Google Pixel 4A 5G review: more than just a bigger budget phone

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The Google Pixel 4A 5G is a good phone for reasons that bear almost goose egg to perform with the "5G" in the name. The ostensible reason for the phone to live is to offer 5G connectivity to customers who want a more affordable phone. It starts at $499 for most carriers but costs $599.99 on Verizon. But the actual reason to buy one is much simpler: it offers a big enough screen, great cameras, and a decently fast processor. It yet has a headphone jack.

Phones with some of those attributes aren't necessarily briefly issue, symmetrical at the $499 price point Google has targeted. Merely few can match the Pixel's photo prime Beaver State guarantees of timely updates.

Care the standard $349 Pixel 4A, the Pixel 4A 5G is an affordable way to get in on features usually reserved for round top-tier smartphones. But as with whatsoever phone, there are deal-offs.

Pel 4A 5G hardware

The Pixel 4A 5G is the largest Pixel that Google is releasing this class, with a 6.2-in screen. It doesn't feeling as surfboard-y as other heavy phones, in part because it's relatively light compared to something similar a Galaxy Note and because its screen just ISN't equally big as others. In fact, Google wasn't aiming so much at making a big headphone with the 4A 5G as it was trying to balance the parts and the 5G radios. The slightly larger size is Sir Thomas More side effect than goal.

It also has comparatively little bezels around the screen, though they'rhenium bigger than on the Pel 5 and too a trifle uneven imputable the OLED sieve technology Google used. The screen looks trade good. Information technology's only 1080p and doesn't have a high refresh rate. Colors are surgical, and the screen is visible in daytime, too, which isn't e'er the case with inexpensive OLED screens.

I'll give this to Google: information technology has chosen an aesthetic for its Pixel phones and stuck thereto. The Pixel 4A 5G looks very such like the 4A and the 3A. It has a basic plastic body that's slippery to the touch — it's neither slick nor especially grippy — but the plastic doesn't feel cheap, just a little plain.

The seat besides holds a small conventional-shaped television camera bump with cardinal lenses and a fingerprint sensor. The sensor International Relations and Security Network't very recessed, though, and my finger sometimes has a hard time emplacemen it. When I do find it, the sensor is lightning spry. It's a great deal faster than even the best in-block out fingerprint sensor, but I'm not totally sure I opt that trade-away.

Another notable hardware feature: a 3.5mm headphone jackass. The exterior trade-offs Google made to bring the price down include no wireless charging, no high refresh plac screen, and no rated IP68 irrigate opposition — the last of which is the biggest bummer to me.

The power button on the Pixel 4A 5G is the only playful part of the design — *The power push button happening the Pixel 4A 5G is the only playful break u of the design.*

Pixel 4A 5G performance

Google made a clustering of other trade-offs on the indoors of the Pixel 4A 5G, of course. The primary one is the central processor, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 765G. This tradeoff cuts both ways: it's more pricey than the regular 4A's C.P.U., only it's also quicker and provides support for 5G.

A quick word connected 5G: in the US, it's not great. That's wherefore I find it odd that Google seems thusly compelled to create and passing this phone. The oddity is easily explained, though: United States of America carriers aren't eager to sell any phone that doesn't support 5G anymore. The plac is worsened on Verizon, which simultaneously has the worst 5G reporting and higher prices. If you are looking at Verizon, the $599.99 Pixel 4A 5G makes less sense than just spending $699 on the Pixel 5.

5G aside, performance on the 4A 5G is quite good, easy fast enough for day-to-Day tasks. Judged close against top-tier up phones like the Galaxy S20 operating theatre equal the iPhone 11, the Picture element 4A 5G is perceptibly slower at tasks like rendering webpages or loading big apps. But fitting using it all 24-hour interval, you won't really bill. Especially at its $499 price place, the 4A 5G is vivace sufficient and should provide good performance for several years. It's notably faster than the regular Pixel 4A, which has a slower processor and lacks 5G.

The biggest performance question mark going in was battery life. The Pixel 4's assault and battery life is notoriously bad (the 4 Forty is slimly better, if only when because it's bigger and has a bigger battery), so Google doesn't get the benefit of the doubt. Fortunately, the Pixel 4A 5G has selfsame good battery life, thanks to its creditably sized battery and efficient processor. I had no issue lasting through a day, clocking as many as six hours of screen time along IT.

Look-alike the Pixel 4A, the 4A 5G and the Pixel 5 lack the Pixel Neuronic Core C.P.U. that was used for faster image processing in the Pel 4. Although Google says it has done work to speed image processing, if you take a portrait or Night Ken image and immediately skip to review IT, you'll rich person to wait a few seconds to see IT. This is peradventure the only performance downgrade I've observed between the 4A 5G and last yr's flagship Pel 4, merely it's non a deal-breaker.

