Google Pixel 4a review

Where to buy

When Google launched the Google Pixel 3a in 2019, there wasn't much that was all that exciting in mid-range phones. Budget phones were starting to get really good, while premium models had crazy good cameras and every gimmick that manufacturers could throw at them, leaving the mid-range in a difficult position.

It was hard to recommend a phone that cost more than a budget model without delivering all that much in terms of really useful features, but the best gear was hitting at price points rapidly spiralling above $1,500.

The Pixel 3a redefined expectations in 2019, but as a result, manufacturers very much shifted to producing some truly excellent mid-range options. In 2020, the pressure is more on those premium models because what you can get in a mid-range phone in terms of performance, camera flexibility and battery life are generally enough for anyone.

Into that market, Google's pitching the Google Pixel 4a, a phone that very much looks on the surface like it's just a specification bump on the Pixel 3a, with a dab of Pixel 4 style along for the ride. The end result is still a compelling phone for those who like simple Android experiences and appreciate clean Android OS environments, but it's very far from your only great mid-range choice.

Design

Design

• 5.8-inch OLED display in a smaller body
• Simple rear-mounted fingerprint sensor
• Headphone jack!

• Read more about the Google Pixel 4a's design

  You can have any colour you like, as long as it's Simply Black.

  Google's design language really hasn't changed that much over the years. It favours very simple designs with minimal fuss, and that's exactly what you get with the Google Pixel 4a. Where the full-fat Google Pixel 4 (and earlier phones) came in a multitude of hues, you've only got the one choice here: Simply Black. It's a plastic body phone, and it does feel like it when you pick it up, making it seem a little more cheap than some competing mid-range handset designs of late.

  The front display is a 5.8-inch 1080x2340 OLED with a small punch hole camera at the top left, a very common style for mid-range phones of late. The switch away from bezels means that it fits more screen real estate into a body that's slightly smaller than the Pixel 3a, which is great. There's no dedicated Google Assistant button, and you don't get the squeezable sides invoke action of earlier Pixels either. At the right-hand side, there's a simple volume rocker and the only note of colour on the Pixel 4a in the form of its light green power button.

  At the back, Google's borrowed a little design idea from the Google Pixel 4 family when it comes to the camera array, which sits as a square diagonally opposite the rear-mounted fingerprint sensor. I'm not entirely sure why the Pixel 4a needs such a large camera block because, like the Pixel 3a, you're only actually talking about a single lens at the rear. There's at least not much of a camera bump to deal with.

  Like the Pixel 3a, the Pixel 4a recognises that some folks still like having actual 3.5mm headphone jacks for cabled headphones. It will also connect to Bluetooth headphones, including Google's updated Pixel Buds as well but it's nice to have the flexibility to choose.

  In an age where so many phones offer up screens that start at 6 inches and seem to grow out from there, getting used to a smaller screen does take a little time, but it also makes the Pixel 4a a much easier phone to slip into a pocket or hold in just one hand while using a variety of functions on it. There's definitely a market for phones for people who prefer a smaller device, but all too often, those phones are underpowered budget models.

Camera

Camera

• Single-lens AI assist continues to impress
• Night sight upgraded with Astrophotography modes
• Mid-range competitors have stepped up camera expectations

• Read more about the Google Pixel 4a's cameras

  If you just looked at the specifications sheet, you might wonder what Google was thinking when it opted to plant a single 12.2MP lens on the rear of the Google Pixel 4a. After all, competing Android phones at this kind of price point have been at least dual lens for years, and we've seen more than a few triple or even quad-lens arrays in the mid-range in the past six months.

  Google's special sauce here is that it uses a lot of AI to assist in taking photos every time you click on the shutter button. It's an immensely guided experience that won't sit well with those who like to tinker with shots before they take them, but equally one that can give you some lovely shots with minimal fuss.

  

  

  There's a balancing act here when taking photos because there were times when I genuinely would have liked to have the option of an ultra-wide or zoom lens when testing the Google Pixel 4a. Google promises AI-guided digital zoom, but it's not the same as having a proper stabilised optical lens by a fairly wide margin.

  While the camera tech on the Google Pixel 4a hasn't seen much of a jump, it does pick up a few new tricks courtesy of the Google Pixel 4, most notably the very long exposure Astrophotography mode added to its already impressive Night Sight camera feature. Google's Night Sight remains one of the best on any phone, period, and it's especially impressive given it's using just a single lens and a lot of AI smarts to enhance very low-light pictures.

  The Astrophotography mode on the Pixel 4a only kicks in if you've got the Pixel 4a secured in place, preferably on a tripod, so if you're shooting handheld, you're limited to just the shorter night sight mode. It can deliver some pretty stunning results even when you're not staring out at the stars, but at four minutes per exposure, you've got to have plenty of patience, and ideally a very still subject to shoot.

  The current coronavirus pandemic seriously limited my ability to easily travel out of Sydney to stare up at some stars, and the city itself is subject to a lot of light pollution. The best I could manage as a test scenario involved my deck, a tripod and pointing up, which gave me this interesting night time photo… of some clouds.

  

  While I won't win awards for that shot, to be fair to the Google Pixel 4a, there aren't too many phones in this price bracket that could capture even that level of light.

  At the front, Google has kept to a single 8MP lens, same as the Google Pixel 3a, right down to its own AI-assisted portrait blurring feature. For a phone with no depth-sensing lens, the level that Google's able to get subtle-looking bokeh into shots from either lens remains a remarkable achievement, although it doesn't always fire at a realistic level.

  To give that some context, when it works, it can make some stunning shots:

  

  But there are times when its bokeh is revealed to be entirely artificial because it cuts across the shot in an entirely unnatural way:

  

  Because it's just an AI effect, you can still choose to grab the original non-blurred photo if it's more pleasing in any case.

