Alright, well it's finally here, the Google Pixel 4a.
Google sent us this phone ahead of its release so in this video we're going to
go over what's new with the Pixel 4a as well as
answer some questions that you all have about this phone. Now first let's talk
about how this phone actually feels when you first get it compared to the
previous generation, which was the Pixel 3a.
The 4a has a slightly larger screen size with a 5.8 inch diagonal screen
compared to the 5.7 inch screen on the 3a however
keep in mind that the 3a is 0.3 inches longer and 0.1
inches wider than the 4a, so when you hold the 4a it's less bulky in your hand
than the 3a with a larger screen and it just feels great to hold. The 4a
also just looks much more modern with the slimmer bezels
and the hole punch camera, which to be honest, i prefer
much more than a notch. Like the Model T in the early 20th century, you can get
the Google Pixel 4a in a variety of colors as long as it's just
black. The 4a's display is OLED like it was on the 3a
with a slightly higher ppi count and hdr support.
The screen isn't the best oled display i've ever seen it's a little bit warmer
than the pixel 3a's screen and i actually think that the
viewing angle distortion of the OLED display on the 4a
is actually worse or just more noticeable than it is on the
Google Pixel 3a, however, if you use dark theme on Android you're not really
going to notice it. One new addition to the screen on the 4a
is screen attention, which debuted on the Pixel 4 and 4
xl last fall it's one of my favorite features because it keeps your phone's
display on and from going dark when you're
reading something on the screen and i'm glad to see that Google brought
this feature over to the 4a. Another thing to talk about with the
display is brightness and from what i can tell in just a
limited comparison test between the 4a I have as well as the 4 xl
and 3a, i'd say the screen brightness of the Pixel 4a
is just a hair better than my Google Pixel 4 xl.
Now it's also kind of hard to compare the two because my 4 xl has
ambient eq and from what i can see in the Google Pixel 4a
settings, it does not have ambient eq. Google actually says the 4a has
ambient eq on its website but i can't find the toggle for it in settings so
i'm following up with them to clarify that. Another big improvement with the 4a
is how it feels in your hand. The back of the 4a feels more premium
than the 3a. Google seems to have taken the brushed
metal like texture that was on part of the back of the 3a
and applied that coating to the entire body of the 4a,
including the sides which gives it a much more premium feel
and it doesn't feel cheap when you pick it up. I also love the pop of color
button they added. My Pixel 3a just black model didn't have that but the case did
and i love that Google added it directly to the phone like they did with the
Pixel 4 xl. Another small subtle change google made was getting
rid of the plastic ring embedded within the pixel's
imprint sensor on the back of the 3a in the 4a,
which again, gives it a nice brushed metal type
feel all around. Alright so when actually using this phone
this thing feels pretty snappy, i mean especially for phone at this price.
It feels as fast as it should be. Now if you compare it to something like
the Google Pixel 4 or a 120 hertz display phone obviously those are going
to feel faster because this only sports a 60
hertz display, but for a phone at this price it feels
pretty fast. The processor in my limited testing does
feel adequate enough, now if you're planning on keeping this phone
past three years, ah yeah, that may be pushing it it really
all depends on how Google continues to optimize Android for this hardware later
on down the road. Now if you're comparing this phone to
the iPhone SE yes obviously the iPhone SE's processor
is going to just blow this thing out of the water.
Apple's been just running away in the processor game in smartphones for a
while now because they have their own custom silicon. I do want
to make the point i don't see enough of people making...it, it's not like if you
pick the SE over this thing the SE is just never going to slow down either.
Apple still does slow down phones to prevent battery degradation or there
are other things that can also contribute to your phone's performance
like storage and RAM, so if you fill it's storage up it's likely
not going to be as fast and do keep in mind
that this phone has double the storage at $50
less than the starting iPhone
SE's. Now moving back to the 4a, let's talk about
haptics. Haptics are another thing i love about
Pixel phones, i love having haptic feedback with every
tap on the software keyboard. The 4a's haptics are a little bit better than the
3a's, i'd say the 4a has just a little bit more spring in the
haptic response though i'd say it's still not maybe quite as good as
the pixel 4 xl that i have. Now another thing that
distinguishes the 4a from the 3a is that in the 4a Google decided
to bring the new on-device Google Assistant that debuted
with the Pixel 4 last fall. The biggest selling point of the new
Google Assistant is that it works on device so you don't have to have a data
connection for it to perform a lot of different functions within the
OS. Also for all requests it processes what you're saying on the
device itself so in a lot of cases it's much faster
especially when doing things like asking for specific photos. Here's an
example between the Pixel 3a and the Pixel 4a show me my photos of
sunsets.
Turn on flashlight. Turn off flashlight. Open The Verge.
Go to allrecipes.com.
Search for vanilla custard recipes.
Now the camera is probably the other big upgrade with the 4a
over the 3a you do get the 12 megapixel camera found in the Google Pixel 4 with
the Google Pixel 4a as well as you get live HDR preview and
shadow and exposure controls and in my experience with using the Google Pixel 4
xl as my personal device i've been using it since it came out last year,
if you want to take better photos mastering shadow and exposure controls,
that is going to give you dynamically just better photos
than just upgrading the camera sensor, things like that.
So if you learn to master those controls it is going to just
give you way better photos than you've been able to take
previously, i can say that both the selfie and main
cameras have been improved over the 3a and in my limited testing so far they
seem to produce slightly sharper more detailed images,
and are better at processing photos faster,
and deal with the exposure from light sources better. Alright before we wrap
up let's go through some additional questions submitted from our subscribers
about the pixel 4a. uh the first one, how good crisp and loud
are the speakers? I think the speakers are actually
pretty decent on the 4a compared to my Pixel 4 xl speakers the
sound isn't as full i'd say but it's hard to actually distinguish a
significant difference between them, they definitely
sound improved from the Pixel 3a speakers.
Alright next question is it worth it for someone who's coming from a 3xl
i think everything's better except the battery. If you're coming from
a Google Pixel 3 xl you actually may want to wait for the Google Pixel 4a
5G like even if you don't care about 5G you may want to wait for that phone if
you want to keep a phone with a larger size,
but in general i do agree that yes i do think
Google pretty much improved everything with the 4a.
Compared to the 3a, is the pixel 4a worth replacing my pixel 3a?
Hmm that that's that's a tough one i do think the main reason you do it is for
the new camera, the new camera controls, the new Google Assistant,
and of course the new form factor, but i can't say yet whether or not that
justifies a new purchase. I need to spend a little bit more time with this phone
before i make that call. Alright well if you like this video
and i hope you found it helpful if you did make sure you hit that thumbs
up button below and subscribe to the channel
to see our reviews on the Google Pixel 4a as well as
our other Google product videos and other tech reviews.
Now if you have any questions at all about the google Pixel 4a,
make sure you leave a comment below so we can help answer them.
For 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder, thanks for watching.