Best mid-range premium smart phone by google | Google Pixel 4a – Specification, Technical analysis and Price.

 We finally have the google pixel 4a and we're going to be reviewing it right after this. if you're new here and want to stay up to date with the latest tech please hit subscribe and like button, you can also catch up on Facebook, Instagram and twitter by clicking the links in Social icon section. so finally after all of the delays we finally have the google pixel 4a to review. we've covered it in so many leaks and many of you out there may have been disappointed with the release continually being pushed back but it could be well worth the wait before we get into it though please like the blog, if you've been looking forward to the pixel 4a. let me know in the comments.

what phone you're analyzing this blog on the pixel 4a is of course the budget friendly version of the pixel 4 and the pixel 4 xl but google have done things a little bit differently this time round. they've made sensible compromises to cut costs and they've also thrown in a couple of improvements over its premium counterpart but we're going to cover it all shortly. we had leaks early on that the pixel 4a was going to see a reduction in the price to better compete in the mid-range and google. really haven't let us down it's being released for just 350 pounds in the uk   or 350 dollars in the usa making it cheaper than both the iphone se   and the oneplus nord. now it seems that google have managed the low price tag on this phone by doing a few things.

firstly there is only one pixel 4a well we normally get the choice of a standard or the xl. this time there's only one choice. it's this one the standard pixel 4a with a 5.8 inch display. they've also decided not to offer different RAM and storage variants. there's just one choice which is 6 GB of ddr4 RAM with 128 GB storage and finally there's only one colour pixel to choose from and they've named this just black having only one phone to mass produce that makes things much easier for them and they can deliver a cheaper device to you. so we're going to start with the review and then take an in-depth look at the google pixel 4a.

I have the reviewers package here and it starts with a cardboard phone stand to hold the pixel 4a. we then get a quick start guide some jellies some, small   pieces of flatbread and some juice. it also came with a guide in italian and   this was to highlight the translation feature within the google lens  now. next we've got the official retail packaging for the google pixel 4a now straight away picking this up even the packaging feels much lighter than I expected but it is no surprising as the pixel 4a weighs in at just 143 grams. if we open up the box we first get the pixel 4a and you can see it's exactly the same as all of the leaks have been saying. next we've got the manual and the sim tool followed by the charger brick and a USB Type C cable.

So first things first the specs and the design on the pixel 4a we've got a 5.81 inch full screen display with this punch hole selfie camera in the top left. it's a full hd plus OLED display with a resolution of 2340 by 1080. it's got a 24-bit color depth hdr support and a 19 and a half by 9 aspect ratio giving us 443 pixels per inch. we've got a nice thin symmetrical bezel all the way around the phone. which I really like and I much prefer it over its premium counterpart but it is worth noting that the chin is ever. so slightly larger than the forehead but it is barely noticeable the selfie camera in the top left is an 8 megapixel sensor  with an aperture of f 2.0  it's a 1.12 micrometer sensor with fixed focus and an 84 degree field of view it takes 1080p photos and allows for 1080p at 30 frames a second. if you're taking a blog, there's no in-display fingerprint scanner on the device and that's because on the back we have the return of the physical fingerprint scanner and for me it's a very welcome return the pixel 4a xl has been one of my favourite devices. so far but I wasn't a fan of the solid radar or its face unlock. only you can see they've stuck with the square camera module on the back. which is an odd choice considering we only have one  camera but it is still a small module and it doesn't protrude much from the  case the camera appears to be the same camera as the pixel 4's primary camera   and that's a 12.2 megapixel camera with an aperture of f 1.7 and a 77 degree field of view. it's got a 1.4 micrometre sensor and it's got a dual pixel phase detect autofocus as well as optical and electronic stabilization.

It's capable of 4k at 30 frames a second 1080p at 3060 or 120 and 720p at 30 60 or 240 frames as well as this we also have the led flash. now on top is something that's going to please a lot of you out there and that's the return of the three and a half mil headphone jack as well as a secondary mic on the right hand side of the device. we've got the accent power button as well as a volume rockeron the bottom. it's just a USB C port the primary mic and of course the speaker grilles on the left side. it's only got the sim card holder and there's no dual sim support here. so unfortunately it's just a single nano sim card although it does also support e-sim. now when it comes to the hardware running the google pixel 4a we've got the snapdragon 730g. which isn't a flagship chipset but it's still  very capable nonetheless even when it comes to the more demanding gaming it does fairly well we're going to cover it in more depth. shortly we get 6 GB of ddr4 RAM and that's coupled with 128 gig storage but of course being a pixel it   offers unlimited google photos at high picture quality for those that may be worried about space.

