that pretty average battery is topped up by a pretty average charging spec 18 watt, USB pd via the box charger, just like every other pixel since the dawn of time. There's no QI wireless charging in this model. Unfortunately, despite rumors to the country before we move on, I want to take a sec to talk about this video's sponsor tells mobile. Are you ready to lower your phone bill for yourself, your spouse or your team with tell, the average phone bill falls under 20 dollars a month, plus you can change your plan at any time with no fees whatsoever. Tells is designed to save you money and has something for everyone for your teen unlimited token text, plus one gig of data for only ten dollars a month, that'll give them basic phone service with access to data, while they're away from Wi-Fi for the average American unlimited token text, plus 4 gigs of data for only 19 a month to fully enjoy their phone without overpaying for what they don't use for the data hungry professional, unlimited talk text and data for 39 a month.

Unlike most Bros, all teller plans include free hotspots. If you're ready for a no-nonsense wireless provider, then head over to tello. com check coverage in your area and if your current phone works with tell, you get to keep the number you love and enjoy a ton of savings check the link in the description for more, and thanks to T-Mobile for sponsoring this video. Now, let's talk software google's pixel software is one of the key things that sets its phones apart from the crowd. So just like any other pixel, you get a minimum of three years of android platform updates.

The 4a's pixel UI also comes with a full load out of features from the latest pixel feature drop based on android 10. If you thought it was weird launching a new pixel on android 10 just a month before the expected arrival of android 11, then you're right, it is, but that's very likely a consequence of the Pixel 4a's long delay beyond its originally expected may launch window. So by the time many people actually get this phone it'll be running software. That looks just a little different to what we're reviewing it on today. With that said, the Pixel 4a on android 10 is fast and a delight to use the new faster Google Assistant, which, almost a year on we still haven't seen on any non-pixel phone, is alive and well, and exceptionally, quick.

Google has retired the squeeze gesture from earlier pixels. So now the horizontal swipe gesture is your main way to activate assistant on the foray. Otherwise, this phone benefits from everything in the last pixel feature drop, including the potentially life-saving personal safety suite and Google Pay integration in the power menu, and you get almost all the pixel back catalog of wallpapers and live wallpapers, including some fun new ones, that riff on the placement of that hole, punch, selfie, camera next to its smart assistant features. The pixel's camera is where this series has really built its reputation over the past four years. So it's no surprise that the 4a excels in photography, mainly because that rear camera is essentially identical to that of the flagship tier pixel 4.

The main trade-off. Besides, the lack of any telephoto camera is that photos do take longer to process a consequence there of that slower processor and the lack of the pixel neural core coprocessor found in higher end pixels. Despite this limitation, the Pixel 4a is still the best little camera phone you could buy for less than four hundred dollars. In fact, you'd have to spend considerably more to take better photos than google offers here at 349. This is 100 a pixel camera with high dynamic range, perfect colors and that trademark pixel.

Look that google's cameras are known for. Google still has some of the best photo processing in the business and that really helps to set the Pixel 4a. Apart from its competition, the really useful, independent shadow brightness slider that debuted in the pixel 4 also comes to the 4a alongside staple pixel features like the phenomenal night sight and the macrophotography mode that also debuted in the pixel 4. The major limiting factor here is that there's just one rear camera, so you're instead left relying on super resume. Google's smart zoom feature that works with the motion of the camera.

To get more detail. This works pretty well up to around 2x, but beyond that things start to become blotchy and watercolor like particularly in areas of softer detail, like clouds still there's enough wiggle room that you can get away with punching in slightly and still getting a decent photo and that legendary Google processing also helps with this selfie shooter. There's an 8 megapixel fixed focus, front face that also supports nightlight and Google's portrait mode. The Pixel 4a is incredible value for 349 pounds or euros and a worthy successor to the Pixel 3a. Obviously, you can't get everything for 350 bucks, though water resistance and 90 hertz screen wireless charging.

All of these things have had to have been cut to meet the forays aggressive price point. However, Google has made strides elsewhere modernizing and improving the design, stepping up the specs, keeping the same great camera quality and slightly increasing the battery life, while also dropping the price by 50 compared to the 3a, all of which makes it a great upgrade. That's without even mentioning the Google magic, the pixel camera, the best assistant and a ton of AI smarts built into the software. So, for all of those reasons, the Pixel 4a should definitely be on your shortlist. If you're shopping for a mid-range android phone, this fall, that's gonna, wrap up our review stay tuned and subscribe for our upcoming coverage of android 11 and the Galaxy Note 20 coming soon.

Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time, you.

Source : Android Central