Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “What Google Pixel phone should you buy in 2020? Let’s compare.”.
Hey guys so it’s october and at this point in the year google’s pretty much released all of its phones for the year we’ve got the pixel 4a pixel 4 a5g and the pixel 5 and you’re probably wondering at this point what pixel do i buy? I’Ve had plenty of people. Ask me this question because they all are pretty similar phones, but they have different features that you might want to get and might want to pay a little bit of money for also. We’Ve got the pixel 4 from last year, which in some respects is actually a little more premium than even the pixel 5. So, let’s just run through like the pros and cons of each of these pixels to see which one you should pick up so the first pixel is the pixel 4a, and this didn’t come out in october. It actually came out a couple of months ago. It was kind of a random drop because we were expecting google to drop off the pixel 4a in something like may around google. I o because that’s when the pixel 3a came out, but then, of course, coronavirus happened and they delayed it and delayed it and delayed it and it eventually launched. But the funny thing about the pixel 4a is that, even though it was delayed by like multiple months, it’s still a super good phone. It really didn’t go out of date. Now the pixel 4a only comes in one sku, one size, one color, it’s black. It’S got six gigs of ram and 128 gigabytes of storage, which honestly for a 350 phone to have 120 gigabytes of storage, is pretty massive. Like the iphone 12 standard, one starts at 64 gigabyte. The pixel 4 from last year started at 64 gigabyte and that started at 800.
That’S a really good value. Now the thing about the pixel 4a that a lot of people are going to be kind of mixed on is the fact that the processor it’s running is the qualcomm snapdragon 730 g. Let me compare like the 730g to something like the 765g or maybe the 855 from the pixel 4 from last year. The 865 from this year apps, are going to open a little bit slower and over time it might slow down a little bit more.
But for the few months that i actually ran the pixel 4a because honestly, it was kind of one of my favorite phones this year it was fine. Now i’m not a heavy gamer at all. I do do a lot of multitasking, though, and it was pretty good that chip also uses less power, and so the battery life in the pixel 4a was pretty solid as well. Now. The other thing about this phone is that it only has one rear camera so you’re just getting that one 12 megapixel camera that we’ve seen on like almost every pixel now, but you are getting the pixel processing that we’ve seen in also every pixel, which honestly a Lot of people are just gon na love. You get night sight, you get astra mode, you get the pixel’s portrait mode, that’s all really solid, even though this hardware is a little bit old now. The other great thing about the pixel 4a is that it has a really really amazing screen. This is like one of the best displays that we’ve tested this year here at android authority.
It’S it’s really bright and vibrant and it’s not gon na be 90 hertz or 120 hertz, obviously because it’s a 300 phone, but it looks really really nice and i didn’t have any issues when i was like watching movies and tv shows, and things like that. Now the other thing that the pixel 4a has is a headphone jack. So if you’re someone that likes to use wired headphones, a lot apparently that’s become like a mid-range or a low-range feature which makes no sense in my opinion. But it’s really nice to have a headphone jack on your phone. So if you’re, someone who just kind of wants that pixel experience, which is like google’s take on android with all the google assistant features and everything that’s baked in for 350 dollars, pixel 4a is kind of hard to beat all right. So the second phone in this year’s pixel lineup is the pixel 4a 5g and i kind of call this phone like the goldilocks phone of the pixel lineup this year, because it takes certain aspects from the pixel 4a and then takes certain aspects from the pixel 5 And it kind of combines them into one really solid, in-between phone.
Now, as you can see, it looks a lot like the pixel 4a. They almost look exactly identical. They use the same materials on the back they’re generally the same shape. They both have a headphone jack same colors, but the biggest differences here are going to be the general screen size, which is much bigger on the pixel 485 g, the processor from the pixel 5 and the wide angle camera from the pixel 5..
Now the processor is the snapdragon 765g versus the snapdragon 730 g, and that’s going to be a little bit faster, you’re going to be able to launch apps a little bit faster in general. This phone will probably last a little bit longer and take a little bit longer to slow down compared to the pixel 4a, but the other thing that this adds is 5g capabilities, which is probably why they called it the pixel 4a 5g. Now it is running the qualcomm snapdragon x, 52 modem instead of the x55 modem. So the peak speeds that you’re gon na get from 5g are not gon na, be quite as high, but honestly they’re still multi gigabit. It’S not going to be an issue for you like at all so last and most premium pixel.
That google releases here is the pixel 5 and i actually did a full review of this phone really recently. So go watch that review if you haven’t already, but the pixel 5 actually shares a ton of similarities with the pixel 4 a5g, which is why i kind of called the 485g the goldilocks phone. Now.
