Poco X3 vs Pixel 4a with Camera Test Comparison By Danny Winget

What's up everybody. This is Danny, and today it's all about the best budget phones on the market. Let's compare the Poco x3 NFC versus the Pixel 4a. These two are different in their approaches, but I feel are the best in their price category. I would compare the new Pixel 4a 5g, because it's a closer comparison, but the pricing is so far apart. I chose the cheaper Pixel 4a, so let me break these two down to help you make the best buying decision and then what I'll do is I'll give you a camera comparison as well and let you know which one has the better camera system for the money.

These are both great value for your money, but they're, two different phones. In my opinion, the Poco x3, is trying to give you a flagship experience at a budget phone price and the Pixel 4a is basically the most affordable new google phone that you can buy. This spec of the Poco x3 with 128 gigabytes of storage, is less than 300 right now, while the Pixel 4a is 349. So what I'm going to do is I'll leave some links down below. For you, so you can check current pricing because you'll never know when these will go on sale when it comes to specs and what you get for the money.

It's almost an unfair fight. The Poco x3 NFC on pricing doesn't make sense, because it's just that good, they both have plastic backs, but the Poco has a metal frame which makes it feel more premium. It's weighty, and it feels like a flagship build. I do prefer the matte finish of the pixel. It really feels good, but it's a lightweight phone, so it just doesn't have quite the same premium feel there's a fingerprint scanner on each.

The pixel is easier to get to with the rear mounted scanner with either hand it's a little old-school, but I still think it's really effective. The Poco x3 has the fingerprint scanner built into the power button and since I'm right-handed, it works really well, but if you're left-handed it can be a little tougher, but it's really fast. I dig it. The Poco x3 NFC also has a headphone jack, which is an absolute surprise, and you also get an IR blaster, which you rarely see anymore. So I know floss is going to be happy with the troll level on this one, you get a large 6.67 inch 1080p LCD on the Poco x3. While you get a smaller 5.8 inch, 1080p OLED display on the Pixel 4a. I think the big differentiator here is the 120hz display on the Poco x3 in this price point.

This fluid refresh is unheard of. So this is the same superfast refresh rate that you're, seeing on flagship, Samsung phones and higher end OnePlus devices. Now I can't say that this is the smoothest 120hz display that I've seen there's some slight ghosting here, but you really can't complain, especially for the price. The Pixel 4a is a compact device more in line with something like the iPhone SE. So this is a smaller one-hand friendly device and the OLED display is really great, better quality than you would expect in this price point.

So let me know what you would rather have a larger 120, hertz LCD or a smaller OLED 60 hertz display I'm curious to hear what you guys think they both have dual speakers, one in the earpiece one at the bottom, and we have a LED notification light on the Poco x3 NFC, something we haven't seen in a very long time. The processor is also newer on the Poco x3 NFC. It has a refreshed, Qualcomm snapdragon 732g, while the Pixel 4a has the older 730g. They both have six gigabytes of ram, and here are the benchmarks. So you can see, there's a performance gain on the processor side and the graphics side.

Day-To-Day performance isn't really going to show a huge difference. But when you are gaming or doing some editing on your phone, then you might feel some real day-to-day differences they both use. UFS, 2.1, storage, nice and fast. The Pixel 4a comes with 128 gigabytes of storage out of the box, where the Poco comes with 64 gigabytes on the lower end, and if you want 128 gigabytes, you got to pay a little more, but the Poco has a micro SD card slot. So that is a major win for easy expansion.

Battery life is very important and the Poco x3 NFC has a huge 5160 William hour battery, which is incredible so all-day battery, even with the 120 hertz refresh rate. It's no issue, so I'm glad to see this type of capacity in this budget price category. The Pixel 4a is a much smaller phone, so it has a 3140 William hour battery, but don't be fooled all day. Battery is also no problem for the 4a, which really surprised me in my testing. It's not going to give you the same battery life as the polo, but it is pretty impressive.

Now there is no wireless charging on either of these phones, but they both support fast charging, 33 watt fast charging on the polo, which can charge this big battery in just 65 minutes where you have 18 watt fast charging on the Pixel 4a. Before we move on the camera. I want to talk about the software a little and its longevity, because the Pixel 4a is running the latest version of android 11 and if you know anything about software updates, it can make an old phone feel new, and you will get three years of software updates and get them quicker than most other phones. So that is definitely something to think about, since the Poco x3 NFC is still on android 10, and it will get software updates, but definitely not as quick as the pixel. The reason why I bring this up is for longevity.