  More Google Pixel 4a sample photos:

  

  

  

  

  

  

Performance

Performance

• Processor and RAM upgrades are long overdue
• 128GB storage is pleasant
• No 5G (but that's coming soon)
• 3 years of Android updates

• Read more about the Google Pixel 4a's performance

  The Pixel 4a runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 730 processor with an Adreno 618 GPU and 6GB of RAM. The processor is a nice enough spec bump from the Google Pixel 3a, but it's the provision of 6GB of RAM that's really important here. Google has long skimped on RAM allocation for phones and it's led to plenty of user complaints over the years, especially if you use the phone over a longer period of time and apps start fighting over meagre memory resources.

  The combination of processor and RAM at play within the Google Pixel 4a allow it to manage everyday tasks with plenty of spring, and very few instances of slowdown in the time I've been reviewing it.

  Normally, I'd compare the Google Pixel 4a's CPU performance using Geekbench 5's CPU test, but the Pixel 4a absolutely refuses to install that particular benchmark. It won't show up in the Google Play store, and even sideloading it sees the Pixel 4a refuse to allow it to run. If I was more of a suspicious type, I might think that Google's trying to avoid comparison to the Apple iPhone SE 2020 and its market-shattering A13 processor here.

  Bapco's 3DMark will install, and from that, I could at least get a taste for how the Google Pixel 4a's GPU compares against a range of mid-range devices:

  The Pixel 4a isn't the most powerful phone in this class, although most of those devices will set you back more than you would pay for the Google Pixel 4a, and it's definitely a jump up from the capabilities of the Google Pixel 3a.

  Being a Google phone, you naturally enough get Google's own apps and services preinstalled on the phone, but that's all you do get, with essentially nothing in the way of bundled applications eating into the phone's 128GB of onboard storage.

  Like other Pixels, there's no capacity for storage expansion, so it's great to not have to uninstall a load of unwanted games or suspicious "productivity" applications. Google further sweetens the pot with bonus subscription months to YouTube Premium, Google Play Pass and Google One for new Pixel 4a buyers. The one catch here is that if you've already subscribed to either YouTube Premium or Play Pass, you don't get the free months of access.

  The Google Pixel 4a is a 4G LTE device, and that may leave you wondering when Google's going to jump into the 5G space. The answer to that is "soon", according to Google, with the company promising 5G-capable Google Pixel 4a models and a 5G capable Google Pixel 5 for later this year. Based on Google's release, it looks like the 5G variant of the Google Pixel 4a will run to $799 outright, which is a pretty steep premium just for 5G access; hopefully, that model will have some other extra hardware goodies to make it really worthwhile.

  What you will get with the Google Pixel 4a is at least three years of full Android updates. It ships with Android 10 onboard but will be one of the first phones to get full Android 11, and should be applicable for the Android 11 beta if you really cannot wait in the meantime. Google has a home ground advantage when it comes to Android updates, both of the full point kind and security patches, and it remains a key value proposition for any Pixel phone.

Battery life

Battery life

• 3140mAh battery will last a day, but that's about it
• No wireless charging

• Read more about the Google Pixel 4a's battery life

  Over the years, Pixel phones haven't enjoyed a great reputation when it comes to battery life. With just 3,140mAh of battery capacity on board, my hopes for the Google Pixel 4a weren't high, even though that's a slight jump upwards over the Pixel 3a's 3,000mAh power pack.

  For the first test of the Pixel 4a, I ran it through our standard video test, running a full screen 1080p YouTube video for an hour at maximum brightness and moderate volume. What I look for here are phones that manage above 90% battery capacity remaining because that's usually a good sign that they'll be capable of lasting a full day's moderate usage. Here's how the Google Pixel 4a compared against a range of mid-range devices in that test:

  Google Pixel 4a

  So far so good, but obviously mobile usage can vary a lot, especially in the middle of a pandemic.

  My own more anecdotal usage does suggest that a day's use is feasible with the Pixel 4a, but probably not a lot more than that. Many evenings I've hit below the 20% battery mark with the Pixel 4a, and on a couple of days where I forgot to put it on to charge overnight, it was flat by morning. That's not unusual for smaller phones, and certainly it beats the anaemic battery life of the Apple iPhone SE 2020 neatly.

  Recharging on the Google Pixel 4a is via USB-C only; that plastic body means it was never going to be capable of wireless charging. That's still a rare function to find at the true mid-range price point of the Pixel 4a, though.

Should you buy the Google Pixel 4a?

Google got a lot right with the Pixel 4a, and it's easy to see where it's learned lessons from the Google Pixel 3a. Yes, it's sporting a more powerful processor, but you'd expect that. Bumping up the inbuilt storage and RAM is more significant, and will give the Pixel 4a plenty of grunt for years to come. Google's ability to deliver that while actually dropping the price from the Pixel 3a makes it even more enticing. The camera remains best suited for folks who don't want to fuss with photo-processing apps – but also quite a bit less enticing for those who want wide-angle shots or telephoto zooms.

That's the biggest challenge for the Google Pixel 4a because there are plenty of handsets from the likes of Oppo, realme, Motorola and Samsung that offer up a lot more photographic flexibility than the Pixel 4a, even if they can't match its superlative low-light performance. What's great about that is that you finally have a lot of really good choice in the mid-range space, and more than enough to really challenge the proposition that you must buy a phone that costs north of $1,500 to get a really "great" handset.

Pricing and availability

Price

RRP: $599.00

Where to buy

Check price at eBay

Check price at Amazon

eBay

Specifications

Images: Alex Kidman