Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Google Pixel 8a Review – Hero Or Villain?”.
This is the pixel 8A. What Google calls as colorful, powerful AI fool and what I’m going to call as the best Flagship for most people. Even if yes, this technically is not a flagship see at this point, we’ve become accustomed to getting the best performance photos and even features from flagships. But if we’re honest I mean none of us want to pay the price.
Many praised OnePlus for creating such a thing. As a Flagship killer, meaning mostly the best of everything for Les money, but the company that actually deserves that title is Google. The Nexus 4 was the first time. I remember a company giving us mostly the best of everything at half the price for context. The 2012 iPhone 5 was $ 649, when the Nexus 4 was just $ 2.99. The only problem well by mostly I mean you got the best chips and some of the best hardware, but boy howdy were those photos.
Bad Google’s Nexus project barely figured some of it out at the tail end with the Nexus 6p and by the time OnePlus figured it out with the 10 Pro it already had a flagship price tag. I wish I could tell you that some of the premium mid-range offerings from Samsung get this right, but after testing everything under the sun, the last night and shining armor is the pixel 8A sort of I’m with pocket. Now, and let me explain to you why, in our full review, let me start with the most important reason: reason why you should care about this phone. It costs just 499 bucks right now, most of the premium segment that offers this phone’s capabilities lie within the $ 7 to $ 800 range, where you’ll get the pixel 8 and listen sure. If you can get the pixel 8 on sale just buy that one instead. But if you don’t stick around by now, you’re asking like what’s the catch and well yes, some Corners have always been cut to put the a which stands for affordable after the number eight. But uh this here, I guess the shortcuts are far less than before.
The most important one is that the back of this phone continues to be plastic, which sounds bad but isn’t, in my opinion, like seriously it’s one less piece of glass to shatter on my book, and I really like the more intense color scheme that Google chose on My bay review unit, the front is uh, then Gorilla Glass, 3, which misses the victus levels of it’s more expensive Brothers, but then also inherits what we found to be better scratch resistant. So there’s that and then the rest of the body is aluminum, giving it some of that Flagship appeal now. Another way you were able to tell the difference was with the display, but even that got better. The bezels are thick enough to not have this feel like a flagship like sure, but that’s about it.
This 6.1 in panel has grown up to now be an ACTA display, meaning it can go as bright as400 nits in typical operation, 2,000 nits at Peak. It now also supports up to 120 HZ refresh rate, even if yes, the phone is set to 60 by default. Overall, this means a better, better experience using the phone in day-to-day and great HDR performance for Content consumption, along with its dual firing. Speakers, which do a better job than most, in my opinion, has ported an insane amount of its software here making. But then, once you look into internals, there are no more corners cut, just like the th000 pixel 8 Pro. This affordable variant is now powered by the same tensor G3 like its premium pixel 8 brother. It then offers the same amount of RAM and storage options at their same exact speeds and then there’s obviously the slightly smaller battery a bit less of an IP rating.
Wi-Fi 6E instead of 7, slightly slower charging speeds, but none of those lesser specs are in any way a deal. Breaker heck. There are more expensive flagships out there that I’m not going to name that are still behind on half the list. In the end, what you care about most is the experience of using this phone and that’s another thing that Google gets right, at least for the most part like any pixel, you get the latest version of Android on day one and yes, now you get 7 years Of those updates, still it’s on those little things that make a pixel a pixel that you’ll care about most from a fluid software experience to a quicker access to Google services. This phone is a delight to use on day-to-day still. The major story this year is everything. Google is bringing to AI at first. We thought the company was going to skimp out on some of the features to the Lesser models, as we heard on the made by Google keynote, but you got to love competition, as that seems to have gone out. The window see I’m not just running Gemini but actually Gemini Advanced on this phone, as most of those Essentials are not really device Centric and yes, the pro can do more on device stuff, but it’s not like if we don’t live in a fully connected World Circle To search then help me figure out that what was playing on the screen at my barber shop was actually footage of Grease cuz. Yes, it is that cool at figuring things out on the Fly, even getting magic, editor and audio Magic Eraser make this an even better treat for being able to edit out your moments. If you prefer little things like being able to record my meeting and get an instant transcript for free is still a Google feature. How the company has also worked on improving its ecosystem is another thing to truly consider. I’Ve spent about 2 weeks testing the pixel 8A and I have to say the experience has mostly been great.