The Pixel 5 (left) and the Pixel 4A 5G (right) — *The Pixel 5 (remaining) and the Pixel 4A 5G (right).*

Pixel 4A 5G software

Out of the box, the Pixel 4A 5G comes with Humanoid 11. Like all Pixel phones, it will be first in line for future Android updates, and IT is secured to get them for at least leash years. Google's issue on Mechanical man is clean and acerose compared to what another Android manufacturers like Samsung and LG do.

Google has also introduced a new battery-saver modal value called "extreme battery saver." The idea is if you need to snuff it ii or three days away from a charger, you seat ferment on this additional option. It turns off all but an sanctioned list of apps you opt. I don't know why Google couldn't have made behave by improving the casebook battery saver mood, and in my sentence with the telephone, I've found its battery life in normal mode to be raft adequate anyway.

The customizations for the Picture element in Android 11 are somewhat minor. Mainly, you're just getting the experience Google intends to be common crossways all Mechanical man phones. Holding down the power button brings up a quick menu for Google Pay and fashionable abode controls, and some chat apps can make up put into mobile bubbles that sit above your other apps. There's a feature that turns your dock into a set of advisable apps, but it's non especially ministering.

One of my favorite software updates is inside Google Photos. On some portrait photos, at that place is an pick to move or change the intensity of a virtual light reference to change the lighting along a face. It works much fitter than I expected.

The Recorder app has a trifle feature that lets you export short video clips that exhibit the transcription on with the audio. Information technology's clever, simply it's also heavily branded with a logo for the Recorder app and the Pixel itself, so I don't see myself ever using it.

Overall, I really equal Google's admit Android. It lacks many bells and whistles merely makes improving for that by beingness well-designed.

Pel 4A 5G cameras

Despite being lower cost, the Pixel 4A 5G has the take same tv camera system and features as the Pixel 5. There's a main 12-megapixel sensing element — the same that Google has been victimization since the Pel 3 — and a radical ultrawide sensor that replaces the telephoto from the Pixel 4. The selfie camera is 8 megapixels and sits inside a hole clock on the display.

Since the camera systems are the same, I'll flat-footed you to the Pixel 5 review for more in-depth analyses. Here, I'll just give you the short version of my observations:

Photos out of the briny tv camera are great, adequate other Pixel phones. I wish Google had pushed the state of the art Thomas More, but it's still competitive with the best cameras on the market.
Night Sight is automatic nowadays and likewise industrial plant with portrayal photos. Some are fantabulous, but portrayal shots in very dim light show the limits of what's possible with this sensor.
The 16-megapixel ultrawide tv camera is a great deal more fun to ME than a short telephoto, but that does mean that zoomed-in shots aren't quite what they could be. Quality on the ultrawide is on equation or better than other ultrawides I've used.
Video lineament is improved over earlier Pixels, just information technology still doesn't quite rise to the dispute of beating an iPhone or the Galaxy Note 20 Extremist.
Google added some video stabilization options that are genuinely helpful if you'ray not very adept with a camera, and I found myself using them more than I anticipated to.

Overall, the Pixel 4A 5G's camera is my favorite for photos along a smartphone, but a lot of that comes down to preferring the way Google processes images you said it well the Pixel handles dark firing conditions. That preference accustomed have a open margin compared to competitors, but the gap has nearly closed, and Google has whatsoever work to do if it wants to keep ahead of the pack.

Bottom line for this $499 headphone is that you'Ra getting a camera that's head and shoulders supra the other phones in that price grade.

The Pixel 4A 5G is non an exciting phone. It doesn't have the eye-poppingly low price of the standard Pixel 4A and it also lacks many an of the features on more expensive phones. The list of things it lacks includes water resistance, wireless charging, a countertenor refresh rate screen, and a top-tier central processor. Many a will look into at that list and think none of those things are important. But all of them are nice, and it may be that at least one affair will be a deal-circuit breaker.

If so, Google has the Picture element 5 for $699 with nearly all of those features (and the Verizon variant doesn't cost more). If the central processing unit gives you pause (I don't think IT should), there are plenty of Android phones and naturally the iPhone to view. At $349, the well-ordered Pixel 4A is easy to recommend. At $499, the Pixel 4A 5G requires a bit more comparability shopping.

As with all Pixels, the 4A 5G's strengths are hard to put on a spec sheet. Information technology's more retiring than unusual Humanoid phones, but its software is also more dignified and easier to manipulation — and of course, the camera is almost surely better than the direct competition. It won't turn heads, but the Picture element 4A 5G won't countenance you down, either.