Google Pixel 3a review
Our Verdict
The Pixel 3a has far and away the all-time camera, software and brandish you lot could hope for in a $400 telephone.
For
- Flagship-caliber camera
- Google software and support
- Solid build
- OLED display
- Low price
- Excellent battery life
- Supports all carriers
Against
- No water resistance
- Performance is good, non peachy
- Display could be brighter
- No wireless charging
Tom's Guide Verdict
The Pixel 3a has far and abroad the best camera, software and brandish you could hope for in a $400 telephone.
Pros
- +
Flagship-caliber camera
- +
Google software and support
- +
Solid build
- +
OLED brandish
- +
Low toll
- +
Excellent bombardment life
- +
Supports all carriers
Cons
- -
No water resistance
- -
Operation is good, not great
- -
Brandish could be brighter
- -
No wireless charging
The Google Pixel 3a is less than half the price of most flagship phones, and yet it doesn't look or feel cheap. That's because Google delivers the features most users really care about with this device, including a vivid 5.6-inch OLED display, a fantastic camera and all of the visitor'south clever software, for only $399.
Withal, information technology's been replaced on our list of the best phones by its successor, the new Google Pixel 4a. While last year's model is nonetheless one of the best cheap phones out in that location, Google has since discontinued it, plus the Pixel 4a is a superior telephone in practically every way and costs $50 less.
Even so, the Pixel 3a is still worth picking upwardly if y'all tin can observe one at a compelling discount. That's especially true for those interested in the Pixel 3a XL for its larger brandish, as Google skipped making a 4a Twoscore variant for the latest generation.
Editors' Note: The Pixel 3a had made way for the Pixel 4a , of course, only you can see what'south new in our Google Pixel 4a vs. Pixel 3a face-off.
Google Pixel 3a: Toll and availability
Until recently, the Pixel 3a was available for $399 from most carriers and retailers, only has since been discontinued and replaced by the Pixel 4a. That said, you can notwithstanding find information technology at T-Mobile.
There'south only one configuration of the Pixel 3a and 3a Xl, with 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM. Neither telephone features a microSD card slot, so there'south no way to aggrandize that limited corporeality of space if you fill up information technology all up with photos and apps. The system itself takes up well-nigh 5GB, and once you factor in pre-installed apps, you're looking at around 50GB of usable storage out of the box.
Google Pixel 3a: Design
The Pixel 3a doesn't feel cheap, though its polycarbonate back does give away its price. This phone is too very light and meaty, measuring 6 x 2.eight x 0.iii inches and weighing just 5.ii ounces. As someone who uses the hulking iPhone XS Max with its 6.5-inch screen, the Pixel 3a seems nearly cute.
The Pixel 3a is available in Just Black, Clearly White and Majestic-ish, and I gravitated towards the latter considering it just seems more than fun. The trademark 2-tone Pixel blueprint, combining matte and sleeky surfaces on the back, has been kept intact for the Pixel 3a; although this device is technically made of plastic, information technology honestly feels almost as sturdy and strong as glass. This is hardly the most scenic handset out there aesthetically speaking, but there's no denying it'southward well made.
As for the front, Google has replaced Corning's Gorilla Glass, used in the pricier models, with AGC's Dragontrail strengthened glass — an culling usually found in cheaper handsets. And just as the dorsum of the Pixel 3a is a spitting image of those other Pixel phones, so too is the front. The merely noticeable differences are the lack of a second front-facing photographic camera for broad-bending selfies, and a slightly thicker bottom bezel without a second speaker stashed below the display.
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While the Pixel 3a does notwithstanding feature stereo sound, it fires audio through the earpiece and slits abreast the USB Blazon-C port along the lower edge. Those speakers tin get pretty loud, only the quality appears a fleck more compressed than what you get from the Pixel 3 and 3 XL.
Thankfully, all Pixel 3a phones come with a headphone jack, but none of them offer h2o resistance. That latter point is a bit of a bummer, though not at all unusual for phones in this price range. And although information technology's a small betoken, I have to commend Google for incorporating the Pixel 3'due south fantastic haptic motor in this phone. Tapping away at on-screen keys on the 3a feels so much nicer than it does on any similarly-priced handset, cheers to perfectly weighted blips that fire immediately.
Google Pixel 3a: Display
I'one thousand glad that Google went the OLED route for the Pixel 3a's screen, which means you'll enjoy vibrant colors, wide viewing angles and perfect blacks for a good price. The resolution is pretty good, also, at 2220x1080 pixels.
In fact, if having an OLED panel is important to you, the Pixel 3a currently offers the cheapest path to getting one. Just don't wait the finest display for the toll.
Next to the Pixel 3, the 3a's screen falls short in terms of colour intensity and exhibits a warmer white residual, even when on Dynamic mode, the most saturated of the 3 profiles the handset offers. It's by no means a poor experience — rest assured, we're not talking Pixel 2 XL-levels of disappointment here — but it does go out a bit to be desired if you've ever been mesmerized by the really fantastic OLED panels in the latest Galaxy S handsets and iPhones.
