Pixel 4a 5G - The Perfect Pixel 2XL Upgrade! By Allen Yueh

Hey guys Alan here and welcome to LI triple m. I've been rocking this Google Pixel 2 XL smartphones for a few years now, and it has finally reached the end of the line with its software security updates. However, as part of Google's Black Friday promotions they're offering an insane amount of trade-in value for this 2xl in for a 4a 5g phone, which I have right here after the trade-in value and promos and some cashback, I think I paid just over two hundred dollars for this incredible phone, and you know what I think it's the perfect upgrade for the pixel 2 XL. Let's talk about why, as a preface, I am not a tech reviewer by any means, but I wanted to share my initial impressions with the phone having used it for about a week now, we'll go over things that I like things that are just meh and the things I don't like. First, let's talk about things I like about the Pixel 4a 5g things. I would consider direct upgrades to the pixel 2 XL, the design.

I've always thought that the pixel 2 XL looked a little clunky with its top and bottom bezels. The pixel 4 a5g has adopted a hole, punch cutout for the front camera and some pretty narrow, bezels, now there's a little of a chin over here, but I don't find that to be too off-putting. Also, I enjoy the unibody back of the phone. It looks simple yet elegant the size. I always felt the size and weight of the pixel 2 XL was a little too much and had trouble using this phone one-handed, the Pixel 4a 5g solves all of it.

It's still a big phone like the pixel 2 XL, but it's about five percent smaller and width as well as a few grams lighter that doesn't seem like much. But this one for me is much more comfortable and one handable because of its smaller dimensions and lighter weight. The fingerprint scanner, the pixel 4a5g, keeps the rear fingerprint scanner, which is fast and convenient to me. Fingerprint scanners are a much more elegant and simple way to unlock the phone than facial recognition. The internal specs, the pixel 4 a5g, brought on a Qualcomm snapdragon 765 g processor, which is a mid-range processor in 2020.

However, it is faster and more efficient than the snapdragon 835 found in the pixel 2 XL. It's plenty fast for day-to-day activities and some games, and it has 5g connectivity, there's also 6 gigabytes of ram in the 4a5g compared to the 4 gigabytes in the 2xl, I'm finding. I can keep several more apps open at once without refreshing, which is always nice. Finally, there is now 128 gigabytes of storage on the 485 g twice, that of the pixel 2 XL enough for all your apps photos and videos, the camera now, of course, with pixel phones. We have to talk about the camera and the cameras on the 4a5g are excellent.

The reason why I got the 2xl in 2017 was because of the generational leap google made with photography due to its computational algorithm. However, the pixel 2 XL phones only has one single lens camera on the rear. The 4a 5g now has two lenses, the regular one and an ultra-wide lens. These dual lenses, coupled with Google's still excellent computational photography, lead to consistently great photos. Also, the 4a5g can now record videos in 4k 60 fps.

I will definitely be trying that out for future videos. The battery on the 4a5g is large sitting at almost 3 900 William hours compared to the William hour battery on the 2xl, the more efficient 765g processor and the larger battery means that I've been able to last two days on a single charge. With light to moderate usage, also, this phone charges at a reasonable 18 watts, while the 2xl technically came with an 18 watt charger, it was capped at charging at only 10 watts, while 18 watts isn't the fastest charging speeds around these days. It still charges the phone to about 50 percent in an hour which is great the screen. Okay.

So we talked about how the bezels are smaller on the 485 g, and it has this hole, punch camera cut out in the front, which is great. However, one other improvement for the screen is the lack of black crush on the pixel 2 XL. When the screen was at very low brightness. All the dark colors like black gray brown, dark blue, all of them blended together for a uniform black color and black crush that was awful for night viewing. The pixel 485 g screen is markedly improved with the black crush.

I can tell grays from browns to blacks, even on the lowest brightness setting now for the meh parts of the phone first, the screen. Okay, the screen, although improved from last generation, it's still at a 60 hertz, refresh rate just like with the pixel 2 XL in 2020. I know that the new trend is for higher refresh rate screens like 90 hertz or 120 hertz, but for a mid-range phone 60 hertz is fine. Also, the resolution of the 4a5g actually got a downgrade from the 2xl going from 1440p to 1080p. Again, 1080p is fine.

It looks crisp for the most part, but if I pixel peep a little and look really closely, I can see it being slightly less sharp than the 1440p screen on the pixel 2 XL, the plastic body, the pixel 2 XL's body was aluminum and glass, which is super premium. Meanwhile, the Pixel 4a 5g's body is this plastic, which is soft to the touch. It's a nice plastic and I don't mind it at all the headphone jack now. At this point I teach and listen to music, usually with wireless Bluetooth headphones, but the headphone jack on the pixel 4 a5g is always nice to have just in case the speakers. The speakers on the phone are stereo speakers with one ear speaker and one bottom facing speaker.

They have a bit more volume and depth than that of the pixel 2 XL, but still pretty mediocre. I would definitely recommend watching videos and listening to music with earbuds, but the speakers will do in a pinch. No wireless charging, I don't use wireless charging and for me, it's not that much effort to plug in the USB charging cord. Some people might find this a dealbreaker. But for me, it's completely fine.

Google photo storage. In the next few months, Google will change its storage options for Google photos. Previously, anyone could upload unlimited high quality videos and photos to the Google photo cloud. However, after the change, only those with pixel phones will be able to upload unlimited high quality photos and videos. Every other phones, high quality or original quality cloud uploads would count towards the account's Google Drive storage, which is capped at 15 gigabytes for free tier members.

I get it. Google wants to make money with subscription tiers and with the pixel 4 a5g, I can still upload unlimited high quality photos and videos, but taking an awesome feature away from all non-pixel owners is a little disappointing now to the bad aspects of the phone, and I can't really think of anything that I dislike about the Pixel 4a 5g. Everything has met or exceeded my expectations for this mid-range phone. If you have a pixel, 2 XL, I think the 4a5g is the perfect upgrade if you're looking at mid-range phones. Of course, if you're willing to spend upwards of 1000 or more dollars, you can find better phones with slightly better features, but at five hundred dollars, MSRP were under 300, with a good deal, you're hard-pressed to find a better upgrade to the pixel 2 line, and that's it for today's video.

Thanks again for watching my first impressions and pseudo review, video like and subscribe, and let me know what phone you're rocking down in the comments below until next time. Keep it logical, take care everyone. You.

Source : Allen Yueh