It still has that 16 megapixel wide angle camera that you’ve got in the 485g. So if you want a wide angle camera you can get that in the pixel 5 and it’s got these qualcomm snapdragon 765g, with the 5g capabilities. Now a lot of people were kind of annoyed that they were still using this chip because it’s not a super premium chip, it’s still kind of a mid-range ship, but that is what allowed google to lower the price in this phone. So you know that kind of makes sense now, other things that they did to kind of add value to add premium nest to the pixel 5 was one they made it out of aluminum, which you wouldn’t really be able to know is aluminum, because it’s got this Plastic, bio resin.
On top, it definitely feels like plastic, it’s a little bit textured, so it feels a little bit better than like the pixel 4a or the pixel 4a5 g, even though those feel pretty good already, but they did that to kind of add stability to the phone. Just add a little more rigidity and it’s probably going to be a little less likely to like crack if you drop it or something like that now, they also added some other frills to the pixel 5 to make it the premium pixel experience for the year, for Example, they added wireless charging, which is kind of surprising for an aluminum phone because we don’t usually see metal phones with wireless charging. But google actually did a physical cut out in the aluminum where they put the wireless charging coil and then they added this bio resin. Shell, on top so you’re still getting the wireless charging that you would expect from a more premium phone, but in a metal phone which is really interesting, and it’s also got reverse wireless charging too. If you like, charging things like your pixel buds, the other thing that it has is as ip68 water and dust resistance and if you’re, someone who uses their phone outside a lot or you just like, like to use your phone in the shower. And you don’t have to worry about it, breaking from moisture damage, then this is a really useful feature.
A lot of really expensive phones like flagships. Have this feature. So it’s nice that google put that in this phone and the other probably major thing. It’S got a 90 hertz, more edge to edge display compared to the pixel 4a 5g.
So if you like to have a smoother android experience, just it’s a little more fluid. It’S not necessarily necessary, but it’s definitely a little bit better of an experience that 90 hertz display is really nice and the pixel 4a 5g and episode 4a definitely have a little bit of bezel on the top and bottom, especially on the bottom, but the pixel 5. In particular, is nearly bezel-less it’s very edge to edge, and i feel like that screen looks amazing. Also, the power button, instead of just being a colored plastic, is this aluminum, which i think is kind of a nod to the fact that the phone’s base is actually made out of aluminum.
So that’s nice as well. Now this phone costs 699 dollars, which is a 200 premium over the pixel 4a 5g. Personally, i think they should have kept the 150 premium that they’re going from the pixel 4a to the pixel 45g.
I think at 650 this thing would have been a home run, but you know google always lowers the prices of their phones like a couple of months after they’re released anyway, i mean black friday is kind of coming up in, like one or two months after the Release you can usually get them for like 100 bucks off, so i wouldn’t be surprised if you could pick up a pixel 5 for something like 600 in the near future. So those are all the pixels for this year, but there is also something to be said about picking up a pixel 4 from last year. Now i didn’t like the pixel 4 a lot because it had really really bad battery life and, honestly, i feel like if you can’t use your phone because it’s dead, then what’s the point in picking up that phone, but the thing about the pixel 4 is it’s Using the qualcomm snapdragon 855, which is not the newest processor, now the 865 and 865 plus are out, but that processor is going to be faster than the 765g or the 730g.
That’S in the pixel 4a. So if you’re, someone who games a lot or just likes to have a little bit of a faster phone that could be a viable pickup now the pixel 4 only had six gigabytes of ram. It started at 64 gigabytes, but it was made of glass. It still had the wireless charging and ip68 water and dust resistance.
It had the solely face, unlock and also the solely features with the radar which didn’t work very well. But if you’re into weird techy things, there could be something to be said about that. And if you just want a phone that feels maybe a little bit more premium in these phones, that phone is on sale for quite a bit less. For example, on prime day this year you can get the standard pixel 4 in a 128 gigabyte variant for 550 dollars. You could get the 4xl and 128 gigabyte variant for 650, so it kind of sits right in between, like the pixel 4 a5g and the pixel 5, as a more premium option for people that want a little bit of a faster phone.
And it’s still going to get the same three years of android updates, although it’ll probably get one year less than something like the pixel 5.. So if you want a little bit of a faster phone, you just don’t really care about the battery life and that kind of stuff that could also be a pretty good option, all right guys. Well, hopefully, that should help you decide which pixel to get this year. If you’re interested in picking up a google phone there’s a lot of viable options, now, there’s like four or five, depending on the size that you want to get so it’s never been a better time to buy a google pixel phone. If that’s what you’re looking for make sure you stay tuned to android authority, we got a lot more videos coming up because tech tober is not over yet, even though we’re about to bleed into november and of course, we’re gon na bring you all the content.
That comes out throughout the year, so stay tuned and i’ll catch you in the next article .