The Pixel 3a's display could exist brighter, likewise. It was tough to make out the Avengers: Endgame trailer in sunlight fifty-fifty when the phone was set to maximum brightness. With a elevation of 401 nits, this brandish comes in well below the 488-nit average, though its sRGB color gamut coverage and Delta-E accurateness scores of 182.3% and 0.18, respectively, are very good and in line with modern flagships.
If having an OLED panel is important to you lot, the Pixel 3a currently offers the cheapest path to getting one. Only don't expect the finest display for the price.
Ultimately, what few complaints you lot'd take about the Pixel 3a's screen experience like nitpicks given how niggling y'all're paying. In an $800 telephone, you lot might feel brusque-changed, but in a device that costs one-half that, getting a good just non great OLED feels like a deal — minor imperfections and all.
Personally, I'd probably opt for the 6-inch Pixel 3a Forty, as I would want more real manor for typing and watching videos, only there is a $lxxx/£70 toll divergence betwixt the ii variants.
Google Pixel 3a: Camera
Google deserves credit for bringing all of the cardinal camera features of the Pixel 3 to its cheaper cousin. The Pixel 3a offers a single rear photographic camera at 12.2 megapixels with a f/1.8 aperture, and it can practice all sorts of tricks. That includes Night Sight, which allows you lot to capture peachy photos even in complete darkness, as well every bit bokeh Portrait Mode and Super Res Zoom, for digital zoom that's comparable with optical.
If yous had whatever doubt the Pixel 3a would be able to punch above its weight class, this portrait it captured of my colleague Caitlin should put those fears to residuum. The optics and much of the hardware backside the Pixel 3a's rear camera is identical to what you go far the Pixel 3; the only difference is that the 3a lacks the Pixel Visual Core epitome processing scrap.
You're getting Night Sight, in all its reality-defying celebrity, in a $400 phone.
That doesn't appear to be a massive setback, however, as the 3a still has the muscle to evangelize a shot that exceeds the Galaxy S10 Plus' all-time effort in many respects. Caitlin's skin tone is amend represented through the Pixel's lens, and while I could practice without some of the unusual artifacting along the left side of her face up, the S10 Plus' strange metering and more zoomed-out perspective are more egregious faults to my eye.
You could certainly make the statement that the S10 Plus won out in this comparing between shots of a pink rose, but the Pixel 3a's outcome is and then much closer than a phone that costs less than one-half the cost has whatever right to exist. Samsung's rendition is a hair sharper beyond the lath, and the company's Scene Optimizer tech was able to punch up those shades of magenta in the petals, to produce a more than vivid shot than Google's handset could manage. But then the Pixel 3a's attempt is still very, very good, with a bit more detail rendered in some areas where the S10 Plus trades definition for saturated colors.
It'southward merely when you come across what the Pixel 3a tin practise compared to a telephone roughly the same price that y'all actually begin to appreciate how special its camera is. The shot from the edge of Bryant Park as captured past the $349/£300 Nokia 7.one isn't bad at all, but it falls short in ways even the best midrange phones for photography do. The heaven is blown out, the foliage is sort of blurry, the patina of the grass is glazed over and ultimately the way the Nokia lit the scene simply isn't true to the day's actual conditions. And yet the Pixel 3a can effortlessly render this gloomy scene in a beautiful way.
And then, of grade, in that location'due south Dark Sight — a feature that has made its mode to the Pixel 3a gloriously intact, and capable of the same feats of software magic that it grants in the Pixel iii. In fact, compared to the Pixel 3, it'southward hard to observe a difference in the quality of the photos between them; mayhap the flagship's case is a hair warmer, maybe the shadow of the railings confronting the light-green-painted wood is a scrap more than pronounced through the lens of the pricier model. Though again, these are negligible differences you likely wouldn't notice unless you were deliberately looking for them. The fact is, y'all're getting Night Sight, in all its reality-defying glory, in a $400 phone.
Finally, the Pixel 3a's front 8-MP camera is serviceable, but you don't go the extra wide-angle lens that the regular Pixel iii offers, so group selfies are a footling more than challenging. The Pixel 3a'south front end-facing shooter tin can't autofocus, either, which means you'll have to be careful about how you position your mug in those instances. All that considered, though, the Pixel 3a can still accept a pretty satisfying selfie that's in one case again right up alongside flagship metal.
Google Pixel 3a: Performance
Armed with a Snapdragon 670 processor and 4GB of RAM, the Pixel 3a feels snappy plenty for everyday tasks. In fact, nigh of the fourth dimension, information technology was difficult to discern a difference in responsiveness compared to the Snapdragon 845-powered Pixel three with respect to opening and closing software and scrolling in apps.
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The sprightly performance isn't quite and then surprising one time y'all look at the benchmarks. The Pixel 3a punched in a score of 5,146 in the arrangement-wide Geekbench iv test. For a bit of perspective, that'due south well-nigh smack-dab in the middle between the original Pixel'southward 4,176 event and the Pixel two, at 6,282. The Nokia vii.one, a modern adversary for the Pixel 3a featuring a slightly less-powerful Snapdragon 636 CPU, couldn't quite lucifer Google's new handset, as it fell just brusque at four,953.