On software, the pixel definitely wins, so you're going to get the latest and greatest builds for a lot longer where, on the hardware side, the Poco is fresh now, but when it comes to software, it's going to lag a little behind. So let me know what you think: hardware is more important, or is software more important, so you're going to have to kind of factor that in to the price? So let's talk cameras, everybody's favorite topic on the front. They look very similar with hole, punch cutouts for the front facing cameras they're just in different locations, but when you flip it over, it's clearly different the Pixel 4a you get just one lens: it's a 12.2, megapixel, f, 1.7 sensor and a flash and that's it. While on the Poco x3, you get a cluster of cameras, you get a 64 megapixel main sensor, a 13 megapixel ultra-wide, a 2 megapixel depth and a 2 megapixel macro. When you just look at the back, it looks unfair.

So I took these out and I took a bunch of photos and I wanted to see if the pixel can keep up. So here are the results during the day they both look great like you would expect, but there are some differences. I noticed right away off the bat the Poco x3 definitely likes to over saturate. When it comes to the colors. You can see it in almost every shot.

Now, that's not a bad thing if you like this type of processing, but if you prefer more of the natural colors, then you will like the Pixel 4a more before I started this comparison, I honestly thought it was going to be a complete blowout when it comes to the camera, but the Poco x3 is for sure holding its own when it comes to dynamic range and detail during the day and a lot of times, it actually showed higher dynamic range than the Pixel 4a, which was astounding, but when it comes to the overall balance of the shot and processing in general, I prefer the Pixel 4a. During the day the HDR needs work in certain scenarios on the Poco x3 NFC look right here where the Pixel 4a is nearly perfect. Also in this harsh lighting through the tree, you get purple fringing on the polo, where the pixel it looks much cleaner. Now I do like the fact that the Poco x3 has a wide angle camera. You will have to pay an extra 150 more for the Pixel 4a 5g to get the wide angle make sure you subscribe, because I will be covering that and the pixel 5 very soon.

Now they both have digital 2x modes, and I don't see a huge quality difference here. You let me know if you see a big quality difference between the two, but when the light gets lower, the ultra-wide on the Poco x3 isn't great. So be aware of that, I would use the main camera in low light for the front facing camera. The Poco x3 NFC has a 20 megapixel f 2.2 sensor, while the Pixel 4a has an 8, megapixel, f 2.0 sensor. The biggest difference between the two is the white balance and sharpness.

The Poco sometimes does a fantastic job like here, where I think it looks better, but most of the time the sharpness is better on the Pixel 4a, with no skin smoothening, where the Poco tends to smoothen under certain conditions. But I do like the white balance better on the Poco most of the time on selfies when it comes to 4k video. It's very similar to the pictures. The Poco gives the more saturated and colorful video, where the pixel does capture more of the natural colors, but I do have to say, regardless of the over saturation. The polo's video looks better here and ready to share right out of the camera when it comes to stabilization, they for sure show plenty of bounce.

I was just holding these in my hands while I was walking- and I wouldn't say that these are the best by any means. But if I had to call the winner, I think the pixel is a tad smoother here when recording in lower light conditions. The same thing happens more color for the polo, which does look a lot better, and while the pixel does show more shadow detail out of the camera, the heavier contrast of the Poco gives it better noise reduction. So the Poco overall looks better here that weird in between time, where it's not quite low light, but the sun is going down, is where I started to see the difference. The colors get weird on the polo, since this over saturation is not working for these scenarios.

The pixel has better color reproduction because of the sky. Certainly didn't look turquoise, as captured by the x3 respect to the polo, though, because it does produce a brighter picture, so I hope they can balance a few of these issues out with software updates when it gets darker is where you start to see the real difference. The Pixel 4a consistently takes the sharper picture with less noise, the regular shots with night mode and without night mode. You can really see it when you crop in heavily the Pixel 4a is significantly cleaner in every way. In an extreme scenario where you can barely see the plants, the night mode really shines on the Pixel 4a.

So much more detail, it's incredible. If you want to shoot the sky at night, it's the same thing. The pixel picks up more of the star detail. It has a much brighter image with less noise. I would include more samples, but I really didn't need it.

If you take your low-light photography seriously on your smartphone, then you need to go with the Pixel 4a, despite having just the single camera. So what do you think? Would you rather have the Poco x3 NFC or the Google Pixel 4a? To be honest, the Poco x3 really surprised me it's a great phone for the price. You just get a lot more, including more cameras, better processor, bigger display with a faster refresh rate and a bigger battery, but the Pixel 4a, while it's extremely simple, has a very reliable single shooter camera. That gets a great image almost every time, and you get the latest version of android and fast software updates. That will push the longevity of this device.

If you only plan to keep your phone for a year or two, then I think the Poco is much more compelling because you just get so much more. But if you want that longevity, then the Pixel 4a might be the better buy. But if you're a fan of google in the pixel lineup- and you have a little more money, then I would definitely look into the Pixel 4a 5g because it has a bigger screen, a bigger battery, and it has an ultra-wide camera. So definitely look into that. Thank you for watching.

I hope you enjoyed this. I hope this helped you make a buying decision. Make sure you hit that like button, if it did subscribe for a lot more videos like this, and I will see you guys in the next one.

Source : Danny Winget