I can’t really say that I’ve noticed any sort of sluggish performance on a typical day of use and 5G connectivity on Google F has been surprisingly good, as pixels have never been famous for that. But this one’s doing great phone calls are also as good as always and about the only thing that I wish I had was more battery life and listen, it’s not bad by any means, but I have a feeling that the auto brightness settings on the screen are Not properly tuned for its new brightness levels as a result, I find myself pushing it to go brighter, particularly when taking photos which, in turn, obviously pushes the battery harder. Also another pet peeve of mine with pixels is having to wait 20 minutes to install a 31 megab update all while being reminded that the update will be paused until I stop touching the phone. The other problem is gaming, which is something I don’t feel. Tensor is optimized for sure. Google has done some improvements in the experience to address the complaints. I do notice. This phone does a far better job, but it does make me skeptical about how performance will age over time on so many years of software updates.
Now, obviously, the main reason that has this phone standing apart from any other device at its pric is photography. Your typical mid-ranger either doesn’t bring great specs or a good chip ISP for the best results. Here. The spec story is the same, but since you’re carrying the same chip as the flagship computational photography saves the day like really well during the day, it’s really hard to tell phones, apart regardless of their brands, but pixels are known for their added contrast, which gives scenes More of a punch.
Obviously this is a matter of taste, but if we even had Apple implementing Rich contrast photo modes years ago, it’s because they do have a place in our hearts. This phone does lack macro capabilities, but I’m actually going to call that a good thing, as you can get pretty close to subjects and get some amazing photos, whether you’re using the ultrawide primary or the 2x telephoto crop. This phone does a good job at keeping results. Consistent and I love that you can’t push Beyond 8X when zooming in pretty much guaranteeing good results across the board in low light. I would say this phone is a bit more aggressive at asking you for time to take the shot, but then again the pixel 8.
Pro is not that much better. The result results, though, are pretty much worth it. This phone isn’t just able to get some amazing photos, but then behaves like a pro in ways.
Phones can’t do easily, for example, taking a long exposure shot is not something most. People can do easily, but on a pixel, it’s simply a mode, and the same case goes for astrophotography. That said, though, action pan seems to be reserved for the most expensive siblings. Even if yes, it’s not on the fold either portraits are then good, but I’m not really a fan of the crop you’re forced to use from the primary camera. I even find it ironic that you don’t need that crop for the selfie camera in order to produce similar results which, on my Booker, both good. Probably one of the biggest surprises I got from this phone is its video performance.
I did notice that the pixel 7 Pro last year was already handling video, far better than any other Android phone, but that now extends to the pixel 8A, no more overdone sharpness or added warpness, as you walk. If anything, I’d say having a 2X digital crop enable steady video from a zoom mode better than any other phone out there and listen. I did notice cases where HDR didn’t save the shadows and introduce grain and harsh situations, but I’d say 90 % of the time. I trust this phone for video just as much as I do an iPhone. Yes believe it or not. I just said that selfie video is then just as pleasant and just as capable seriously, whatever Voodoo Google is doing with tensor to improve the quality of this codic is like a glass of water in a desert full of Android phones that still get this wrong.
To conclude, I think you know where I’m going right now: there’s a phone that checks nearly all the boxes of a flagship and then beats the pants out of most of them in video, but then costs nearly half as much sure. It’S not a phone for gamers and it lacks some of the fancier glass that flagships spring, but is all that worth the price of an added Smartwatch, and maybe a tablet like think about it $ 4.99 for the pixel, 8A $ 250 for the OnePlus Watch 2 Or then you can take advantage of the trade and Deals and then use the rest for a tablet or a Chromebook and you’re barely scratching the price of a flagship. That’S where I think the value proposition of this phone is too good and once the deals for it kick in, it only makes this one of the best phones for the money right now.
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