It's all powered by a 3140-milliamp hour battery with 18 watt fast charge and I found it to easily last a day and it of course comes with android 10. so overall the pixel 4a is a decent choice for those who want a cheap all-round phone but one that also takes decent photos in the mainstream mid-range line-up this year. it has been very competitive with the One Plus NORD, IPhone SE in the recently being released but the pixel automatically has the advantage of being the cheapest of the three. there are a few compromises to get things cheaper but to be honest. they are sensible and they shouldn't be a problem for a start on the display. we've got gorilla glass 3 instead of the gorilla glass 6 that we're seeing in a lot of today's flagships. well it's not the latest it still offers good protection. the OLED display is also bright and clear and it is a pleasure to use but unlike its premium counterpart. it's only a 60 hertz display. another way it's also been made cheaper is the lack of an ip rating now manufacturers generally add sales to prevent water damage but official ip ratings do cost much more money in manufacturing  which means it's going to be a more expensive device for consumers. so in this instance google left it out now general use of this phone has been great with a capable chipset.

It easily powers the stock android 10 we get with the pixel 4a and another good point to mention is that we're guaranteed at least three years of software updates the fingerprint lock works very well and quickly but another thing to mention. here is that face unlock has been removed. we don't even get a choice of a 2d face unlock with the pixel 4a the full hd plus resolution is more than enough to keep things looking crystal clear. whether you're texting, watching media or just browsing through your socials and thanks to the  6 GB of RAM. it's incredibly smooth and able to keep things running in the background, something else i'm pleased with but maybe an unpopular opinion  is the removal of the active edge for those unaware the pixel 4 and the 4xl has an active edge so when you squeeze it. It activates google assistant but personally I never used the feature and I just found myself accidentally pressing it when I was putting it into my car mount. now the most important thing to most people is of course going to be the camera and the camera is incredible. it's essentially giving you the same quality and results as the pixel 4 or the pixel 4 xl at a much cheaper cost. well the 4 and the 4xl did actually have two cameras the second one was a 16 megapixel telephoto with two times optical zoom and at least in my opinion it was very unnecessary also while many other budget phones out there are giving you three or four different cameras. I think the pixel 4a has the right idea give us one camera but make it good.

 straight away you can see the great quality of the photos we get great dynamic range more natural colour tones and incredible sharpness and detail i've taken many photos out and about in daylight and you can see the high level of details and colours more true to form when using the camera. it does offer five times digital zoom but personally I would stay away from that if you want to zoom in then just do it in post if you have to as with all digital zooms it pretty much loses all of the detail and begins to look more like a painting on the rear camera. i've taken a variety of different shots and they've all come out brilliantly on the pixel 4a. we still get the live hdr plus with exposure controls so this means that we can see on our viewfinder. what the image is going to look like before we're taking the photo and we can make any adjustments we need I even tried some up close shots for those who may miss a macro lens and you can see it's done a great job. here although we do start to lose some focus away from the centre. when it comes to the portrait or bokeh shots it's also doing an incredible   job here if you look at this photo it's really found at the edge of the subject well we've got all of her in focus and still a nice clean cut onto the blurred background. the great thing about the pixels is that they also offer us the   standard image as well as the blurred I also tried this on a glass which is of course a much more difficult task and the software again has done a great job the glass is fully in focus with a nice blurred background although if we zoom in a bit we can see the only error here is it struggled slightly around the rim. next we move on to the night time photography now google has a night time mode which really brightens up the image and gives us much better quality photos  at night. the downside is that it does take a little longer to shoot the photo but it can be worth the wait, it's very dark and gloomy but it was true to what I was seeing I then took another shot with the night mode and it looks almost as if i've turned on the flash but I can assure you, I haven't for some it may be too bright but of course you could reduce it in post and in areas with a bit of lighting. it doesn't make too much difference although we can see from these images that it definitely whitens things up overall I think it's a great feature and while it does brighten things up a little too much sometimes. it does get rid of a lot of the noise in the darker areas. now when it comes to video it's also got great performance from the rear camera now as I said earlier, it unfortunately is limited to 30 frames a second when shooting 4k video but it does offer us detailed natural looking videos with great stabilization everything stays nice and focused and there's no camera shake even when i'm walking.