All of that bodes well for the Pixel 3a in an everyday context. Where you lot're likely start to notice lag is when playing demanding games, or using the photographic camera a lot. (It'southward still one of our best handheld gaming consoles, thank you to its skilful option and Google Stadia compatibility.) Although the Pixel 3a tin pull off many of the aforementioned computational photography tricks that Google's more expensive models tin, all that epitome crunching is happening on less-capable silicon, and without Google's Pixel Visual Core to speed things along. That ways sometimes you'll have to wait a pilus longer for HDR+ photos or bokeh-upshot portraits to finish processing subsequently the fact. Information technology'southward not deal-breaking lag by any stretch, simply it can happen.
As for gaming, the Pixel 3a fares ameliorate than most phones at its price range, though it handles some titles better than others. PUBG Mobile wasn't much of a sweat for the infant Pixel, though Asphalt ix: Legends was a choppier, blurrier experience. This is hardly surprising given the handset'south 1,602 score in 3DMark'south Sling Shot OpenGL ES 3.one test — a long manner from the Pixel 3's 4,400 points, let alone the Milky way S10's best effort of 5,606.
Google Pixel 3a: Bombardment life
The Pixel 3a comes with a fairly pocket-size battery at 3,000 mAh, though that'southward however a bit more than you become from the 2,915-mAh chapters of the Pixel iii. Coupled with the Pixel 3a'due south processor, which features more cores dedicated for depression ability consumption rather than high performance, this phone can actually concluding quite a bit longer on a charge than its premium counterpart.
Google'due south latest handset turned in eleven hours and 59 minutes in our battery test, where the device cycled through web pages over an LTE connection at 150 nits brightness until information technology ran out of juice. That'southward significantly longer than the $349/£300 Nokia 7.ane's 7:42 event, and even exceeds Apple's $749/£749 iPhone XR, which managed 11:26.
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Fifty-fifty better, you could get as many as 7 hours of bombardment life with only fifteen minutes of fast charging; the Pixel 3a comes with an eighteen-watt fast charger in the box. Unfortunately all the same, Google did have to skimp on the Pixel iii's wireless charging to achieve the lower toll.
Google's latest handset turned in 11 hours and 59 minutes in our battery examination, which beats the iPhone XR.
Google Pixel 3a: Software and special features
While I suspect many budget buyers will flock to the Pixel 3a for its camera, Google's work on the software side of things shouldn't be disregarded. Because fifty-fifty in this cheaper handset, Google has brought its best and nearly innovative features to the forefront.
That includes Call Screen, which leverages the power of bogus intelligence to deal with unidentified callers so y'all don't have to, as well as Active Edge, which lets you rapidly launch Google Assistant simply by squeezing the sides of the device.
The Pixel 3a launches with Android 9 Pie, though it already is eligible for the Android Q Beta, and will receive the full release every bit presently every bit it launches for the public in late summer or early fall.
Really, the best affair you tin can say well-nigh the Pixel 3a's software experience is that at that place isn't much to say about it; this is the same slap-up flavor of Android that people buy $800 Pixel flagships for, but now it's running on hardware that costs half that. And the fact information technology also comes with three years of guaranteed software updates and monthly security patches ensures a level of back up that no other smartphone at this cost range enjoys.
The only gripe I take is that the Pixel 3a misses out on the two years of unlimited original-quality uploads to Google Photos that every previous Pixel has enjoyed. Rather, you lot get the same limited 15GB allotment for total-resolution images and unlimited "high quality" storage that every other Android phone is already eligible for.
Google Pixel 3a: Verdict
The Pixel 3a is a steal for those who only don't desire to spend a lot on their next phone and nonetheless go a great camera. The specs are decent for the $399/£399 toll, and y'all don't have to deal with the usual carrier bloatware that you'll typically notice on other midrange phones.
In fact, aside from a slight hit to functioning, the Pixel 3a avoids almost all of the frustrations that usually befall other cheap handsets — and that includes skillful ones like the $349/£300 Nokia 7.one and $299/£240 Moto G7. The build quality is excellent, the display is a cutting in a higher place any run-of-the-manufacturing plant LCD screen, the battery lasts very long on a charge, and the software consists of Google'south latest and greatest services, with the promise of quick updates for three years. Most budget devices are lucky to run across one update in their entire lifetime.
Of course, the Pixel 3a's biggest rival is Google's new Pixel 4a, which offers a better processor, photographic camera, design and brandish for $50 less. The 4a has rendered the 3a obsolete, sadly, especially because you tin can't buy a new Pixel 3a from near official retail channels anymore. That said, if you can track one down for well nether list price or perhaps secondhand, information technology remains a great choice for just near anyone in need of a great cheap phone.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/google-pixel-3a,review-6452.html
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