Again we do get the five times digital zoom in the video but I advise against using it even at just five times digital zoom we get a lot more camera shake a lot more noise and we pretty much lose all of the detail. now overall it is great for video and the sound from the mic is also good quality but just keep in mind if video is your main focus then the lack of 60 frames a second at 4k could be an issue that being said. if you drop the video down to 1080p then you can choose 60 frames recording from the selfie camera was also pretty good. there's no optical  stabilization but it does seem to be doing some electronic stabilization on this camera.

We've got 1080p and 30 frames a second is the max setting but overall it's good video quality we have to remember through all of this that it's just a 350 phone for selfie photos it also does a great job but we've got  nice detail and natural looking photos.

Now when it comes to a cheaper chipset like the snapdragon 730 many seem to think that that means you won't be able to game but they are completely wrong. phones have become so powerful these days more you won't see the same high scores in the synthetic benchmarks as you do on the flagships in real world use it's great even for gaming. I first  tested this with pubg mobile I went straight into the settings and put it on   the highest settings the application supports there was no need to make any changes from the highest settings as when opening it up the game plays perfectly as you can see it's running perfectly smooth and it looks great. A great thing about this for gamers is also the three and a half mil headphone  jack although the pixel 4a speakers are good and perfectly capable for gaming.

Next I installed call of duty mobile and again I just put it on the max detail setting straight away there was no need to change these as the game looks great and it's buttery smooth I like the punch hole camera being in the top left as it's not even noticeable due to my thumb covering it up. when i'm playing.

Now finally we head over to asphalt 9 where again it works looks perfectly and I've got the whole thing set on full detail. now I have to say on this occasion I did notice a slight difference on full on full settings. it ran fine and it was still very enjoyable but I did notice when dropping to the default settings.   it definitely provided a smoother more stable frame rate but overall this is still an adequate contender for the mobile gamers just the only trade-off.  we've got here is of course the 60hz display if gaming is your main priority   and you need high refresh rates then it might be worth looking elsewhere now for those of you out there who do care about the synthetic benchmarks. I've   ran it through geekbench 5. on geekbench we got a single core score of 2520 and a multi-core score of 6362.

Battery life for this phone is also pretty decent. some worry about the smaller batteries but it easily lasted me the  day with general use with an 18 watt quick charge. it doesn't take long to charge it back up when I go out walking I do actually use two separate apps that both use GPS. so they're a heavy drain on battery and in this instance I had 90 when I started and dropped down to 30 in three hours which isn't bad as all my phones pretty much do the same. 

Now I'm a huge fan of stock android as you get the nice android interface without all of the bloat. everything works as you want and you get a guaranteed three years of software updates. I know a lot of you have been very excited for this phone and although I wish it came sooner. I think it has lived up to the expectations.  

if you want a cheaper phone it ticks the boxes and it's a good choice if you want an all-rounder phone. it's still a good choice and if you want a cheap phone that takes incredible photos then it's a great choice google are definitely making the right decisions and stepping back from overpowering their phones and focusing on what the people actually want. of course when it comes to a pixel that's good photos as I said. I've only had this for seven days to use as my daily phone but I think I've pretty much seen everything I need to personally I won't be sticking with this myself and it's nothing to do with the performance for me it is just too small. I've always preferred bigger displays and I think the minimum for me now is going to be about a 6.2 inch display  but I have enjoyed using this phone and it's been great but just especially when typing on a much smaller keyboard. I have been struggling the overall build quality is also great the volume rocker and the power buttons are very clicky and the matte black finish on the back provides plenty of grip and it also seems to stop fingerprints. it doesn't seem to chip easily as i've   got no marks on this phone since the day it arrived and although the back is made   of plastic instead of glass it doesn't really feel cheap. it's also very light due to it being plastic as well as its size but I think overall it definitely gets the thumbs up from me. I'll go into more depth when I've had a bit more time to use it but for now i'm gonna say if you're after a mid-range android phone that won't break the bank then the pixel 4a definitely needs to be considered. it's available to purchase right now on google's website and as I said it's 350 pounds. if you're in the UK 350 dollars. if you're in the USA.

If you've got any questions or want to know more then just ask in the comments and I'll get back to you as soon as I can but thanks for reading the blog. if you liked it smash the like button, if you didn't hit the thumbs down twice and I'll see you guys in the next one you.

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